I risked driving home from work, and probably shouldn't. Staffordshire is a nightmare at the moment, ended up avoiding the main roads as the A34 was at a standstill, had covered 1 mile in over an hour, so took to the side roads.
This was my downfall, thinking my problems were all due to having to go uphill, I was finding it increasingly hard to set off in the stop-start traffic when facing an incline (they were getting quite steep), this was with the driver aids off, as with them on the car kept cutting drive (which only made things worse). My problems soon worsened when I got to a downhill stretch that I hadn't even considered to be a problem. Driving at <2mph (dial not even registering speed), I had to be so uber ginger on the brake pedal as to avoid locking up completely. The hill steepened and I started to slide, released the brake to straighten up and started to gingerly brake to a halt, phew!
People in front of me were now pulling over, turning round, or finding carparks to stick their cars in, but a few of us kept going (stupidly). Came to a long downhill stretch which wasn't perfectly straight, and people were now taking turns to go down the hill (one person would get to the bottom, the next would begin etc etc) to the traffic lights at the base. People were now stacking their cars into the kerb, or the walls, or even one guy in a leon FR managed to stack his into the only low peice of kerb and end up on the large grass area between this road and one adjoining it at the traffic lights.
At this point I thought about just parking up and walking (still 15 miles from home) to anywhere I could get to. Nope, I went for it. Every braking action caused sliding, using the entire of the road, I was sliding down, trying to avoid the deserted cars. At one point I physically had to hit the kerb (less than 1mph at a guess, kerbing is minimal), the wheel that dug into the snow drift/kerb combination causing my car to pivot around, now sliding SIDEWAYS down the hill. The other front wheel dug in and I came to a halt.
Now, reversing uphill in the snow (so as to point me back down) is stupidly hard work, especially when the road is trying its best to emulate an ice rink. Finally straightened up and managed to get to the bottom by driving half on the pavement in order to use the soft fresh snow to give me some traction and control.
I am NEVER driving in that kind of snowfall again. The usual snowfall we get is fine, but this was something else. I had previously only seen snowfall like this when I have been skiing in the Alps!
EDIT: That was 25 miles in 3 and a half hours!
somany people just dont know how to drive in these conditions, either too fast or two slow, idiots.
