Pardon if this has already been posted; I skimmed the thread for it but didn’t read each post in detail.
Many people get killed each year because a driver went slightly off the road to the right and over-corrected in getting back onto the road, resulting in their crossing into oncoming lanes of traffic or spinning out of control. If you go off the road to the right, just hold your position long enough to stabilize and then gradually pull back onto the road while keeping a firm hand on the wheel to counteract the tug when the tire makes contact with the road’s edge.
You can pick up clues from your environment as to possible future hazards, e.g.:
Fresh grass clippings on the verge? There may be a road-based mower ahead.
Garbage bags out on the street? Look out for the garbage truck.
Is it school pick-up or drop-off time? Drive like there’s a school bus or a child around every corner.
Can you see someone’s reflection in the mirror of that parked van? If so, there’s a possibility they might open the door suddenly.
Lot of shit on the road in your carriageway? There may be a tractor towing a trailer up ahead.
Similarly, moving shadows under parked cars could indicate someone behind the car, possibly a child.
That car in front that just pulled out of a minor road onto the major one you’re on - a large proportion of these are going to turn off soon as they’re just “crossing” that highway, so don’t bother overtaking (don’t ask me why this is true, but I’ve been noticing it ever since I was told).
Always keep focused on what’s ahead, but use your peripheral vision to observe conditions as far away as possible. Side roads, other vehicles, look for other vehicles’ roofs over fields and hedges - which way are they coming.
He also showed me this really neat thing about the angle of the visible road on a bend, and how much juice you give the engine based on it (provided you’re in the right gear) to get round as fast as possible in safety, but it’s difficult to describe. But when you’re going round a right-hand bend, you should be on the left hand side of your lane, and vice versa. This gives you the greatest visibility for what’s round the bend - and at legal speeds, it doesn’t make a bit of difference to your cornering.
When you are sitting, waiting to turn, you are not going to be pressing down on the brakes hard enough to put your into a skid if it starts moving suddenly. Have you ever hit the brakes hard enough to make your tires lock up and skid? It takes a good amount of pressure. Nobody sits at a light with their foot on the brake that hard. In fact, I often sit there without a foot on any pedal if it is flat enough that I won’t roll, or my foot on the gas and with the clutch barely engaged if I think I might be able to go soon.
Also, have you ever been hit from behind? If it is a significant impact, your entire body will be thrown backwards. Your hands will leave the steering wheel and your feet will leave the pedals as they suddenly accelerate forward away from you. You don’t have any brakes or steering at that point.
And that is the real physics behind it… you should keep your wheels straight.
Also wanted to add my own tip…(missed the edit window)
It may not be a normal occurance in everyone’s neighborhood, which is why I think I should bring it up here. Many places have children riding their bikes, trikes, and big wheels up and down the sidewalks. If you are in an area with sidewalks, be especially careful when pulling into, or out of parking lots and driveways, and when you are crossing an intersection. You have to make sure that not only are there no cars coming but that there is no pedestrian traffic about to cross either right in front of you or all the way across on the other side either. Be especially carefull when backing out of a driveway. You have to stop and look both ways for kids before you even get to the street.
:dubious:
Ah no. First off when you are stopped, you can press on the brake pedal from now until kingdom come and it will do zero wear to your brakes. Secondly on many cars the hand brake and the hydraulic brakes work with the same pads not a different set.
Lastly, unfortunately many people then forget to take the hand brake all the way off, and wind up wearing out their rear brakes in about 1,000 miles.
qwesI looked at the first 1/2 page of those cites. There were two that made sense.
If you are driving a big truck/ bus that is covered by this section you are required to stop and look before crossing a railroad tracks. Section 392 then instructs the driver to proceed across the tracks without shifting. This makes sense since big trucks often shift at about 1 mph and if the engine were to die at that point they could not coast clear. Compare that to a car. I am not required to stop and look before crossing a rail crossing so if I were to shift in the crossing it would be from 2-3 or 3-4 or 4-3 or 3-2. In any of those cases, my speed is more than sufficient to carry my car clear if I were to stall it. (I don’t know about you, but I can’t recall ever stalling a car on on any of those listed shifts.)
