Winter driving safely - what you haven't been told

Don't skid! Duh!

Brake smoothly. How?

Give yourself lots of room.  How much is that?

Steer smoothly.. Don't I do that now?

You've heard these all before when people are telling you how to drive in the winter with rain, snow, ice and poor visibility.

"But don't I already avoid skidding, smoothly steer and brake? How much room is lots?"

If you want those answers, I'll tell you honestly and frankly: you don't have the math or the computer to get the answer. You won't get an answer fast enough to help you. Expert drivers do it by feel, intuition and seat of the pants.

Not much help? No, but I'll give you a better way than giving up and hoping for the best. You can drive like an expert. There is a secret which if you apply you'll avoid accidents and panics. You'll even learn to enjoy winter driving. But when you learn the secret, a lot of what they told you in drivers ed will look wrong. Why Because it is.

THE SECRETS

Cars are dumb. There is no part of your car that makes a decision or knows whats going on That's why you have to get in the car. You are the brain, eyes and accelerometer. If you don't see it or feel it, the car won't do anything about it. Be aware.

Only one part of the car sticks to the ground. Your tires are important. In winter, they are your best friend. Your car never performs better than your tires. Your tires tell you what the road does. Your tires make the car do what you want to do.

The traction circle

Cars move by friction. There are two kinds of friction: static and dynamic. Static friction works when two surfaces touch and don't move relative to each other. Static friction calculated as a fraction of the weight applied to the wheel. If friction is 100% then the full weight of the wheel is available for car control. If it is 0, you have no control. Most sedans have static friction coefficients of about 70% on dry pavement. Sports cars have up to 90%. High performance cars reach 120%. Formula One racers approach 500% . On wet pavement a sedan will be about 40-50%. On snow 10-25%. On hard ice 1%.

Dynamic friction is what we are worried about most when we drive. It is sometimes called rolling friction. Its a bit smaller than static friction but is the biggest part of traction.

You need traction to turn, accelerate, or stop. To accelerate or brake twice as fast you need four times the traction or four times the distance. The most traction you can get is the weight on the tire times the friction coefficient. Imagine drawing a circle that big. Put a arrow from the center in the circle that is as long as the traction you are using. If you turn left is points left. If you turn left harder it points left and gets longer. If you turn right even harder, it points right and grows until it hits the circle. After it hits, you skid. If you put the brakes on it point up. If you accelerate it points down. Any combination of turning, braking and accelerating gives you positions between 12, 3, 6, and 9.  For example if you brake and turn left it points to 10:30 when the forces are equal.

Suppose you brake as hard as you can without skidding and then you add a hard turn to the right. The arrow points to 1:30 but it has to stay as long up and down as it was at 12:00, so even if you aren't braking any harder the tip of the arrow has to go out of the circle and you skid. This is the next secret: you can turn really hard or accelerate hard or brake hard but you can't do them at the same time. So, coming to a turn in snow, brake in a straight line until there is no doubt you can make the turn without brakes. Accelerating in snow, keep it straight until you are up to speed. Turning in snow, don't use your brake (until you learn the advanced techniques)or accelerate.

Driven Wheels

Front wheel drive (FWD) uses the front tires most, rear wheel drive (RWD) uses the back wheels for acceleration and braking, but the front wheels for turning and braking. All wheel drive (AWD or 4WD) uses all of the wheels for braking and acceleration but the front wheels for turning.  You don't get any better traction with AWD than FWD or with RWD and a center engine.

Focus

When you drive, your eyes' focus should move further in front of you as you go faster. You naturally want to go where you look. It is easy to move the car where you look. Don't look at curbs near you, don't look a dotted lines. Look yourself around corners. It's Much easier.
At 60 mph your focus should be 175 feet in front of you (about 10 car lengths) on a clear road and 200 feet in front on a congested road. Remember, at 60 mph, you can't avoid hitting anything closer than 88 feet to you if it is at the same speed and twice that if it is stopped.

It's 176 feet to stop on dry pavement, on snow 352 feet at 60 mph, on ice 6300 feet or 460 car lengths minimum. Those long stopping distances in winter are why brakes won't help you much, your best choice is turn to avoid. On ice you can swerve at about a half a foot per second, enough to avoid a car in 15 seconds, braking would take 65 seconds.

