Although I’ve been driving for many years, since I live in California, I have very little experience driving on snow and ice. I remember when first learning to drive I was told that if you get into a skid you should “turn your steering wheel in the direction of the skid”. This didn’t make sense to me. It took several years to realize that they were not telling me to turn the steering wheel all the way to the right if I were skidding to the right or all the way to the left if I were skidding to the left. :smack:
Of course, the intended message was that you were supposed to point the front wheels in the direction the car is actually moving (skidding). Thus, the wheels can regain traction and you can regain control of your car. This makes sense if the skid occurs while you are driving in a deserted parking lot. But in real life such a skid is going to occur while driving in a lane of traffic with adjacient lanes or perhaps a cliff on the side if you are driving on a moutain road. My experience on rain-slick roads is that if I “ignore the skid” and keep the wheels pointed in the direction I want to go that the wheels regain traction the skid ends by itself.
So, I am asking people who actually drive on ice and snow: Does “Steer into the direction of the skid” really what you do?
I have heard the standard “Steer into the direction of the skid” since forever, but it is not advice I would ever give. It sounds confusing and why confuse the natural and correct reaction of trying to point the nose of the car in the direction that you want to go?
I would give advice about the tendency to over-steer in these situations.
Rufus, that’s exactly what I do, for the exat reason you stated. To get control back through hopefully finding traction. But you have to do it in the SLIGHTEST way, just a little move on the steering wheel. The same move on dry pavement wouldn’t even make you change lanes. The biggest problem with this method is over-correction. As for going into another lane… Wherever you’re skidding towards, you’re going there without control of your car. It’s the lesser of two evils.
If the rear is “skidding” to the left, turn the wheel to the left. This will be turning into the skid. The more the rear slides, the more the wheel needs to be turned.
I steer into the skid. Someone asked if “into the skid” is where you want to go, but the bottom line is: you ain’t a-gonna go anywhere else. Either you recover control or you keep skidding. Turning against an ice skid accomplishes nothing - that’s why it’s a skid. Unless your wheels are rolling at the same rate and direction you’re covering ground, you almost certainly won’t regain control
But I couldn’t agree moree with B&I about the need to practice. Any verbal rule is just a training aid. It’s of limited use in a real ice skid, unless you’re lucky enough to have ample room to move. I see the sad results many times every winter. You can often regain control almost instantly if your reflexes are prepared (which involves a nonverbal instinct of when/where to turn, tap the accelerator, etc.).
The first 5-10 years I drove in New England, I went to a parking lot on the first or second snow of the season, and practiced skids and maneuvers. I’m convinced that’s maintained my perfect record through more years and near-emergencies than I care to count
It may sound like overkill, but it only took about 10-20 minutes each year, and the life I saved may have been my own.
The confusing thing about the usual rule of thumb is that many people think that if their front end is pointed to the left, that “left” is the direction of the skid. In that case, the direction of the skid is “right” (the rear wheels have skidded right) and you want to turn to the right–in other words, turn your wheels in the direction you want to go.
If your front tires are skidding (understeer) and you ignore it the car will slow down until the front tires can grip then the car will turn, unless you slide off the road first
The type of skid that you have to steer into is called oversteer (or fishtail). This is when the back end starts to slide towards the outside of the turn. You end up turning tighter than you wanted to, by turning the wheels in the direction you want to go (or into the skid, the direction the back end is sliding) you are trying to get the car pointed in the right directon. If you made no correction you would either drive off the inside of the corner you are making or just spin out.
Th most common mistake for inexpierienced drivers is to overcorrect and start fishtailing in the oppisite direction, sometimes the car will go back and forth two or three times and then usually spins out.
This link has some good tips and the top two pictures on the left show a car in an oversteer skid with the wheels pointed in the direction of the skid. The first picture is an extreme example, normally only minor steering corrections are needed.
Yes. You totally have to steer into the direction of the skid, but as has been said, be careful of over-correcting and fishtailing in the other direction. The best advice is to take your car out into an icy or snowy parking lot and to get yourself into all kinds of skid situations and experience how your car reacts. Try turning into the skid. Try turning against the skid. You’ll definitely notice a difference.
Test out your brakes in these conditions too. If you don’t have ABS, learn how to tap-tap-tap the brakes to get the car to stop without losing too much traction. Make it instinctual to release the brakes as soon as you feel them locking up.
If you have a manual transmission, also depress the clutch as soon as you get into a skid and see how your car reacts. I’ve had at least one person argue with me on this, but most car authorities I’ve spoken with have agreed this is good advice. The theory is that if you hit the clutch, the wheels will try to move at the same speed as the ground underneath, rather than the speed of the engine which may be fighting the speed of the ground below (i.e., skidding.)