It looks to me that a bunch of the other sites picked up this federal rule for trucks and buses and thought it was a wonderful idea for cars also without giving it any thought as to the reasons that trucks have to follow this rule. IOW a nice way to give the illusion of safety, without doing anything to actually increase safety. Kinda lke the TSA at the airport.
Speaking as a automotive technician and training instructor with over 30 years of experience I am not buying the bad on the suspension argument. Cycling an automotive suspension through its normal range of motion does not knock it out of alignment. Bottoming it out can be bad, but if you are bottoming it out you are going to fast, not because you are shifting.
StinkyBurrito You are confusing the amount of brake it requires to stop a car with the amount it takes to keep it stopped. Remember Newton? An object in motion wants to stay in motion, and object at rest wants to stay at rest?
Also your seat is not getting any further away from the brake pedals or steering wheel at the moment of impact, so I can see reason why your foot would come flying off the brake (or your hands off the wheel for that matter).
Re: steering into a skid. I live in an area where I skid multiple times on ice each winter, and calmly steering into the skid has never failed me yet. I couldn’t tell you if they were front wheel or rear wheel skids; they’re just car on ice skids as far as I can tell. My car (and the vast majority of cars on the road these days) has front wheel drive, for what that’s worth. Probably your best bet if you want to learn to drive in skiddy conditions is go to an empty parking lot and just skid around a lot until you get the hang of it (see also: doing doughnuts ), or take a winter driving course.
Rick, I would truly love to be able to drive a block or two ahead like I was taught. Unfortunately, most of the time I’m driving behind a vehicle that between its large body and its deep-black tinted windows, all I get to see is the back of it. I am re-learning how to drive defensively amongst all these huge, view-blocking vehicles.
When you get into a head on collision, your seat and the windshield don’t get any closer either, but people’s head and the windshield often connect. In a rear end, the same phenomenon (remember Newton… any object at rest wants to stay at rest and all that?) throws the car forward while your body wants to stay in the same place. That is why peoples’ heads often snap backwards causing whiplash in a rear end collision. If your head snaps back that hard, then I don’t see any reason your arms and legs wouldn’t as well, especially if they are just lightly resting on the brake pedal.
Also, you are right about the whole car being pushed in the direction of the collisional force. For the first few inches. Tires stick to roads pretty darn well due to them being designed to provide traction. The tires will eventually force you in the direction they are turned. Especially if you are laying in a crumpled unconscious heap while your disabled car coasts for 300 feet.
My point is that you should keep your wheels turned straight / out of oncoming traffic when you can help it. It’s easy enough to do most of the time.
Rick, while I agree that Quartz has the wrong end of the stick, I think you’re wrong about the handbrake.
We’ve had this discussion on the boards recently, but failure to release the handbrake as a reason for not engaging it in the first place isn’t a very good reason.
It’s all to do with familiarity. In the UK where most cars are manual, the handbrake is an integral part of driving. Indeed you will fail your test if you don’t use it. Result: people know how to use them. We don’t have millions of people driving around with their handbrakes on over here, you know.
My primary reason for promoting use of the handbrake is that if you’re hit from behind and it is engaged, you’re less likely to roll out into oncoming traffic. Especially if you’re only using your footbrake, your foot is likely to be lifted up and off the pedal due to the percussion of the wreck, and allow the car to roll (or drive, in an automatic) forwards. And of course leaving the car in neutral with the handbrake on prevents you from wearing the clutch when at rest.
:rolleyes: The only way you will hit the windshield in a head on collision, is if you don’t have a seat belt on. When you are restrained, you will not hit the windshield. If you wish to argue otherwise, when come back bring cite. In a rear end collision instead of two 2" wide straps you have a seat that covers 100% of your back. This amounts to an even more effective restraint against you being pushed backwards than the seat belt does forwards. Your head is unrestrained, your ass on the other hand is securely snuggled in the seat. It ain’t moving. I see no reason why your legs would go flying all around the car like you seem to think they will.
Have you considered a career in making safety movies? I heard the company that made Blood and Asphalt is looking for a new director. You might fit right in with that unconscious heap for 300 feet comment.
