Snow!

it kinda makes sense when you think about it, when you ditch at alow speed you know that you won't injure yourself (unless you happen to run over yourself), if you have no traction you can't control where your car will end up, or how fast it will go before it stops you risk smashing into a tree at 30+ MPH, or having it flip over, etc..

think about being on a skateboard at the top of a hill .. better to ditch early and definitely suffer minimal pain than to risk crashing and burning at a much higher speed.

It makes no sense.

"unless you happen to run over yourself"... well no-one's going to hit the brakes for you, you'll be nice and smooshed.

And if you have a collision at 20mph or 30mph with a seat belt and air bags you're going to be fine.

Besides... all the way up until the moment you have come to a standstill you have the potential to recover from the slide, to get enough traction to regain control.

Jumping from a vehicle that's moving is absolutely stupid. The driver should have their license revoked until they go pass their test again.

Then again... summer tyres in winter is stupid... drivers should take responsibility for the safety of others as a result of their actions and realise this means that they shouldn't drive when it's icy unless it's critical and that they should consider winter tyres when this stuff seems to be happening more frequently (it's less than a year since cars were sliding about gleefully.