Prepared

So now that you are smart about snow, how do you put it all together?
1. Buy good tires, deep tread in the middle, aggressive pattern on the edge. You brake on the middle tread, you steer on the edges
2. Fix steering, braking and engine control problems before winter. Ignoring it is like dancing on shoes that are falling apart.
3. Practice. Work on controlled smooth curves in dry weather. Increase you speed around the corner as you improve. You should be able to balance a half full cup of water on your lap.
4. Skid. Find an empty lot and practice figure eights. Go faster until you do skid. Remember that speed (don't look at the speedometer, use your vision). You need to develop firm, controlled responses to the departures from your path. Skid again but correct it. Know why you skidded: which wheel slipped first?
5. Go-brake-turn. Don't mix them.
6. Repeat in snow.
7. Repeat on ice

ADVANCED.

 Sit properly. Legs as straight as possible when the brake or accelerator are on the floor. Support your entire back on the seat. Seat belt low and snug. In a automatic transmission spread your legs to give you a firm base.

Adjust your wheel so that your arms are slightly bent. Now cross your hand so they are on the opposite side of the wheel for the normal position: your arms should make an "X". You should not have to lean away from the seat to reach these positions. Adjust seat and steering wheel as required. Do not grab the wheel. Put your hands gently on the outside of the wheel at 9:00 and 3:00 with it touching the outer edge to your palm from the base of your first finger to the opposite side of your wrist. Gently wrap your fingers around the nubs on the opposite side. Keep your thumbs out of the inside of the wheel, you'll break or sprain your thumbs in a collision if they are inside.Caress the wheel do not choke the life out of it. You get less power to turn the wheel be gripping it hard and you give up fine control.

Now that you are smooth, learn expert techniques. Learn how to keep the arrow tip right on the circle, neither skidding nor under performing

Learn from an expert. Advanced driving is like dancing. I just can't tell you in a way you'll understand but you will learn by doing it with me.

Get some slalom time.. Practice running at the edge of your and your car's capability. You'll find there is space between max performance and total loss of control that you can use. This bit of territory can save your life, if you are familiar with it.

Learn how to fill the corners of the circle. There should be no part of a curve where you are not braking firmly or accelerating strongly. No coasting.

Learn how to pick and hit an apex. Following the lines is the worst path you can take.

Learn trail braking. It fills the entrance to a corner.

Learn why you get on the gas at the apex. Don't stumble out of your turns.

Learn how to under-steer and over-steer. This is car control, mixing a bit a near-skidding with control.

Learn two foot pedal technique. You travel about 50 feet with no input if you move your right foot from gas pedal to brake. How much is that worth in a crisis?

Practice. The difference between accident and near-accidents is familiarity with how your car acts at its limits. Foreknowledge give you the right reflexes and avoids panic. Panic produces momentary paralysis and often leads to the exactly wrong response. Practice lets you control and think when you are asking the most. The chance you you being a skilled driver without practice is the same as being a skilled quarterback without practice- nearly zero.

An interesting List By Behrooz Rostampour

How many are true statements? My comments at the end.

