I went for a spin on the day before New Year's Eve. Not literally, thankfully, but nearly.
It looked like the sun was coming out, but what actually happened – once I got out into the countryside - was that the sun went in, the temps suddenly dropped, the wet roads froze, and all sorts of weather happened. It was raining buckets one minute, then hailing, with a bit of snow and sleet and all sorts by way of wintery showers, and it got very dark. I had a couple of moments, one simply accelerating out of a bend onto a straight, when I just did a massive fishtail (just keep your foot in and hang on, no biggie, but take it easy from now on), and the other was on the way home: I had a bit of a tankslapper as I crested a hill and arrived on ice and the car's heavy engine decided it wanted to arrive at the bottom of the hill first.
At that point, you're running on instinct, turning into the slide, screaming to yourself 'don't lift, don't lift, don't lift', at 90-95kmh on a narrow country road, studs screeching as they try to bite. It wasn't so bad (I got straightened out) but it was more than enough to really spike the heartrate. The car is a long way out of shape, and you're already reacting before the yellow it's-really-f-slippery-out-there-MaxA sign in the dash starts flashing: it feels like it's telling me what I already know ... and my heart is already pretty much jumping out of my chest.
As such I'm looking forward in 2018 to the actual snowy winter coming. It's more fun – and by that I mean 'less scary' - than driving on patchy ice in the total dark. Good luck out there, friends.
:drive: