Instinct taking over?

lordrobs

lordrobs

lordrobs

Soldato
Joined
30 Sep 2003
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16,504
Location
Norwich
Ok so I was driving to work today and I made a bit of a mistake, well not so much of a mistake as "one of those things" that would have resulted in an accident and would have been 100% my fault.

Anyway I was driving down a stretch of 50mph dual carriage way on the limit or a couple of mph over and I start slowly catching the van infront. I was nearing the nsl stretch but as I edged closer I decided to maintain my speed and overtake. Checked my mirror, checked my blindspot looked forward to start overtake as alls clear and the van is very close, its brake lights are on and I'm closing fast... ****

Braking wasn't an option as our speed difference was greater than the tiny bit of gap we had left so I braked moderately hard, done a quick right - left on the wheel to swerve into the outside lane, a screech from the tyres and the backend went light and the back started oversteer out so I done a quick jink right again with the steering to bring it back straight... all within about a second :eek:

Now heres the point of this thread (yes there was one), how in gods name did I do that? I'm not a particularly skilled driver in terms of car control, I don't push my car in corners, despite driving too fast a lot of the time I would consider myself a defensive driver. So was it instinct taking over? Have all my years of sitting infront of Gran Turismo and the like not been a waste after all or was today just my lucky day?

As a side point- I had pretty much decided this already but after today not only will I NEVER buy cheap tyre (already decided this) but if I ever buy a car with cheap tyres I'm not going to wait for them to wear down before replacing them- they will come straight off.
 
Gilly- Ticket bought ;)

Oracle- I know its wrong to say this but it was quite a buzz :o I kind of want more, not on the roads though next time and under slighty better circumstances :D
 
lordrobs said:
sitting infront of Gran Turismo
Click to expand...

LMAO, you might as well have said Mario Kart for all that GT would have taught you.....;)

90% luck, 10% instinct.
 
I remember several years ago I was driving back to Uni and had just come off the M42 on to the A512, I was going round a long left hander when I saw a car broken down and something wet looking in the road, I'd slowed down to 50 when I hit the wet patch and lost the back end immediately. I'd managed to catch the slide and swear rather loudly before my brain really registered what was going on. Like you I have no idea how I did it but I did.

In my Elise I tend to start to catch slides before they start to happen but that's probably because the car is so communicative that I can feel it starting to happen before it does.
 
Mostly luck :)

It depends if you're insticts are right then you get away with it. If not you spin out and die (possibly only of embarrasment). When I was (much :p) younger I got into a bit of trouble in my dads astra estate and my instinct was to let go of the wheel to let it straighten up and then steer away from the wall I was sliding towards, I got away with it as doing nothing at all would have resulted in an accident, but in hindsight I'm pretty sure that wasn't the correct thing to do :D

And many driving techniques are counter intuitive, like not lifting in the face of danger if you are driving a light FWD car ;)

Glad you escaped ok anyway :)
 
DreXeL said:
LMAO, you might as well have said Mario Kart for all that GT would have taught you.....;)

90% luck, 10% instinct.
Click to expand...

:p

Yeah what I learnt from LFS was probably more useful. As you say it was probably mostly luck.... or I am infact a driving god :o
 
Due to playing videogames and being interested in cars you know how to correct oversteer and when it happened to you for real your mind reacted very quickly.

This reminds of a activity we did at work where everyone went on a training course to correct oversteer and learn braking techniques and car control, was very good to experience what you experienced but in a controlled situation.
What was the most interesting was to see what happened if you did it wrong like brake when you shouldn't and the difference between a car with ABS and without.
 
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