Don’t leave your car and let it run with the gear on!

By Horatiu Boeriu. Read Bio
December 29th, 2010 | Videos | 30 comments

One of the current trending videos on Youtube involves a BMW driver and a 1 Series hatchback. The rear-wheel drive vehicle, most likely not equipped with winter tires, is having a hard time traveling through snow.

The driver is looking for different ways to get car rolling, but unfortunately, chooses the wrong possible option ever: leaving the car running, in gear while stepping out and trying to push it forward.

The outcome? Not so pleasant for the car and driver and certainly a lesson to be learned here.

And no, the 1 Series is still a rear-wheel drive….

P.S. Any anti-feminist comments will be deleted. This is not about the gender…

Tags: funny, winter tires Email Print 30 comments

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http://www.automotiveaddicts.com Malcolm

Looks like from her attempting to clear snow away from the front wheels she is part of the 80% of 1-series owners that think it is front-wheel-drive. LOL!
- wazon8
  
  Check this one: http://images.thecarconnection.com/med/bmw-1-series-with-snow-chains-on-front-wheels-staffordshire-england-dec-2010-photo-by-andy-smith_100334419_m.jpg The same story. LOL
  - Stacy
    
    This picture is too funny!
Pingback: Epic Fail Video: Leaving Your Car While It Is In Drive | Automotive Addicts
Heddlu_Cymru M5

That is why these cars are much safer and easier to be driven with winter tyres fitted. Worrying too much about lazyness and the price of the winter tyres, ended up with damages that cost a lot more than the tyres itself… And I’ll say this again, whenever you’re out of your car do not leave it in gear!
- wazon8
  
  The core of her problem was that she didn’t straighten front wheels, while trying to pull out on a road.
jj

My 5 GT has a safety feature that disables the car to move in gear when the door is open. LOL, why 1 series don’t.
- wazon8
  
  Perhaps it has, but one has to pay extra for it.
- Laszlo
  
  oh please,,, save us from ourselves , right ? Who needs that feature besides this lady in boots and leggings ? hmm. maybe you ?
- Doug
  
  hmmm… what happens when you open the door at highway speeds?
Martin

I like how even the title of that video is about the gender but “this” is not…
http://www.bmwusfactory.com bimgville

What were they doing recording all this and not going out to help her?
jgs

“Any anti-feminist comments will be deleted.”

Posting a video named “BMW + Snow + Woman = Epic Fail” is anti-feminist enough.
- http://www.bmwblog.com Horatiu B.
  
  And that’s exactly why we said no anti-feminist comments. We don’t control the name of the video, but least we can do is warn the readers.
- Doug
  
  “anti-feminist” … wouldn’t that mean it was against pro-female sentiment, and not so much a sentiment against females? maybe that’s semantic.
  
  When BMW gets its self-driving car feature into production, it will be interesting to see the female reaction to a “get out and push” verbal instruction from the car.
jgs

(Don’t get me wrong I was entertained by the video, but the girl next to me was not feeling so well about it hehe.)
- http://www.bmwblog.com Horatiu B.
  
  Tell her we apologize if she got offended :)
ToyYoda

What I often find helpful if I’m in that situation, is to clear the snow from my rear wheels, reverse, then move forward. The extra ‘runup time’ from reversing usually gives the car enough momentum to go over the snow ‘hump’.
ToyYoda

Aside from her bad mistake, even more insane than that, is the road looks worse than her parking spot. So what makes her think she’ll even get anywhere once her car is free?
- jgs
  
  But we don’t know what happened after that!
Zack Brak

Edited for anti-feminist comments.

Zack, please refrain from using derogatory comments towards women, I already mentioned that in the article. We allow a lot of things on here, but we try to be civilized.
http://www.infinitimarin.com/ Infiniti San Francisco

Actually I myself didn’t know that you’re not supposed to not let the car run with the gear on. However I live in So Cal and it doesn’t snow here ever so that’s my excuse. The majority of drivers don’t know how to drive when it rains let alone when it snows.
Tom

First off, if the car is having that much trouble just getting going it she probably shouldn’t be driving until the conditions improve anyway. Second, turn off DSC when you get stuck in the snow (and turn it back on once you get moving).
viper

this weeks old stuff , this blog is still in november
http://facebook.com/young.teazer Andrei Costea

how can you not make comments about the driver’s gender? i’m sure this kind of winter adventure happens five times more often to women than dumb men, but this is a greater subject worthy of it’s own story. it’s like winter vs summer tires only this time (not first, not last, but every time) it’s man vs woman. and remember, we were here first!
bimmerlover

um i dont drive, but am just generally interested. why does the car move? if you leave a car idling and in gear, does it move?? just want to know, can anyone help?
N54 Driver

Actually, it says less about women than about 80% of BMW drivers. Present company excluded, of course.
Doug

The problem isn’t with girly silliness, but with the driver education. Not everyone knows the mechanics of cars and the physics of driving. Germany and Finland would be examples to follow for teaching people to drive in adverse conditions.

I think it’s finland… maybe sweden. top gear did a story on their training, which was quite thorough in this area.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1510990872 Wontae Cho

The guy that was filming this, is probably laughing at the women. Could have offered to help… What a J**K
Gord

So maybe BMW is right when they say most 1 series owner think their car is front wheel drive.