What I didn’t learn in driver’s ed: Never trust someone else’s turn signal.
Despite what the link says about airbags, 9 and 3 is correct because you have more leverage that way. 10 and 2 may have been taught, but it’s not the right way to steer. You will never see a racecar driver holding the wheel at 10 and 2. In fact, if you can get even lower, like 8 and 4, it is preferable. But as long as human arms have been built the way they are (I believe this predates airbags), 9 and 3 has been better.
Oh, and things I never learned in driver’s ed:
-How to double-clutch and heel-toe
-How to actually control a car in the even of a skid
-Handbrake turns
-Left-foot braking
-The correct line to take through a turn
IIRC, this is close to the explanation given. When I went through driver’s ed, airbags were just starting to come out and weren’t commonly available. The instructor told us that you had better control at 9 and 3.
Me too. Also, I had to parallel park every day for about 4 years because I lived in a place where that was the only parking option, so I got lots of practice. I find it amusing to hear the fear that parallel parking strikes in the hearts of so many people. I know lots of people who will go to all kinds of lengths to find an easier place to park or a space that they can drive into. I’ve always been able to get cars into ridiculously small spaces.
Don’t worry about it. Responses like yours are why I started this thread.
I spent more time than usual driving during my vacation and noticed lots of drivers who apparently never learned lots of basics. I already knew that there were things I’d learned that were obsolete or even wrong.
I actually learned the concept of no-blindspot mirror adjustment on TV at some point and have tried to imitate it, but now I’ll take your instructions and see if I can do it properly. Not sure if I’ll be able to cure myself of the headcheck habit, though.
Thanks to everyone for their responses (can’t have too many better drivers). Oh…and just because you didn’t take a class, doesn’t mean you can’t share tips or deficiencies.
GT
If you can’t do something the way your driver’s ed instructor tells you to, it’s OK to work out your own way (within reason) of doing the same thing. I didn’t get my license until I was 23, because I have almost no spatial sense. Finally, I gave up trying to do things “the right way” and figured out ways that I could do them.
Now, I mostly stay out of driving situations where a good spatial sense is called for, or do something to compensate. For example, instead of counting car lengths between me and the car in front of me, I count seconds between their passing some mark and my passing it. I don’t parallel park in really tight spaces- most of the places where you’d have to do that, you’re better off taking public transit to anyway, or there’s likely to be a space with a driveway in front or in back of it within a block or so.
I did not know that- I always thought that 9 and 3 was being taught now because of airbags. I knew that I generally held my arms at 9 and 3 because it was easier, but I thought that was just because I’m a lazy bastard with T-Rex arms (short, weak arms).
Other helpful tips:
If other people in your car are talking or doing something that is distracting you while you’re trying to do something difficult, it’s OK to politely ask them to stop doing whatever it is.
Never, ever, let your car insurance lapse. I got rear-ended once by a guy who had done just that. His car was totaled, mine had $3500 in damage, and there were two other cars involved in the accident, and he had to pay for all of it. I had to report him to the DMV for driving without insurance, too, which probably meant they suspended his license. Probably still sucks to be him, almost four years later.
Get used to driving in all the different types of shoes that you are likely to wear. The pedals feel very different in sandals, flip-flops, sneakers, dress shoes, et cetera.
I wasn’t taught to drive a standard. Instead, we were told how to do it by looking at a diagram of the “standard H”.
I wasn’t taught to adjust my mirrors correctly. (and I only recently learned the method of leaning all the way over to the left and all the way to the center)
It was my mother, Og rest her soul, who taught me to “anticipate” curves while driving on the highway by turning the wheel ever so slightly just before the curve began. No technical advantage. Just a more comfortable ride for passengers.
My driver’s ed teacher (named Ed, oddly enough) taught me to gently accelerate halfway through any right or left turn when I don’t have to come to a complete stop in order to execute it. Again, there is no real technical advantage to this that I am aware of, but it makes my turns feel more graceful and controlled.
This also relies on the driver being trained to use the mirrors in a particular order. Side mirror followed by rear view, with the second-or-so adjustment of the eyes would leave the potential for an overtaking vehicle to not be seen.
Not doing this, and similar kinds of things, has the potential to fail your UK test. ‘Undue hesitancy’ is grounds for potential failure, the reasoning apparently being (a) to ensure that no qualified drivers feel entitled to hold up traffic, and (b) overly-hesitant drivers at junctions can increase the risk of accidents (including those involving pedestrians). Just repeating what I was told by my instructor…
I feel so much better. I’ve always driven 8 and 4 (OK - since I finished driver’s ed) because it felt more natural - less fighting with gravity and stuff.
