Police Chief Speaks On Driving In Wintry Conditions

Oklahoma City Police Chief Wade Gourley met with News 9 to talk about how police respond to accidents during extreme wintry conditions.

“First off, be prepared, make sure you have plenty of fuel in your car, blankets, things if you get stranded,” Gourley said.

But, depending on road conditions, police won’t always respond to non-injury crashes.

“When the roads get really bad, we stop responding to non-injury accidents, easily because there's quite a few more of them. But also, they're dangerous for our officers to come out and work on injury accidents,” Gourley said. “So I always tell people, if you are involved in an accident, pull off the roadway somewhere into a parking lot or just somewhere off the road and exchange information. Your insurance companies can work that out later on.”

Gourley also has advice for witnessing an accident during icy conditions.

“If you're blocked from getting around that and can't do anything to avoid staying where you're at, stay in your vehicle, if at all possible,” Gourley said. “I know a lot of times you may want to get out and help, and there may be times where you have to do that, but what we often see is those folks that stop and try to be helpful, they wind up being the fatality because they're outside their vehicle and another car comes along, doesn't see them or can't stop because of the conditions ends up striking that vehicle or striking that individual.”

Gourley has seen a lot of mistakes drivers make while trying to drive in bad conditions.

“The biggest thing is speed and oftentimes what happens,” Gourley said. “It's not slick everywhere, and so you kind of get a little overconfident, start driving too fast. And then all of a sudden, you hit a slick spot and your car loses control or you try to break at an intersection. And intersections are usually where the ice kind of forms first too.”

Don’t be afraid of going slow, Gourley says.

“Just slow down, even if people are passing you and you think I'm driving too slow. Let them be the ones that are involved in the accident, slow down and be prepared and increase your following distances,” Gourley said.”Just know that even if it's dry in one spot, it may be icy in another so just always be prepared for that.”

He also suggests not using cruise control.

“If you are on an interstate, do not use your cruise control,” Gourley said. “You want to be able to let off the gas if you're coming to a bridge or anything like that. So that you're in control of the vehicle and if the tires are going to spin and your cruise controls on the cars trying to make that vehicle keep that speed.”