• The recession is over. 
• The banks are healthy. 
• Obama is progressive. 
• Corporations are people. 
• Your vote is counted. 
• Giving trillions to Wall Street saved capitalism. 
• The economic recovery is underway. 
• Climate change is not yet understood. 
• Health insurance reform equals health care. 
• Mandating the purchase of private for-profit health insurance is textbook socialism. 
• GM food is safe and healthy. 
• GM seeds increase yields. 
• Awarding a handful of companies the patent on all food will solve global hunger. 
• The Patriot Act ensures your safety and protects your freedom. 
• Hugo Chavez is a dictator. 
• Ahmadinejad is a dictator. 
• Dictators are not dictators when they open their markets to free trade and buy our treasuries. 
• Our phones must be tapped without a warrant to keep us safe. 
• Our emails must be tapped without a warrant to keep us safe. 
• The government must be able to waterboard occasionally to keep us safe.
• We may need to be named enemy combatants in order to be safe. 
• The president may need to order our execution, without due process, to keep us safe. 
• Due process is how they make velveeta cheese. 
• Habeas Corpus was only relevant in the 14th century. 
• Tax cuts for billionaires stimulate the economy. 
• Tax cuts for hedge funds and proprietary traders will create jobs. 
• We must make the tax cuts permanent. 
• Mortgages given to minorities were the cause of the housing bubble and collapse. 
• Banks have paid back all their borrowed money. 
• Mark to market accounting hid Bank of America’s prosperity. 
• JP Morgan has no interest in keeping the price of silver low. 
• The Free Market will lead to prosperity. 
• The surge worked. 
• Spending $300 billion to fight in Afghanistan, which has a GDP of $15 billion, is not evidence of war profiteering. 
• We’re making steady progress in Afghanistan. 
• A missile defense shield in former soviet republic countries protects them from non existent Iranian missiles. 
• A missile defense shie! ld in former soviet republic countries will not piss off Russia. 
• Russia attacked South Ossetia. 
• Iran has a nuclear weapons program. 
• Iran has no right to a nuclear power program. 
• The oil in the gulf is mostly gone. 
• BP will stay until all the beaches are clean. 
• The president of Honduras had planned a midnight pajama plane trip. 
• Renewable energy is too expensive. 
• Clean coal technology will power us for the next hundred years. 
• Natural gas has no drawbacks plus you can drink it. 
• Handing over public schools to hedge funds will improve education. 
• Unions drag down all workers. 
• There’s no light between Israel’s interests and ours. 
• Building 7 may or may not have fallen and/or imploded and/or burned to the ground. 
• The Pentagon has only one camera and five frames of film documenting the attack. 
• The Pentagon does not need a full audit. 
• The Federal Reserve does not need a full audit. 
• An independent Federal Reserve is essential for price control and full employment. 
• If QE 1 and QE 2 don’t revive the economy QE 3 and QE 4 most likely will. 
• There’s no danger from the Fed increasing their balance sheet 250% in a couple years. 
• The stock market is not manipulated by front-running high-speed computers. 
• The banks are working to help save you from foreclosure. 
• Austerity will liberate workers and reduce the national debt. 
• Banks, hedge funds and bondholders must be repaid 100 cents on the dollar to ensure economic recovery. 
• Social Security needs to be cut to rein in the deficit. 
• Social security is broke when you discount the $2 trillion surplus and tens of millions of workers currently paying in. 
• Medicare is despised by a majority of the country, humiliates senior citizens and may be taken over by the government. 
• Getting IMF’ed is not going to be painful. 
• The GAO has conclusively proven that single payer is the most costly health care delivery method by never providing an estimate. 
• The media is controlled by liberals. 
• A consolidated media is not a threat to democracy. 
• The public airwaves do not need to be r! egulated. 
• Handing the internet over to self-regulated telcos will assu re neutrality. 
• Assange is a terrorist. 
• Assange is a rapist. 
• Assange is a terrorist. 
• Bradley Manning is a villain. 
• Maintaining an ever growing empire and a flourishing democracy at home is very likely. Bloggers aren’t real journalists who use facts and reason to draw conclusions.
• Whoever controls the media controls the country. 

How many are true statements, only the last.

How many are treated as if they were true by the mainstream media? All of them.

How many do you believe? Why?

What Price Moral Agency?

We pride ourselves in our moral integrity. We are proud that we don't cheat, lie or defraud. We tell ourselves we would sooner suffer physical harm than deny the truth that are dear to us.  We carry on about our liberty. In the US we are conditioned to know we have rights. Most of can list them and a few actually get the list right.

How much would you sell your vote for? How much money would it take for you to pose as another person to take a test in their name? How much would you demand to bear false testimony? Don't get distracted by the criminal punishments. You can buy your way out of jail.

The number would be very large for most of us. We like to think no amount would be sufficient. But think. If a nefarious briber offered you a billion dollars, would you? After all with that much wealth, you don't have to care what others think. How about a million. That's about a lifetime's income for each of us. You needn't care what others think of you with that much in the bank.

"But wait!" you say. "It's not all about money". Perhaps not. So what happens if we add respect and power to your bribe? What if no ill comes to you as a result of your dishonorable act? Would you change you mind?

Is it moral integrity if it has a price? Does moral integrity have a value?

In my faith, the creation story tells us that before the creation of the Earth, even into a begining-less existence before mortality we had two traits: capacity and agency; we could become something greater and we could choose what we become. It was us the first that caused us to come to Earth and the second that made it meaningful. We believe that God cannot take these from us and remain godly, neither can we take from each other without coming under condemnation. Our purpose is to live a life choosing the better, greater things of our own choice. We believe that the greatest tragedies for a life is to cease growing and to give up our power to choose to someone else. We believe we shouldn't give up our agency for any price.

On that foundation, let's look at a scenario. An eighteen year old from a family of very modest means has a desire to improve herself, to further her education with a college program leading to a degree. This person looks around to choose a college which will provide this to them. The cost does matter, the family doesn't have much means to finance it. So colleges with a low tuition offset by scholarships and grants are preferred. In searching they conclude that a college subsidized by their faith is the best value for the small amount of money. She applies and is accepted. With one catch. For the time spent at that college, she must give up the right to choose how to dress, how to groom  herself and how to worship.

