Braking round corners

Bit too much steering input and just a smidgen too much on the brake pedal (definitely if you had ABS going) and you can find yourself in a whole world of going straight on. A bit less of either of those inputs and the chances are, you would have made it.

Still, this was an emergency stop situation and not at all a "B road blaster disaster", so lobbing out the anchors was probably the "right" thing to do...

In my car, it wouldn't have gone straight on :p Any hint of understeer is met with vicious amounts of oversteer shortly after. I'd have therefore left the road backwards :D At least you got to see what you were going to hit!
 
you sure you didn;t do a full lock on the wheel and slapped down the brakes hard with no ABS?

also dunno why people love ABS and traction control and stability programs, if your gonna use all that stuff you may as well get a chaufer to drive you where you want to go. ;)

i do it old skool!!!!!
 
but people cant even change things like wheels or brakes, they dont know they basic physics of what a car is about.... how are they expected to know how to drive?

maybe part of the whole test thing should include a day on a skid pan place once youve passed to give you an idea of how muhc momentum a car really has. that will open a fair few people's eyes and make them slow down
 
It's amazing how slippy roads can become. If there was a farm track after the bend, there may have been mud all over the road. Farmers don't really care too much about exiting a swampy field and leaving an inch of mud for several miles down the road.

I remember once in the wife's Ka approaching a junction. As soon as I tried to brake (normally, not hard or whatever, just trying to slow down), the car just locked and slid towards the junction. It was so smooth (and I was so suprised, plus not used to the car) that at first I thought I wasn't actually braking hard enough. It took a second or so to realise what was happening. Luckily the slippery stuff ran out before the actual junction itself and so I had some space to stop on, otherwise I'd have just been out into the oncoming traffic.

I can only assume it was black ice (was dark and a very cold night after a very cold day, I think around hallowe'en a few years ago) but I suppose it could have been anything. Whatever it was was extremely slippery and damn dangerous :)
 
when the wheels are locked, the car will just go straight... the hard part is for the driver not to panic, if you release the brakes youll be able to continue steering normally (as normally as you can in possibly low friction conditions) but then you have to either think about an escape route to avoid hitting what you were braking for... or just get the car straight and brake again. repeat if necessary as thats what good ABS would do for you or drive slower when its slippery.

i recommend you find a car park when its snowy and test the theory out there.
 
Dogbreath said:
ABS can not defy the laws of physics, it won't miraculously kick in and give the tyres enough grip to stay perfectly on a line in a corner AND perform an emergency brake. If you are cornering and you suddenly load the wheels up by braking hard, the slip angle will increase considerably, ABS or no ABS. A completely locked wheel has no steering ability whatsoever, one that is being locked an unlocked at high speed by the ABS system has reduced ability to control the direction of the car, but gives the driver more control than if it were not there.

Like an early poster, I'm fairly dismayed that this thread even exists, and goes to reinforce just how woefully inadequate driver training and the driving test is.
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Hmm, I was sure I put 'in theory' in my post somewhere. It's a fair point though - they really should make people do their test in vehicles without any fancy electronic assistance, so they know how to control a vehicle when the assistance invariably screws up. Techniques like cadence braking are invaluable and should really be required knowledge for all drivers.
 
Matt82 said:
when the wheels are locked, the car will just go straight... the hard part is for the driver not to panic, if you release the brakes youll be able to continue steering normally
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Unfortunately suddenly releasing the brakes whilst you are ploughing towards a hedge on full lock can cause the car to spin, in a simmilar way to lift off oversteer.

Skid pan training should be mandatory. Not only is it great fun, it would, as you mentioned, give people far more appreciation of the forces involved in getting a ton or so of metal to stop and change directions quickly.
 
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Cyber-Mav said:
you sure you didn;t do a full lock on the wheel and slapped down the brakes hard with no ABS?

also dunno why people love ABS and traction control and stability programs, if your gonna use all that stuff you may as well get a chaufer to drive you where you want to go. ;)

i do it old skool!!!!!
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Yea...right

What's it you have again Mav, Fiesta Mk 6?

:rolleyes:

I don't think I would feel safe driving a car with no ABS Im pretty heavy footed so I wouldn't mix well with no ABS :p
 
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Dogbreath said:
Unfortunately suddenly releasing the brakes whilst you are ploughing towards a hedge on full lock can cause the car to spin, in a simmilar way to lift off oversteer.

Skid pan training should be mandatory. Not only is it great fun, it would, as you mentioned, give people far more appreciation of the forces involved in getting a ton or so of metal to stop and change directions quickly.
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so you recon its possible to go from a zero front end grip situation (snow, spilt diesel etc) to then have enough front end grip to get oversteer?

yup... you need a skin pad day.
 
Matt82 said:
so you recon its possible to go from a zero front end grip situation (snow, spilt diesel etc) to then have enough front end grip to get oversteer?

yup... you need a skin pad day.
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So you think that going from a zero front end grip situation to having front end grip (letting go of the brakes restoring traction to the front wheels) with steering input isn't likely to cause the (already light) back end to twitch?

yup... you need a skid pan day.
 
if there was naff all grip in the first place, there wont be enough grip available for the front to have enough influence to upset the rear, unless it is some very odd circumstance.

ive done skid pad days, ive done track days, ive been there and done it, i walk the walk mate, you dont even talk the talk right.
 
Matt82 said:
unless it is some very odd circumstance.

ive done skid pad days, ive done track days, ive been there and done it, i walk the walk mate, you dont even talk the talk right.
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Ever driven a RWD? Apparently not ;) Although even then, there's still *plenty* of easily achieved situations where you can get the rear in front of the front on a FWD car... Especially when the road is slippery - almost anything can happen!
 
DRZ said:
So you think that going from a zero front end grip situation to having front end grip (letting go of the brakes restoring traction to the front wheels) with steering input isn't likely to cause the (already light) back end to twitch?

yup... you need a skid pan day.
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Ive locked up my wheels with them turnt trying to advoid something and as soon as they gripped I was doing a 720 spin down the motorway at 70MPH.
 
Matt82 said:
if there was naff all grip in the first place, there wont be enough grip available for the front to have enough influence to upset the rear, unless it is some very odd circumstance.

ive done skid pad days, ive done track days, ive been there and done it, i walk the walk mate, you dont even talk the talk right.
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Get over yourself ;) I don't need to walk, because I can drive properly ;)

You reckon you have been to all these track days, skid pans whatever but you cant even get a front wheel drive car to lift-off oversteer, even when the car is already massively out of balance?

Also, as NathanE rightly pointed out, if you turn in a RWD car so hard you get understeer, it can rapidly turn into oversteer without you doing much. But you learned that whilst you were walking the walk, didn't you?

L0rdMike said:
Ive locked up my wheels with them turnt trying to advoid something and as soon as they gripped I was doing a 720 spin down the motorway at 70MPH.
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I have had roughly the same thing happen to me on a wet roundabout, except I wasn't going particualrly fast so it just ended up in a bit of a waggle. Taught me to respect understeer situations in the MR2 a bit more, thats for sure!
 
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NathanE said:
Ever driven a RWD? Apparently not ;) Although even then, there's still *plenty* of easily achieved situations where you can get the rear in front of the front on a FWD car... Especially when the road is slippery - almost anything can happen!
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Managed to get my mums 1.8D 205 which is shockly slow to get some liftoff oversteer on my way up to Alton Towers, was the must fun I had on the whole trip. :p
 
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