As Yakima experiences its first significant weather event this winter, emergency responders encourage drivers to follow some simple safety measures to avoid being involved in an accident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe most obvious tip for driving\nin winter weather is to slow down,\u201d said Communications & Public Affairs\nDirector Randy Beehler. \u201cSimply driving\nmore slowly than normal increases the chance that you\u2019ll be able to avoid being\ninvolved in an accident. Slow and\ncautious are the two most important words to remember when driving in winter\nweather conditions,\u201d said Beehler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Increasing the following distance\nbetween you and the car in front of you is also a simple but highly effective\nwas to avoid accidents when snow and ice are covering roadways. A good measure of thumb regarding following\ndistance is five to six seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Braking with firm, steady\npressure applied by the ball of your foot can keep your car brakes from locking\nup. When brakes lock up, your car is\nlikely to slide on a road covered in snow and ice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Drivers are also encouraged to\navoid driving up or down steep hills in winter conditions. If you have to drive up a hill, apply the gas\npedal slowly and consistently. Avoid\nsudden changes in the amount of power being applied to the wheels and you will\navoid spinning your tires. Similarly, when\ngoing down a hill on ice and snow it is important to not apply brakes. Applying brakes can result in tires slipping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Applying power to a vehicle\u2019s\nwheels should be down slowly and consistently will help keep them slipping on flat\nroadways as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When three inches of snow has\naccumulated, the City of Yakima will issue Snow Route Alerts and begin to deploy\nplows. Click https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/apps\/snow-routes\/<\/a> for a map of the City of\nYakima’s snow routes, along\nwhich cars may be towed if plows need to get through during winter storms. The map also shows the priority for citywide\nsnow plow routes when storms drop at least three inches of snow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe bottom line when driving in winter weather conditions is to take your time, be aware of vehicles around you, and pay attention to road conditions,\u201d said Beehler.\u00a0 \u201cFollowing a few simple safe driving tips will ensure that we all get where we need to get safely.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n As Yakima experiences its first significant weather event this winter, emergency responders encourage drivers to follow some simple safety measures to avoid being involved in an accident. \u201cThe most obvious tip for driving in winter weather is to slow down,\u201d said Communications & Public Affairs Director Randy Beehler. \u201cSimply driving more slowly than normal increases<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8096"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8098,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8096\/revisions\/8098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yakimawa.gov\/media\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}