The best advice for how to drive in snow, is to avoid it. Skiers and riders, however, are often tempted to hit snow-covered roads by the lure of a big powder day. Knowing a few basic principles can at least reduce the risk.

In judging the risk, the outdoor temperature and timing can play a big role. The general rule of thumb is that as the temperature gets closer to freezing, either coming up or going down, that’s when the road is going to become more slippery, because there’s more water available and that acts as a lubricant on top of the snow or ice.

In general, fresh snow has better traction than snow that’s been driven over many times. The snow crystals are still sharp and still have the spikes on them and once they’ve been driven over more and more, they are more like a grain of sand and it doesn’t have those sharp edges that help provide traction.

Here are some tips explaining how to drive in snow: manage breaking, accelerating and skidding.


Stopping distance obviously increases on a snow-covered road. The usual recommended spacing of three to four seconds from a car ahead should increase to at least five to six seconds on a snowy road.

Four-wheel or all-wheel-drive vehicles are not excluded from this advice. Four-wheel or all-wheel-drive vehicles give you a lot more ability to accelerate in slippery conditions, but it doesn’t do a darn thing for your stopping ability.

You get these people who get in this car and say ‘this is great, I can get right up to 40 miles-an-hour’ and they forget that yeah they can accelerate that quick, but they still can’t stop any faster than any other vehicle.


Speed should also be adjusted. Let’s say your tyre traction drops by one-half in snow or icy conditions, you’ll want to drop your speed by about that same amount, so you’re giving yourself that same traction and safety margin that you had in dry conditions.

Compounding the challenge of the snow, the mountain roads that skiers and snowboarders must travel are often full of treacherous traverses. Therefore, the right technique in navigating turns is essential. 

One of the most common mistakes we see is people trying to do too much with the tiny little bit of grip that’s available. When you have a limited amount of grip, you want to do one thing at a time. You either want to brake, steer or accelerate, not combining any two of those.


If a skid does occur, a calm, smooth response can often help the tyres regain traction. The traditional adage was “steer into a skid,” but with the back half of the car going one way and the front the other, that advice proved confusing — especially in a sudden emergency.

The best advice is to look and steer where you want to go, simple as that. Trust the brain and the hands and feet to do the right thing. As you keep your eyes on the road where you want to go, your hands and feet will kind of do their thing even if you’re sliding. Focus on your target and you’ll have the best chance.

The proper correction for a front-wheel skid is to remember that you shouldn’t be accelerating and cornering at the same time, so if you are, lift your foot off the accelerator and that helps create a weight transfer toward the front of the car by deceleration. The added weight on the front tyres increases the chances for better traction.

For rear-wheel skids, the opposite is true. You can add a little acceleration, not to add speed to a bad situation, but to create a weight transfer toward the rear of the vehicle to help regain the grip. Unloading the rear wheels is the mistake that caused you to lose traction, so one of the quickest ways to reverse that is to create that weight transfer back toward the rear.

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