GorillaMan, your post reminded me of a couple more items:
- He really drummed into us that you needed to be decisive because hesitating was asking for an accident.
- He made a point of stating that the safest drivers stick with the traffic speed. Driving either faster or slower than the traffic speed is less safe. (I don’t always worry about this, but in heavy traffic, I think it’s true.)
GT
I certainly agree with the traffic-speed thing, and my instructor tacitly admitted it when I was in the slow lane doing nearly 80 and asked if that was OK, and he said ‘what’s behind you?’. A line of people doing nearly 80, at sensible spacing. Seemed safe at the time, and still does.
What I learned after Drivers’ Ed? That driving slower than the speed of traffic is NOT unsafe. That it is a myth that I am somehow responsible for the reckless behavior of the drivers behind me. It took seeing a few dozen times of seeing construction vehicles on the road, and of learning to ride my bicycle correctly in traffic, but the truth is pretty self-evident. In Drivers’ Ed, while “speed kills” was emphasized, it was more or less taken as an article of faith that it was safest to move with traffic.
They didn’t teach me to drive a standard, either. All their cars were automatics. For this, I can’t really blame them.
How long have you been racing? What do you drive?
If you mean that position is preferable if the airbag goes off, I might agree with you. But if you’re claiming that it’s better in terms of control while driving, I’m going to have to ask for a cite. It makes no sense: it is far easier to pull the wheel down from a high hand position than to push it up from a low position. Contrary to what you said, the leverage favors a high posiition, IMO.
For the same reason, I disagree that 9-3 is preferable (airbags aside) to 10-2. With the hands in the higher position, you have a greater range of motion available in which to pull the wheel down, left or right, and can therefore add more steering input more quickly.
Your argument about racecars is mostly irrelevant, because (as I’m sure you know, Necros) racecars are set up with extremely sensitive steering, and go lock-to-lock in one full turn or less. So a slight twitch of a racecar’s wheel would be the equivalent of half a turn on an ordinary street car.
So the question becomes, should you use an inferior hand position because of the threat of the airbag? My answer is no. You use the steering wheel every time you get in the car. On the other hand, you could drive an entire lifetime and never have the airbag go off. On any given day, you may have to steer quickly to avoid an accident. Limiting your ability to respond to an emergency because of the possibility of injury from the airbag strikes me as pennywise and pound foolish.
If 9-3 is comfortable, use it: it’s a reasonable compromise. But I maintain that 10-2 is a better hand position, even with airbags, considering the far greater chance that you will need to steer than that the airbag will go off. And 8-4 for ordinary driving is, IMHO, an extremely bad idea.
BTW, does anyone have a cite for injuries caused by hands getting between the airbag and the head/body?
Even with properly adjusted mirrors, the headcheck is not a bad idea, except for one thing: a rapid movement of the head like that is likely to cause a slight movement in the hands (that hand-eye thing I was talking about above). So you may be twitching the steering when you do it, without realizing it. It’s more likely in a new driver, and over years of driving is usually reduced or eliminated. But once you become confident with the proper mirror positions, you’ll find you can give your neck a rest.
For my fellow Georgians:
Driver’s Education
This is a class people in many states take before getting a driver’s license. In the class, they learn about safe driving and traffic rules.
Traffic Rules
These are rules that require you to pay attention to things outside your car, including other cars, pedestrians, people riding bikes, and those painted lines on the road that you may have noticed from time to time, and also traffic signs.
Traffic Signs
These are those flat metal thingies with pictures and words on them that are right next to the road. You’ve probably noticed those big red octagons in passing; apparently those are actually legally enforceable instructions to you, the driver. The same is true of stoplights.
Stoplights
These are… never mind; I’m getting a bit off-subject here.
I took Driver’s Ed in California high school; as I recall, they really emphasized “defensive driving”, which has served me well since. A lot of good driving, though, involves making judgements that just require practice; there’s no good substitute for spending time on the road with a good teacher. For some reason, I didn’t get a license until a year later, in the flattest part of Texas, where virtually all the roads were straight; I didn’t learn how to drive on a curve or a hill until we moved to East Tennessee.
I think it’s best to teach driving safety with an automatic transmission, then teach a stick after the student is competent on the road.
