OLIVE BRANCH, Miss. — Making the wrong decision while driving on ice can be potentially deadly.
Driving instructors said people should stay off of the roads, but drivers need to be prepared in the event they have to drive.
Dawn Fiveash with the Mid-South Ice House knows a thing or two about ice.
Fiveash drives a large Zamboni for the Olive Branch ice rink almost every day.
“It’s more of an ice vehicle than a regular car,” she said.
Since the tires on the vehicle are spiked, Fiveash knows hitting the icy roads in a regular car during Wednesday’s winter blast can be dangerous.
“It can be deadly,” Max Maxwell, with Maxwell Motor Sports, said.
Maxwell is the owner of a driving school in the Memphis area and said not knowing how to drive on ice can end with drivers crashing, getting hurt, and ending up in the hospital.
With hazardous weather conditions blanketing the Mid-South, WREG put the expert, Maxwell, behind the wheel to show viewers what they should and should not do when driving on the road.
Maxwell said drivers shouldn’t attempt taking off speeding.
“It’s going to have a tendency to get the tires, especially on ice, to spin up,” Maxwell said.
The driving instructor said drivers should begin driving at a slow speed.
“Once you get rolling, then you can accelerate a little bit,” Maxwell said.
Maxwell said driver should be careful about braking too fast and hard. Instead, he recommended drivers take their time braking early and slowly.
There are also unpredictable moments when driving in icy conditions.
“You get what’s known as black ice, which is very very difficult to see and its that slick,” Maxwell said. “Once you get on that, you don’t have a lot of control…you’re lost.”
Do not panic.
Maxwell said drivers should remove their feet from the controls and never brake.
“If the rear of the car starts to slide to the right, you have to turn to the right,” Maxwell said.
Maxwell said the key to staying safe after sliding on ice is correcting the problem and recovering.
