I was amazed that everybody didn’t know, since I’m pretty sure I learned about it from several different sources!
Then again, I went to High School in Minnesota, so you might have nailed it with ‘regional training’
I’m sure it doesn’t come up as much in Florida, since when it snows they all just run and hide from the ‘confusing white flakes of doom’ there. 
Driving on the pavement sounds like an awfully bad idea to this Brit.
Might we have a translation?
I’m not super convinced by Maggie’s interpretation of the Discover blog’s explanation. If it’s from the exhaust condensate that “dribbl[es]” onto the roadway (presumably from the tailpipe), then you would expect black ice to be highly localized and appear primarily below tailpipes. Maybe condensation from exhaust fumes coming into contact with the ground causes black ice, but I’m not buying that it’s mainly dribblings.
I’ve experienced black ice on roads with relatively little traffic, and given the speed at which cars travel, the amount of exhaust moisture emitted per car per meter, and the dissipation patterns of vehicle exhaust, I would be very surprised if the black ice I’ve experienced comes primarily from car exhaust as opposed to fog or other meteorological phenomenon. Maybe on heavily trafficked roads cars could be a real contributor, but I’m having problems buying this as the predominant contributor to black ice: if it was true, black ice would be very predictable based on temperature and traffic, but this isn’t the case at all.
The Discover blog’s statement that “salt is also not as effective at freezing temperatures” is pretty ridiculous. Salt is really unnecessary in the absence of freezing temperatures, and is only effective after the temperature has dropped below freezing. And it’s only when it’s well below freezing (-21°C) that regular NaCl salt becomes ineffective.
Also drivers who are inexpert at driving on snow and ice spin their wheels, the friction melts the snow and it refreezes extra smooth. The next driver can be a little less inexpert and still spin their wheels, until that becomes the only way to get through the intersection…
Imagine what will happen once the fuel cell powered vehicles attract enough traction.
Bring out the pitchforks!!!
Inside a city I could see tailpipe exhaust being a major source of moisture, but I’d still think melting snowbanks and moisture in the air would be much larger sources. In more rural areas you still get black ice even on less-traveled roads. I can’t see how tailpipe exhaust would be enough for those roads.
Thanks, came here to say the same thing.
Having survived at least three accidents from black ice, all of them nowhere near city streets, I find that it’s generally caused by snow melt in mild weather or rain, followed by cold air.
[Edited to add:] Water dripping from tail pipes give you pebbly, rough ice - akin to curling ice. While slippery, it’s not as slick as black ice, and can provide good grip.
For one, a kilometer-long patch was the result of rain which turned to very slick ice when the sun set.
The second was a short stretch of less-traveled very cold (around -32degC) road that was almost perpetually in shadow from the tall trees lining it and had acquired a thin veneer of ice from the air moisture, akin to the article’s car exhaust claim. And I just barely missed being flattened into a paste by the logging truck coming the other way.
The third time was the highway between Montreal and Ottawa - very cold day, short patch of black ice. Nope, not car exhaust.
And ditto: salt is pointless above zero and useless when very cold. In this case, you need grit, not salt. The salt isn’t supposed to ‘melt’ the ice. It’s meant to break the ice up, by melting holes in it, so the plows can, er, plow it off the road.
An alternative to road salt is brine, sprayed on the road before the crappy weather, which makes it difficult for the snow/ice to stick to the road.
Black ice is treacherous, nasty, stuff.
I met the stuff when I lived in Portland OR for a while. It never snows there, but it always rains, and the rain sometimes freezes and holy hell I almost died. In Portland, it has little to do with exhaust - ice forms on the sidewalk, even on the grass!
The most important part: bridges freeze before roads.
No, I don’t speak Finnish. I do speak Winter Roads.
Is it some kind fPublic Servic Announcement? Is a tire ad?
Good job it doesn’t snow in Portland much!
Bullshit. I’ve seen black ice form on country roads where the traffic is almost nil.
Seems more accurate to say that while SOME black ice is caused by tailpipe exhaust, surely not all of it is.
The LED traffic lights just get snow covered here.
It seems to be a PSA rather than an ad for a specific product. But as I said, I’m not actually a Finnish speaker.
Exactly - so when it does, nobody is prepared. You won’t see driving like that in Minneapolis.
That’s because we speak two different dialects, and we each use the same word to refer to different things.
On this side of the pond, everyone drives on the pavement. 
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That said, you chaps are dead wrong about “aluminium”. Humphrey Davys, the chemist who named it, did originally conceive of it as “aluminium”, but he used the term hypothetically, speaking of a nebulous concept of a material yet undiscovered, and used it in association with other such invented then-hypotheticals as “silicium”, “zirconium”, and “glucium”.
However, as his research continued and he managed to extract it in alloys, if not in pure form, he became convinced that it was in fact a distinct substance and not merely a hypothetical, and he published his findings having settled on the term “aluminum” instead.
When Davy’s 1812 book Chemical Philosophy came out, a political-literary journalist who reviewed it complained about “aluminum” on the grounds that “aluminium” sounded better - his exact quote:
“for so we shall take the liberty of writing the word, in preference to aluminum, which has a less classical sound.”
So some trumped up busy-body know it all took it upon himself to rename the element an actual chemist personally discovered to better suit his own personal whims.
Because after all, it’s only natural for all the elements to end in -ium! Like helium, or beryllium, or potassium, or sodium, or hydrogen…ium… and, err… platin…ium… and… uh… molybden…ium? Wait, hang on…
Ultimately, I imagine the version you prefer must boil down to whom you have greater respect for - the man of science who actually discovered the metal and named it “aluminum”, or the useless gobshite who felt obliged by personal aesthetic choice to try to endow it with what he felt was a catchier, more marketable rebranding instead. 
I think everything you see in that video is more a tire problem than anything else. Summer tires + snow is not a good combination.
I’m Cornish. I’m totally down with agreeing with Davy. Always have been. Kinda ironic you added an extra letter to his name, though. 
I use -Ize instead of -ise in a lot of places too.
That said, I thought Davy wanted alumium first of all?
