Do you walk the dog, or does it walk you?
Discussion
This is a short discussion on the merits of "driving" a car versus "guiding" it or in other words "letting it go a bit".
The first thing I would say on this subject is that it is, to a degree, car-dependant. Some cars are naturally predisposed to being gently guided down the road. "Wafting" is an oft-used PH term, and I think it's a good term for describing that feeling that a car is just carrying you along in comfort with nothing more than a little guidance from the driver. Its generally accepted that large Mercedes and Jaguar models, for instance, are "wafters".
Other cars, however, demand your full attention most of the time. It's nigh-on impossible to waft along in a Caterham, for instance, or any number of other ostensibly "sporting" cars where the priority of the manufacturer is to maximise driving enjoyment above all other considerations.
These are (in a purely road car context) the two extremes though, and there are elements of both mindsets which can cross over all car types. For instance, I have had some very spirited drives in large Jaguar and Mercedes cars over the years, and their size and weight have required my full attention in order to maintain maximum progress. It's also true that some Caterham drivers use their cars as daily drivers and most commutes these days involve an element of stop-start and limited speed motorway driving. Are these drivers fully committed to controlling their cars under these circumstances? No, of course not - they will adapt to the daily use of their car and find a comfortable middle ground to allow them to feel at least a litle relaxed on their mundane journeys.
Whenever I've taught someone high performance road driving, there is a tendency - even amongst drivers who have plenty of experience in high performance machinery - to try too hard and "overdrive" the car. It's sometimes nervousness and its sometimes overconfidence and it's sometimes a determination to "show him what I can do".
To an experienced instructor, the signs are obvious. Although their seating position may be correct, they sit in a tense manner, shoulders tight and jaw set. They grip the steering wheel tightly and snatch for the gearstick as though it's a small mammal trying to escape. Head and eye movements are twitchy and quick and they never really look as though they are comfortable - always shuffling slightly in their seat, adjusting their position and fiddling with the mirrors. Its also common to see them constantly scratching an itch or rubbing an ear.
The result is that these inconsistencies - these tensions - have a subtle, but very real effect on their driving and the way the car moves down the road. A tight grip on the steering wheel results in rough steering inputs, particularly during the vital initial turn of the wheel. Snatched gearchanges lead to jerky front-to-rear weight transfer. Tension and discomfort lead to pedals being pressed, rather than squeezed.
The thing is though, that these drivers often feel that they are getting the maximum out of their cars by putting the maximum effort into the driving, when the reality is that they are overdriving the car and probably not making the best or safest progress as a result.
My advice is that it's always better to relax a little and let the car do more of the work. It's inevitable that as you go outside your usual comfort zone, you'll feel tense and anxious at times, but bear a few basic principles in mind and your driving will improve no end.
Firstly, make sure you're completely comfortable with your driving position. I'll not patronise you with a full description of how to achieve a perfect driving position because we're all different shapes and sizes, but just make sure you can see out clearly, you can reach and operate all the controls fully and that your mirrors are set properly.
Secondly, try to stay relaxed. Monitor how you're feeling during a drive and take the occasional mental "step back". If you feel tension creeping in, take a little speed off, relax your shoulders, reassess where you are and how you are driving, and then carry on.
Thirdly - and this is probably the whole point I'm trying to make with this post - let the car do most of the work. Trust me on this - the car wants to go. Anyone who has driven a truly fast car will never forget that sense of urgency with which the car seems to want to get down the road, even at moderate speeds.
Even average cars these days have plenty of performance and want to get you down the road at a reasonable pace.
Your job isn't to force the car along the road. It is to guide the car in the direction you want to go, whilst allowing the car to go as much as it is safe to.
Does that mean that the driver's inputs are less important? No - if anything they are more important, because it's the driver's skills in gently moving the car away from it's preferred straight and consistent path which make all the difference between safe, smooth progression and rough, jerky and potentially unsafe driving.
Think of driving in the same way as you might think about walking an untrained dog. You can walk the dog on a tight, restrictive lead and it will pull and stop and be awkward and generally hinder your progress. If you let the dog off its lead, it will run off, out of control and possibly cause mayhem.
