I've had some nasty experiences in snow and ice. Way back I had an escort, went into a corner too fast, hit some black ice and started to understeer. Applied lots of lock, and when the tires caught traction it spun me into the oncoming lane. I missed a minibus by about half a second (I spun behind it).
I've also had oversteer in bad weather too. I used to have a Nissan 200SX (nice car, if a little basic in mechanical terms). Went into a (different) icy corner a bit quick (though not fast by any means) and the rear started coming out. Luckily I was able to apply a bit of opposite lock and just gently kiss the kerb rather than spinning. Car was fine.
To emphasis that if it's icy, there's nothing you can do I once had low speed incident. Had a different escort and was turning into a side junction. It was obviously snowy so I slowed to 5mph for the turn. It just kept going forward though, straight towards another car. I just sat on the brakes and prayed. I stopped in time.
Finally, probably the most scary was an incident that another motorist caused. There is a big dip near where I live, with a long downward slop followed by an equally big up slope. I was following a car that was obviously going a bit too quick, so I started to back off. The other motorist started to brake, perhaps they wanted to turn into the garage at the bottom of the dip, but their car started to slide. I could see what was going to happen, so I was gently braking. The car in front went into a spin. I was stil gently braking because I didn't want to spin too, and my rear end was starting to slip. The other car ended up diagonally across the road, pointing back the way they had come. I ended up parallel to them but still pointing in the right direction. We stopped about a yard appart.
Yes, we get a lot of ice near where I live. Hence my going for 4WD to have a chance. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Dan
