Woodbridge, ON -- Young Drivers of Canada encourages drivers both new and old to attend winter refresher courses they offer.
“I strongly suggest people take a (winter) refresher whenever they get the chance,” said Angelo DiCicco, Director of the GTA region of Young Drivers. “We do 120,000 lessons a year, including 500 with corporate clients.”
With that in mind, YD recently held the first Winter Driving Challenge at Dynamic Tire in Woodbridge for media and lucky members of the public.
The public was asked to send their most interesting winter driving tales to YD. The winners got to attend the event.
There, they would have the chance to win prizes like a set of winter tires from Sailun tires, movie passes, YD lesson vouchers and more.
Tests ranged from attacking a snow-covered slalom course in YD cars, to a parking test used to determine how well you knew your vehicle’s dimensions.
For the slalom events, the faster the time, the better. If you hit a cone used to mark the course, you’d lose time. A separate brake-and-avoid test had a similar time-based structure.
For the parking contest it was all about how precise your maneuvres were.
These exercises are also taught in regular YD driver training programs, but there’s no guarantee they will be in the snow.
That’s why there are those electing to take the winter-specific course.
For us, the slalom event was the most interesting. We went through twice in the same car, once on snow tires, once all-seasons. It’s a rare opportunity that does a good job of showing the difference, as our times with the snow tires were quite a ways better than those without.
DiCicco hopes to make the Winter Driving Challenge an annual event, so check out YD.com and start practicing!
