38 Aggressive steering may get you into a tangle

      September 15, 2018      David Wilson

38 Aggressive steering may get you into a tangle.
If you’ve ever paid attention to the all too frequent skid marks on many of the nation’s highways you will have noticed probably the end of someone’s journey and maybe even their lives. Fatigue induced inattention results in a driver drifting off the bitumen and onto the road’s dirt shoulder, the change in the tyres rhythm awakens the driver in panic and they yank the steering wheel to correct the pathway. That panicked response will invariably start the fishtail to disaster as one steering correction after another sees the vehicle slew across the roadspace and flip. In road safety parlance this incident is referred to as a “trip-over”, and it is possible to prevent. Gentle steering inputs will get the vehicle back on the road with a minimum of discomfort and if you’re lucky enough to have a new vehicle with VSC (Vehicle Stability Control) the car itself has the ability to assist with corrective braking and engine deceleration. You should practice this on a deserted road, deliberately driving off the bitumen at modest speeds to get an idea of what goes on. Better to have some idea than none!