If, however, you invest in one of those extending "reel" type dog leads, you can rein the dog in and control it when you need to, and you can also let it have a good old run-around whilst maintaining an element of control.
Driving.
Like having a naughty dog on an extending lead...
The first thing I would say on this subject is that it is, to a degree, car-dependant. Some cars are naturally predisposed to being gently guided down the road. "Wafting" is an oft-used PH term, and I think it's a good term for describing that feeling that a car is just carrying you along in comfort with nothing more than a little guidance from the driver. Its generally accepted that large Mercedes and Jaguar models, for instance, are "wafters".
Other cars, however, demand your full attention most of the time. It's nigh-on impossible to waft along in a Caterham, for instance, or any number of other ostensibly "sporting" cars where the priority of the manufacturer is to maximise driving enjoyment above all other considerations.
These are (in a purely road car context) the two extremes though, and there are elements of both mindsets which can cross over all car types. For instance, I have had some very spirited drives in large Jaguar and Mercedes cars over the years, and their size and weight have required my full attention in order to maintain maximum progress. It's also true that some Caterham drivers use their cars as daily drivers and most commutes these days involve an element of stop-start and limited speed motorway driving. Are these drivers fully committed to controlling their cars under these circumstances? No, of course not - they will adapt to the daily use of their car and find a comfortable middle ground to allow them to feel at least a litle relaxed on their mundane journeys.
Whenever I've taught someone high performance road driving, there is a tendency - even amongst drivers who have plenty of experience in high performance machinery - to try too hard and "overdrive" the car. It's sometimes nervousness and its sometimes overconfidence and it's sometimes a determination to "show him what I can do".
To an experienced instructor, the signs are obvious. Although their seating position may be correct, they sit in a tense manner, shoulders tight and jaw set. They grip the steering wheel tightly and snatch for the gearstick as though it's a small mammal trying to escape. Head and eye movements are twitchy and quick and they never really look as though they are comfortable - always shuffling slightly in their seat, adjusting their position and fiddling with the mirrors. Its also common to see them constantly scratching an itch or rubbing an ear.
The result is that these inconsistencies - these tensions - have a subtle, but very real effect on their driving and the way the car moves down the road. A tight grip on the steering wheel results in rough steering inputs, particularly during the vital initial turn of the wheel. Snatched gearchanges lead to jerky front-to-rear weight transfer. Tension and discomfort lead to pedals being pressed, rather than squeezed.
The thing is though, that these drivers often feel that they are getting the maximum out of their cars by putting the maximum effort into the driving, when the reality is that they are overdriving the car and probably not making the best or safest progress as a result.
My advice is that it's always better to relax a little and let the car do more of the work. It's inevitable that as you go outside your usual comfort zone, you'll feel tense and anxious at times, but bear a few basic principles in mind and your driving will improve no end.
Firstly, make sure you're completely comfortable with your driving position. I'll not patronise you with a full description of how to achieve a perfect driving position because we're all different shapes and sizes, but just make sure you can see out clearly, you can reach and operate all the controls fully and that your mirrors are set properly.
Secondly, try to stay relaxed. Monitor how you're feeling during a drive and take the occasional mental "step back". If you feel tension creeping in, take a little speed off, relax your shoulders, reassess where you are and how you are driving, and then carry on.
Thirdly - and this is probably the whole point I'm trying to make with this post - let the car do most of the work. Trust me on this - the car wants to go. Anyone who has driven a truly fast car will never forget that sense of urgency with which the car seems to want to get down the road, even at moderate speeds.
Even average cars these days have plenty of performance and want to get you down the road at a reasonable pace.
Your job isn't to force the car along the road. It is to guide the car in the direction you want to go, whilst allowing the car to go as much as it is safe to.
Does that mean that the driver's inputs are less important? No - if anything they are more important, because it's the driver's skills in gently moving the car away from it's preferred straight and consistent path which make all the difference between safe, smooth progression and rough, jerky and potentially unsafe driving.
Think of driving in the same way as you might think about walking an untrained dog. You can walk the dog on a tight, restrictive lead and it will pull and stop and be awkward and generally hinder your progress. If you let the dog off its lead, it will run off, out of control and possibly cause mayhem.