I am not 100% disagreeing with you here, I most often do this, but what I am trying to point out that having your wheels turned prior to making the turn is not the instant death sentence that the National Safety Council made it out to be in the late 1950’s early 1960’s
jjimm I recall those threads, and I understand that during the driving tests, they force you to use the handbrake when starting on a hill. My personal opinion is that if you cannot bring the clutch to the friction point, and move your foot from the brake to the gas and preform a smooth takeoff without rolling backwards, then you are not truly proficient in the use of a clutch. YMMV of course. Before anyone brings up clutch wear, I taught my son to do this. His car just turned 153,000 miles on the original clutch. No signs of a problem, so I am guessing that it will make it to 200K. I don’t have a problem with a clutch that lasts 200K.
So does leaving the car in neutral and using the foot brake.
I’m not disagreeing with you because I consider you an expert on all things car, but your foot only needs to relax a few inches for it to not be holding the brake anymore. I could see my concentration on pressing down the brake being broken when I get hit hard enough.
I can’t say because I’ve never been hit like that, but while I’m waiting for the turn, I have very little pressure on the brakes. The tires might roll instead of skid. Also, if you’re hit without warning, your feet might get knocked off or slip off the pedals.
Ehhh. When waiting for a left (or I guess right turn in England) at a light across oncoming traffic, you will likely have other people doing the same just in front of you. If you move into the intersection a little on the green, your wheels are going to be pointing pretty much straight anyway.
About half of my vehicles have been manual transmission. Only in very sever cases, such as backing up a hill to engage a trailer hitch have I ever needed to use the parking brake to control my inch by inch progress.
I do think that it is a good thing to know how to do. But think it’s over the top at stop lights.
And, a lot of automatic transmission cars don’t have a hand brake for a parking brake, but a foot brake to the very far left of the drivers foot well. Putting the parking brake on in the US for a stop light is just not done.
Argent Towers. Snow is a good insulator, but if the car has been sitting overnight the engine is going to be as cold as the air around it.
I learned about this tug through an incident locally where they had put down large planks across a covered bridge that was bumpy and needed an upgrade. This woman’s wheels slipped off the plank and apparently if you try to get back up over a small drop like that it shoves the wheels away?? Anyway, it was enough force to drive her out the side of the covered bridge into the river.
They took the planks back out after that. (everyone is fine)
Don’t think so Quartz. Stopped is stopped. If the wheel is not rotating it does not matter if you are on a hill or not. No more wear is put on the brakes.
I suspect that if you used your parking brake whenever you stopped at a light in the US, you may fail your drivers test. It would sure be looked at as VERY strange behavior.
Hamsters threw my post off the observation deck, but I had to come back and respon to this.
I can’t give you a cite unless I can find and scan the police report from my traffic accident last year. Just as I was coming to a halt at the end of a queue of traffic (foot on both brake and clutch pedals) I was clobbered from a car from behind. My foot came off the brake pedal and my car went into the back of the car infront, before I could come to my senses and get back control. I remember seeing the tape deck flying out of the dashboard as my feet came off the pedals too. A crack like that and its hard to come too for a second.
Have you been in such an accident yourself? I give a cite based on experience of my own. It sometimes annoys me when people presume to know what happens in a sudden incident, like the posts from others on the recent university shootings. Who knows how they’d react if someone suddenly shoots the person in front of them
Again No, but thanks for playing.
brake pads wear by abrasion. The brake rotor turns, you step on the pedal, the pads press against the rotor. The pressing of the pads against the spinning rotor creates friction and turns the car’s energy into heat.
When you are stopped the rotors are not moving, there is no abrasion, and and therefore no wear.
By your line of reasoning, parking a car on a hill, applying the parking brake and leaving the car there would cause the rear brakes to wear out. To quote that famous line from Home Improvement “I don’t think so Tim.” In other words no on this planet.
What difference could the amount of pressure on the pads make? Answer, none what so ever.
Safety? Get real.
), or take a winter driving course.
So does leaving the car in neutral and using the foot brake.
Don’t think so Quartz. Stopped is stopped. If the wheel is not rotating it does not matter if you are on a hill or not. No more wear is put on the brakes.