Should she go to this college, sign the pledge that she will accept other people's choices in these areas? Is her opportunity to go to college worth that much? At what price does she sell (or lease if you must) her moral agency?

Silly season

I case you managed to miss it, there was a particularly rude and offense action take by a BYU-Idaho Testing Center employee Tuesday.. The semester ends in 10 days, lots of students are taking tests and studying for finals.

A young woman completes her studying and heads into the Testing Center for her test. She is told she can't come in. The problem? Her jeans are too tight.

There are women in skinny jeans in sight, taking their tests, why can't she? Jeans too tight.

You see this woman is "curvy", meaning she is blessed with ample hips. Her hips just don't fit the standard pants sizing model. She either buys them the right length and a little tight in the hips or loose in the hips and too long and baggy.

Despite appealing to a Center supervisor (finds her jeans acceptable) she is denied admission.

Next day she goes to explain missing the test to professor, in the same jeans. He finds no problem and gives her permission to test late without penalty.

No problem, right? No there is a problem and its more than a jerk working at the center who is rude and disrespectful. You see, this particular dress code only applies at the Testing Center. Apparently tight jeans are a hazard to test taking. Really? No so in Provo or Laie.

The standard appears to be if you can discern the true shape of the leg, shoulder or torso under the clothes you pose a distraction to the community. And boys will be boys. Every rational thought will fall out of their over heated heads because they finally figured out what a woman looks like. Apparently this happens all the faster with women with Rubenesque figures.

Folks, let this 60 year old tell you a secret. At 18 I already knew. I'd seen Rubens, Titian, Gaugin and Bottecelli nudes in the museum. We don't lock them up. I think that today the vast majority of young men know what a female leg looks like. Likewise a shoulder or belly. Wrapping them in denim and sending them to Idaho is not going bring an epiphany to an 18-22 year old man.

We don't blow circuit at the thought of a feminine thigh. We have a bit more control than that. You sisters are indeed beautiful but (sorry) you're not that devastating.

Let's all be adults shall we. Chose your clothing responsibly. If you dress provocatively to get a man's attention, how long are you going to keep his attention? Try attracting us some other way that is lasting: brains, skills, humor, empathy.

Young men, be adult. That woman who is showing all that eye candy is not terribly selective or subtle, probably emotionally clumsy as well. Not worth your time.

University - we'll be adult if you promise to be adult too. Stop with the silly make a rule game. It's not productive or instructive. The message you send is that we can be childish and stupid as long as we stay in the box. What happens we are out in the real world with no boxes? Let's both grow up.

Holidays

Holidays and children and their twisted panty parents.

"The holidays" is that time of year we fall off the wagon. We chuck all those good intentions, eat stuff we shouldn't, buy a big pile of stuff we know we can't afford and party far more than we can survive.

The time between Thanksgiving (in the US) and Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanza is when all the bad behavior comes out. It starts with a day when I eat lots of crazy food. Then we have a day of rabid consumption. I spend like someone else will pay the bill. I encourage children to want everything in the stores and why not? I want everything in the stores. Rampant consumerism is the norm for these four weeks. We're stocking up on amusements and food to keep us entertained and filled during the long dark days. I know its crazy, but I do it anyway.

Every year I scratch my head after its over wondering was it worth it. It kind strange, we are celebrating the birthday of somebody which we all know was born months later. We do it with symbols and rituals that didn't exist when he was alive or have nothing at all to do with his life. We do a good job of ignoring all he told us in this season. Parents spend less time with their children, children less time with their aged parents, but what gift does parent or child really want? Time spent together.


Long ago, before preserved food, the last week of December marked the beginning of winter. Winter was the season we starved. No fresh vegetables or fruit. There wasn't even enough grass to keep many animals alive except a few breeders and a milk cow. Everything else was harvested. The excess animals slaughtered. We salted what we could and hid a few tough veggies in the root cellar. From then on it was funky food, jerky and turnips until mid-spring, if we were lucky. Otherwise, nothing. Lent pretty much made a virtue of necessity.

So we had this last blowout party that lasted four weeks. It went by a lot of names, but today it's "the holidays". We ate like there was no tomorrow.

We've always had children, but childhood is new, dating from the early nineteenth century as reaction to the repugnance of child labor practices in the industrial revolution. Parenthood goes back to the beginning of humanity but the idea of the parents as nurturers of childhood only dates from the invention of modern childhood. The earlier model was the authoritarian parent in which the parent was the ruler and the child the subject without recourse to appeal. In the parents old age this role would reverse leaving the the aged parent powerless anciently. The idea of catering to a parent's wishes is modern and not universal even 200 years later.