If, however, you invest in one of those extending "reel" type dog leads, you can rein the dog in and control it when you need to, and you can also let it have a good old run-around whilst maintaining an element of control.
Driving.
Like having a naughty dog on an extending lead...
Driving can be a bit like playing a sport. When you're learning every part of the process has to be thought about consciously. As you become more experienced a lot of it can be relegated to the subconscious and muscle memory so you can focus more on what's actually going on around you and on making everything smoother and more efficient.
When sports players choke it's often because they're thinking consciously about what ought to be subconscious. It can be nerves or, like Andy Murray at Wimbledon this year, trying out new things taught by a new coach making them rethink all the basics they normally don't have to think about. That suddenly makes them play like the amateur who's learning the sport from scratch rather than the professional athlete honing existing skills and building upon them.
When a driver gets into a car with an advanced driving instructor he knows that person will be analysing everything he does and, unlike his usual passengers, he isn't going to be impressed by a bit of showing off, a slightly higher than average driving style or any amount of bulls
t. The driver is keen to impress but is doubting his ability and is thinking about all the driving inputs that are normally subconscious. This can make the driver tense and nervous and his inputs less smooth and flowing than they normally would be.
When sports players choke it's often because they're thinking consciously about what ought to be subconscious. It can be nerves or, like Andy Murray at Wimbledon this year, trying out new things taught by a new coach making them rethink all the basics they normally don't have to think about. That suddenly makes them play like the amateur who's learning the sport from scratch rather than the professional athlete honing existing skills and building upon them.
When a driver gets into a car with an advanced driving instructor he knows that person will be analysing everything he does and, unlike his usual passengers, he isn't going to be impressed by a bit of showing off, a slightly higher than average driving style or any amount of bulls
t. The driver is keen to impress but is doubting his ability and is thinking about all the driving inputs that are normally subconscious. This can make the driver tense and nervous and his inputs less smooth and flowing than they normally would be.Something I've picked up and practiced over the years (and has probably made the biggest improvement to the smoothness of my driving) is to make(and remove) control inputs and wait momentarily for the car to respond before making any (unnecessary) corrections.
This can help to prevent the over-driving and steering in particular becomes much more efficient, with fewer movements.
This can help to prevent the over-driving and steering in particular becomes much more efficient, with fewer movements.
I'm a high performance instructor over in America, at the Skip Barber school. While reading through your post I chuckled to myself as I remembered examples of the nervous driver, the fidgeting, the overly aggressive gear shift. What I have found, and what I teach to all of my students, is that one very important aspect of slowing down your motions and reducing the tendency to over-drive is what your eyes are doing. Consistently, the people who are making jerky last minute motions are the ones who get trapped in a state of tunnel vision, looking straight down the hood of the car. Our minds only have so much time to process the data we are taking in, and if your data is only 20 feet in front of you, that gives you very little time to react, especially when travelling at track speeds.
I have my students look as far forward as possible. When exiting a corner, I have them looking for their entry point all the way down the straight. When they get to the entry point, they should already be looking for the apex, and so on. Without addressing specifics about their inputs, or even their comfort level, they quickly begin to do the right things all on their own, and their confidence and comfort level come up automatically. On the autocross course at our school, there are some corners where I have students turn their heads to look out the side window rather than the windscreen, to get an earlier view at where they are headed. Once they know where they want to go, their hands take them there automatically. Even on the skid pad, knowing and looking at the destination has a huge effect on their ability to control a slide.
Of course, it's relevant in street driving as well. The farther down the road you have "mental data" for, the less things will surprise you. Fewer throttle inputs means better mileage as well, and you are more likely to see the speed trap coming up ahead before it's too late.
I have my students look as far forward as possible. When exiting a corner, I have them looking for their entry point all the way down the straight. When they get to the entry point, they should already be looking for the apex, and so on. Without addressing specifics about their inputs, or even their comfort level, they quickly begin to do the right things all on their own, and their confidence and comfort level come up automatically. On the autocross course at our school, there are some corners where I have students turn their heads to look out the side window rather than the windscreen, to get an earlier view at where they are headed. Once they know where they want to go, their hands take them there automatically. Even on the skid pad, knowing and looking at the destination has a huge effect on their ability to control a slide.