Anyhow, just get yourself to an icy lot and practice. It’s fun.
Funny. I always thought applying opposite lock (or “steering in the direction of the skid”) was a natural reaction. Stick a kid in a go-kart and see what he does when the back end steps out.
Okay… upon further reflection, it occurs to me that another possible reflex would be step on the brake and keep steering into the corner, which is the worst thing you can do other than floor it, I suppose.
You actually can floor it to recover from oversteer, but only if you have a front wheel drive car. Doing so in a rear wheel drive car will just make you spin even faster. You’re not very likely to get into an oversteer situation with a front wheel drive car unless you do something pretty stupid, but if you do, hitting the gas will often pull the car out of the slide. Thats another one of those things you can practice in an empty parking lot. Briefly apply the parking brake to induce a slide and practice using opposite lock and throttle modulation to recover. Again, only with a front wheel drive car though
Yep, you should either hit the clutch or keep the accelerator where it was, at least in a front wheel drive. If you just come off the gas without hitting the clutch the breaking effect of the engine will just exacerbate the skid. If you try to accelerate it will be harder to regain traction.
As others have said, find a parking lot and practice skids.
The next best advice though is to drive slower than you think you need to. Better to not get into the skid in the first place.
Now to actually answer the OP, I’ve found it’s best to correct, ie steer into the skid, to regain traction then finish the turn rather than just waiting to regain traction. The size of the correction is usually pretty small, so probably won’t make you approach the cliff much faster than doing nothing.
But if you do that, you are steering into the skid. If the rear of the car fishtails out to the right, for example, your front wheels will be pointing toward the left side of the road. To keep the wheels pointed “in the direction you want to go”, you must turn the wheel to the right, in the direction of the skid. The “direction” of the skid refers to which way the car is sliding, not which way the nose is pointing. Interesting - it never even occurred to me that this could be a point of confusion.
Assuming you are driving on loose surfaces (dirt, snow, etc), that’s the fastest, tightest, most stable way to corner. It is easiest to see in rally racing (for example, Порно видео онлайн бесплатно - RallyBugs.com and http://www.rallybugs.com/73austalp.htm). In both photos the car is turning left, but the front wheels are definitely turned right. The car is essentially sideways the whole way through the corner.
You can do the same on hard surfaces, but you need a lot of power. Gilles Villeneuve was famous for doing this in F1 Ferraris at ungodly speeds.
I, too, have never lived in a snowy area - I have basically no experience driving in extremely low-grip situations.
I’ve heard “steer into the skid” ever since I began driving, and I always thought that was ambiguous as hell. I could think of two completely opposite interpretations of that phrase. My car is rotating clockwise. I should turn my wheels “into the skid”…to the right? That seems really friggin’ odd…
Later on, in spite of that advice, I figured things out (again, only in the abstract). I had two thoughts upon achieving this clarity:[ol][]What else would somebody be tempted to do?[]Oh…that’s what that catchy advice is trying to say.[/ol]
“Steer in the direction of the skid” assumes you’re using rear wheel drive.
With rear wheel drive, the rear wheels do the skidding; the back of the car starts moving faster than the front and the car begins to go sideways. If the rear wheels are going to the left, then the proper way to gain control is to steer to the left (the direction of the skid). This lets the front wheels get ahead of the rear wheels again and straightens you out. It may not be the way you want to go.
If you start skidding left when making a right turn, you want to go right, but the way to stop the skid is to steer left. Turning right in that case will only make the skid worse, since the rear wheels will continue to go faster than the front, turning you in a circle.
Front wheel drive cars are the opposite. In them, the skidding wheels are the front wheels. They’re already in front of the rear wheels, so in that case, you steer in the direction you want to go, regardless of how you’re skidding.
While a front wheel drive car is much more likley to understeer it is still possible to get oversteer in some situations and you should always steer into the skid or the direction you want to go when oversteering no matter what the drive wheels are. If you are making a turn and the rear wheels begin to skid you will end up turning much tighter than you intended to, by steering into the skid you are attempting to steer in the direction you where origonally attempting to go.
I think ‘steer into the skid’ is being replaced by ‘steer in the direction you want to go’ which is a lot clearer IMO. I agree that this feels like the natural thing to do so I don’t know why there s so much emphisis on it.
I don’t think that’s true. If you are making a right turn and you skid left, you will be headed too far right. So, even though you are making a right turn, the direction you want to go is more to the left.
Get some great cornering times that way.