I don’t steer (predominantly) with the hand that is pulling down on the wheel. I use both hands about equally, at least when first starting a turn. That’s why 9-3 works. I’ve got range of motion with both hands in both directions, and when the descending hand has to let go the other still has a large arc and I’ve got time to reach up if I need to go hand-over-hand.
How to ride a bicycle on the street (safely).
Which strangely, is almost exactly like how to drive a car on the street (safely), but it’s unfortunately not obvious.
It also gives the motorcyclist you don’t see one more chance, making up for the chance you took away by not bothering to use your turn signal, either not at all, or untill you actually started over.
Lack of a head flick doesn’t mean they won’t come over anyway, but catching the head flick has saved my bacon a couple of times…and not just when I was on two wheels.
You are certainly not responsible for thier driving. Neither are you in control of what they do. If one rear-ends you, causes you to lose control, and you die, your are almost certainly dead right…and you are still dead.
Given that most other traffic IS moving faster, are you more, or less, likely to be involved in an accident than if you were moving at nearly the same speed?
The “fault” for an accident, and the “cause” may be two different things. Certainly many, if not most, traffic accidents have more than a single cause. The speed of other vehicles is NOT something you can change. Disparity of your vehicle speed compared to others IS within your control.
Trucks generally leave a bigger gap between them and the car in front of them because of how heavy they are and it takes longer for them to stop.
This doesn’t give you permission to dart out of the parking lot or driveway at a snail like blazing fast 3 mph in front of them. Laws of physics say it will squish you like a bug, so don’t do it.
I’ve ben racing probably five years or so. My normal racing machine is a 1983 Toyota Celica that runs stage rally. I also autocross a 1994 Mazda RX7.
One thing I do know is that the steering on my car, at least, is not any faster than any normal car. I do know that many racecars do have smaller steering ratios than normal cars, but that isn’t really relevant to the discussion. You still have to turn the wheel in the same motion. But, as I will point out in a second, having normal steering rations makes even MORE of an argument for a non-10-and-2 position.
It’s not suprising that you use the argument of faster steering to justify 10-and-2, and that you explain that you pull downward to steer faster. But you kinda just gave credence to my argument:
From http://www.racingschools.com/tips/steering.shtml:
In other words, you may feel you’re faster pulling down from 10-and-2, but you’re weaker. You also are going to have a limit you will reach when you can’t rotate your wheel any more, because your arms are crossed. Crossing your arms at a racing school will get your hands slapped. 
As for me, I shuffle steer, and my hands, when not turning are usually just a tad below the 9-and-3 position.
I shuffle steer, and teach shuffle steering as an HPDE instructor, and don’t see any necessary correlation between it and hand position on the wheel. You can shuffle steer from 10-2, 9-3, 8-4, or even 12-6 (not recommended!). (I absolutely agree about crossing arms, and slap my students when they do that.) So I don’t quite understand why Mr. Moser, author of the piece you linked to, claims that the 10-2 position “derives from a steering technique called ‘hand-over-hand.’”
In my particular car (2003 350Z), the wheel spokes are at 9-3, so I can’t put my hands there, but there are very nice thumb grips just above. So my position is more like 9:30-2:30.
I’m no physiologist, but Moser’s claim that “Since virtually all movement of the wheel is accomplished by the downward-pulling hand, the 10-2 position, which puts the palms downward, uses some of the arms’ smaller muscles for steering,” contradicts my feeling and experience.
I can see that holding the arms in a higher position might be more fatiguing in the long run than a lower position. Hell, on a long, straight, empty stretch of road, I’ll use one hand at 6. But as for control and speed of reaction, I can’t see how a low position can possibly have an advantage. Intuitively, it just seems to me that pushing the wheel up from 8 or 4 is harder and less effective than pulling down from 10 or 9.
Now I won’t insist strenuously that 10-2 is substantially better than 9-3, but I still maintain, unless someone can show me authoritative information otherwise, that 8-4 is a very weak position from which to steer. Note that Mr. Moser doesn’t seem to be claiming that 8-4 is better for car control: “Recent studies of airbag safety and internal injuries have indicated that perhaps the 8 and 4 o’clock hand positions are even better.”
(FYI: I don’t race, but I’ve been doing HPDE in a Miata, 944 Turbo, and the Z for six years (60+ track days), and instructing at Summit Point and with NASA for the last year and a half. Also did the 3-day Skip Barber Racing School at Mid-Ohio in 2001.)