Of course, it's relevant in street driving as well. The farther down the road you have "mental data" for, the less things will surprise you. Fewer throttle inputs means better mileage as well, and you are more likely to see the speed trap coming up ahead before it's too late.
Thank you!
You mean other than, "if you turn far enough left, you're gonna find yerself goin' right?" (Was that movie popular in England?)
I do fit some of the stereotypes, I did oval racing far longer than I've done road courses, in many different types of cars. Respect the track layout or not, ovals can teach you fantastic things about car control and driving in traffic at the limit.
The things I've been focusing on the most lately are finding the sweet spot of rotation for both dry and wet scenarios, left foot braking and shifting without the clutch, and brake-boosting in turbocharged cars. Did you want to start a discussion on anything in particular?
You mean other than, "if you turn far enough left, you're gonna find yerself goin' right?" (Was that movie popular in England?)
I do fit some of the stereotypes, I did oval racing far longer than I've done road courses, in many different types of cars. Respect the track layout or not, ovals can teach you fantastic things about car control and driving in traffic at the limit.
The things I've been focusing on the most lately are finding the sweet spot of rotation for both dry and wet scenarios, left foot braking and shifting without the clutch, and brake-boosting in turbocharged cars. Did you want to start a discussion on anything in particular?
In terms of control something like a Caterham is quite easy to drive in a relaxed manner, providing it has not been set up with super twitchy geometry or aggressive throttle response. I'll give you wafting being impossible though as the NVH is never going to match a barge.
In terms of wanting to drive in a wafty way, much trickier...
In terms of wanting to drive in a wafty way, much trickier...
SnapUndersteer said:
is that one very important aspect of slowing down your motions and reducing the tendency to over-drive is what your eyes are doing. Consistently, the people who are making jerky last minute motions are the ones who get trapped in a state of tunnel vision, looking straight down the hood of the car...
I first discovered this riding a mountain bike down very rocky mountain trails and downhill courses. Looking up and staying relaxed helps prevent trying to negotiate every single boulder, drop, comfort braking or weaving a line through a bend.Those that keep their eyes up are quicker, smoother and better on the brakes than those who don't.
SnapUndersteer said:
....I have my students look as far forward as possible. When exiting a corner, I have them looking for their entry point all the way down the straight. When they get to the entry point, they should already be looking for the apex, and so on....
Very few people appear to do this on the road. The majority appear to slow (but give no consideration to lack of visibility or oncoming traffic), turn in very early, but 'miss the apex', clumsily change gear (whilst coasting) approximately half-way around the bend before they begin accelerating again. SnapUndersteer said:
...On the autocross course at our school, there are some corners where I have students turn their heads to look out the side window rather than the windscreen, to get an earlier view at where they are headed.
On some very tight Alpine hairpins I have found myself looking out of the rear passenger windows or having my helmet chin guard on my shoulder .MC Bodge said:
I first discovered this riding a mountain bike down very rocky mountain trails and downhill courses. Looking up and staying relaxed helps prevent trying to negotiate every single boulder, drop, comfort braking or weaving a line through a bend.
Those that keep their eyes up are quicker, smoother and better on the brakes than those who don't.
Yep, glad you agree and have found more uses for it Those that keep their eyes up are quicker, smoother and better on the brakes than those who don't.
MC Bodge said:
The majority appear to slow (but give no consideration to lack of visibility or oncoming traffic), turn in very early, but 'miss the apex', clumsily change gear (whilst coasting) approximately half-way around the bend before they begin accelerating again.
Excruciatingly accurate. My favorites are the ones who nearly understeer off the course, with the front tires barely managing to scrub enough speed off in time to keep it on the pavement. Then, and only then, is it an appropriate time to downshift and accelerate down the straight, apparently. MC Bodge said:
On some very tight Alpine hairpins I have found myself looking out of the rear passenger windows or having my helmet chin guard on my shoulder .
I don't think I've ever used a rear window before, that's hilarious. I can't even imagine a corner that tight, and I live in arguably one of the best areas of the States for mountain driving roads. Typically my solution for such a quick turnaround involves copious amounts of weight transfer and liberal application of the Fun Pedal. Why pivot your head when you can pivot the car? :PGassing Station | Advanced Driving | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff