Living in a country with a real winter, I have the pleasure of enjoying a couple of months of driving on snow and ice every year. All my cars - 4-wheel drive or regular drive ones - have always had two sets of tires, for winter and for summer.
A proper winter tire is the only safe way to go at temperatures approaching 0 degrees Celsius, even in dry or slightly wet conditions. In cold weather the rubber of summer tires gets stiff as plastic and loses all its grip. The so-called 4-season rubber is more of a marketing myth - it's slightly better than a summer tyre, but does not come close to a real winter one. Running winter tires all year round is not a great idea either - hot weather kills the softer winter rubber.
So it's a personal decision whether to invest in your personal safety and how much.
Hand brake discussion: naturally, on a front-wheel drive only the front wheels get locked in gear, so the hand brake locks the rear ones as well. The only case when it does not make much difference is on a rear-wheel drive.
Parked car sliding on a slope: anything you have at hand - a couple of stones, bricks, firewood can help. Put them behind at least two wheels, kick them well in place, and the chances to find the car in the same place in the morning get much higher.
Merry Christmas to all! data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
Here's another thought: decades ago I got a parking ticket in San Francisco as they have quite steep hills, and thus the local regs state that you have to "block park" on the hills, i.e. turn the steering wheel to point the front wheels towards the kerb so that, if the parking brake fails, then the car will hit the kerb and not run away down the slope. Regs also said you always had to park with the car pointing down the hill, and I hadn't done that either!
Of course, being an English tourist driving a rental car, I didn't know all of that, and so I sent the parking authority/police a letter explaining who I was and that I was unaware of the regs. I also sent them a £ sterling cheque on a UK bank (I had no US bank a/c of course!), but it never got cashed and I never heard anything more about the "offence" //static.avforums.com/styles/avf/smilies/clap.gif
However, I've always been a bit worried that the next time I fly to the States (which I haven't done since then) I would be "caught" by the immigration guys for a being a "criminal" with an unpaid fine data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
PS: I've seen a Citroen BX run away as mentioned above - luckily it didn't go far and got caught by a wire fence, otherwise it would have finished up in the middle of a busy road!
Mistake.For winter tyres to be effective they need to be fitted all round.
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As I said, not winter tyres.
Rather than a salt based grit, do what some of our Scandinavian cousins do and just buy some small, stone grit.Sprinkle this on your drive.Salt based solutions tend to be very short term (wash/dilute away).I few handfuls of stone grit will provide a better long term solution to a slippery surface.
Eek! Just looked out of the window and there is a light dusting of snow.
Getting tyres fitted tomorrow (they have been booked in for a few days) data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
The time to worry is when all the schools close. Around here that takes the forecast of at least two flakes of snow to fall within the next 24 hours. Three flakes of snow and all the bread and milk has been panic bought.data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
This happened to me on my drive...reversed in slowly and lost it on freezing rain.....ended up 25mm from house wall....chocked wheels and left it til thawed few hours later....car is auto with electronic parking brake ...phew https://www.avforums.com/attachments/optima-ice-jpeg.1112655/
Oops
That you can see the sheet ice on the photo says how bad it was.That's a sympathetic comment BTW data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7