Young and inexperienced drivers need to gain experience driving in icy conditions. Parents and guardians need to demonstrate and teach young drivers that in icy road conditions their front wheels will not grip if turns are too tight and taken at too fast a rate-of-speed. Young drivers need to be shown in a safe and uncrowded parking lot how the car slides straight if the driver continues pressure on the accelerator and how the tires will grip if they take their foot off the accelerator. Additionally, parents and guardians need to remind young drivers that bridges, overpasses, and underpasses will become icy quicker and stay icy longer. This is due to bridges having a lack of being insulated by the ground and winds being channeled and blowing more forcefully on underpasses and overpasses. Finally, a reminder to young drivers that cruise control should not be used in icy conditions because the cruise control is likely to throttle up on hills leading to overpasses or on up-hill curves causing a loss of control.
In the Ann Arbor and Chelsea area, remind your young drivers to be especially careful of icy conditions that occur frequently at the I-94 overpass at Jackson Road, I-94 at Kalmbach Road (west of Chelsea), M-14 and Barton Road exit /bridge over the Huron River, and the Geddes road outbound ramp on US-23. Drive safe and drive smart.