Back to reality. A bit over 2000 years ago a male child was born to very young woman who was known to be pregnant at the time she got married. He was born into a family that had no wealth or status in a backwater village. We only know two events for the first 30 years of his life: he caused a commotion with the temple priests just before his bar mitzvah and his family lived as fugitives from the authorities for a few years. Otherwise, nothing of note. Then one day he and his cousin decided to become itinerant preachers. They wandered around living off the generosity of a few relatives and friends but otherwise living pretty rough. Some of the things they said got the authorities stirred up and it got so bad that one was assassinated and the other executed on a pretext. His friends kept telling stories about him and the things he said and a few believed them and kept the story alive.

The story says nothing kind about the wealthy or powerful. It says nothing about any commercial activity or consumption that is positive. It says nothing good about eating great quantities of food. It tells nothing of decorated trees or houses. It condemns nobody for disobedience of authority, adultery, inappropriate choices of entertainment or courtship practices. What it does condemn is fixation on wealth and political power. It condemns religious rigidity, lack of compassion and empathy, toleration of poverty and suffering and greed.

When the kids get greedy, when the adults get too busy, when we don't have the time for each other and when we are quick to condemn, what would He say? Maybe "forgive them for they know not what they do". What would He tell me? I think, "Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more".

As I go through this season, I try to remember that impoverished, scruffy kid from nowhere who told us to take care of each other, to do good for its own sake and to put principles above the law. I remember that He changed the world.

Spaces

A long ways back I wrote a longish poem about the spaces between us all. The feelings of that poem stay with me.

We like our personal space, it is a way we assert our individuality which we so painfully build as we emerge from childhood to adulthood. Few of us have ever reexamined the necessity of that space in later years. Its as if we fear that if we relax the boundaries a bit we'll fall back into childish helplessness.

Adulthood is spent with a good deal of anxiety about being lonely. Why? Because we only touch at a distance, true intimacy is risky and increases our emotional vulnerability. Children love without boundaries. Adults erect walls everywhere. We are secure in our little isolated islands.

But what if we did fore-go the walls? What would happen?  We could find that a lot of people are sociopaths who will rob us of all that we value. That's got to be the worst scenario. But wait, don't we have that problem now? Sociopaths are the ones who take from everyone else and put it behind their own wall. If 'normal' healthy people stopped erecting walls, wouldn't the few sociopaths keeping their walls be clearly visible? Maybe then we could finally wall them off from the rest of us and live less lonely, most connected lives. Maybe we could love without boundaries and live without fear.

The poem is called "If". Its' here on this blog. Let's tear down the wall.

Our phobic life

When entrepreneurs tell their stories a common thread is that they didn't start businesses to get rich. The successful do gain wealth but they say it was never their goal. In fact, many sell their newly successful businesses to other more mundane managers just as they are growing quickly. They have found that what really gets them excited is creation of a new thing or a new relationship.

We're not all entrepreneurs, they are an uncommon skill set but we are creative in unique ways most of which won't make us rich, powerful or famous. That bit of wisdom is merely a comment on how screwed up our economic lives are, not on the value of the creations. After all, if you create a song, a poem, a painting, a decoration, a bauble or a curious mind in just one person isn't that success?

In six decades of more or less regular breathing, a few lessons have penetrated; one being that almost everyone is born curious and creative. Tragically the majority have it trained out of their active lives by inflexible parents, jealous peers, an eduction system that values uniformity, socialization and a work world that wants to determine ones value by a short list of qualities. A few persist with the motivation, courage and originality they were blessed with and make our lives the better for it. How much better would it be if more did?

What is it that kills the curiosity and creativity? Mostly an abundance or fear and risk avoidance. We live our lives as we would walk through a mine field. We carefully consider every step, searching for anything unexpected that might be a threat. We carefully step only where others have already stepped. It's called risk avoidance behavior. It comes from fear, the message of our primitive lizard brain. In simple animals it keeps the animal alive, but how many creative lizards do you know? It  may control their lives but should it control ours? We live in a world where we are extremely unlikely to become prey or starve to death because we don't find our own food.

Keeping in mind that our inner lizard has some vestigial usefulness such as keeping us from walking in front of buses or falling down manholes, we need to put the fear out to the center of our views and stop living like phobic neurotics. Be creative. Take risks. Be curious. Live.