3 ms·

You don't need sand for traction in any decent modern vehicle. They invented this thing called "front-wheel drive" decades ago. Even better, now they have tra

You don't need sand for traction in any decent modern vehicle. They invented this thing called "front-wheel drive" decades ago. Even better, now they have traction control in all cars, and some cars have all-wheel drive. Only RWD pickup trucks benefit from that strategy, and there's never any reason you should be renting one of those unless you have 1000 lbs of stuff to haul.

dalke 11y ago
I had a front-wheel drive. Do you consider a '95 Integra to be sufficiently decent and modern? It's of course now 20 years old. The front end of the car slide off the driveway into a ditch full of snow. There wasn't enough traction to back up and out. I don't see how a 2015 car would do any better. Just last December I was in an ice storm. The day afterwards there was a quarter inch of ice on the road which made everything slippery. A car slipped off the crown of the road in front of the house, and over the curb. (No, not everyone can take the extra time off and stay home until the local streets are all clear.) Sand adds that extra little traction that would help a car, even an AWD car, get up the driveway slope. In some snowy areas, the municipality or county even put containers of sand on the side of particularly steep slopes to motorists with slick roads, like http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4358579 http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4358579 . I don't think that it's only RWD cars which need that extra help.
- Grishnakh 11y ago
  No, a '95 is not modern at all. It doesn't even have traction control, which probably would have gotten you out of that ditch. It gives you the same effect as a limited-slip differential, to an extent, by applying the brake on the spinning wheel so power is redirected to the other wheel. It makes a huge difference when starting from a standstill on slippery surfaces.
  - dalke 11y ago
    I will take your word on that. My other comments about the thing that people regularly keep in their car still holds.

dalke 11y ago

I had a front-wheel drive. Do you consider a '95 Integra to be sufficiently decent and modern? It's of course now 20 years old. The front end of the car slide off the driveway into a ditch full of snow. There wasn't enough traction to back up and out. I don't see how a 2015 car would do any better. Just last December I was in an ice storm. The day afterwards there was a quarter inch of ice on the road which made everything slippery. A car slipped off the crown of the road in front of the house, and over the curb. (No, not everyone can take the extra time off and stay home until the local streets are all clear.) Sand adds that extra little traction that would help a car, even an AWD car, get up the driveway slope. In some snowy areas, the municipality or county even put containers of sand on the side of particularly steep slopes to motorists with slick roads, like http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4358579 http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4358579 . I don't think that it's only RWD cars which need that extra help.

Grishnakh 11y ago
No, a '95 is not modern at all. It doesn't even have traction control, which probably would have gotten you out of that ditch. It gives you the same effect as a limited-slip differential, to an extent, by applying the brake on the spinning wheel so power is redirected to the other wheel. It makes a huge difference when starting from a standstill on slippery surfaces.
- dalke 11y ago
  I will take your word on that. My other comments about the thing that people regularly keep in their car still holds.