Reg Local's Performance Driving Articles
Contents
Time constraints and dealing with the mistakes of others
Better than the deed itself - the moment...of anticipation
Zen and the art of changing gear
PART 2
PART 3
Introduction
This is a compilation of articles R_U_LOCAL has posted in the Advanced Driving section of Gassing Station. They are well worth reading.
Reg is a police class 1 driving instructor - his own introduction.
Time constraints and dealing with the mistakes of others
After the positive response to my first post, I've decided to start with a few little articles on the mental aspects of driving, and the characteristics of a good driver.
Stress is something that affects us all on a daily basis, and it's something that can badly affect our driving, so this first article is an attempt to look at two aspects of driving that can cause the most stress - time constraints and other drivers mistakes - and how best to deal with them.
Time Constraints
In my experience, one of the most stressful aspects of driving is having a time constraint. The most common excuse I hear when booking people for excess speed is “I’m sorry, but I’m late for work / a meeting / a fitting with my hat-maker / a funeral / a massage / an appointment with your Chief Constable Officer – if you look in the boot you’ll see my collection of whips and lubricants. Having a time constraint always magnifies small delays into major problems and creates tension. If you’re out for a leisurely drive on a Sunday and you get caught up in some roadworks, it’s not really a problem, but if you’ve set off for work on the last minute, only to find that a water main has burst and some 7-way temporary traffic lights have been set up, then the stress levels will understandably rise.
The most obvious tip to suggest here is to give yourself more time, but I think you’d find that a little patronising to say the least, especially coming from someone who knows the exact minute he has to set off from home which allows him to get to work on time.
I think it’s probably better to look at how to stop that additional stress from affecting your driving. I find that the best way to do that is just to accept that you’re going to be late. These things happen, and getting stressed about it won’t make the problem go away, or make the traffic move any faster. Make some phone calls *, let people know you’re going to be late, and then just take your time. If you’re unexpectedly delayed during a journey, and you decide to “try and make it”, you’re far more likely to start taking risks, and risks, at any level, are something a good driver should avoid at all costs.
Find a “happy place” in your mind – imagine you’re on the beach, or skiing, and when the traffic starts moving again, think about your driving, and not about the time.
- Please note – Reg Local does not condone use of a mobile phone, hands-free or otherwise, whilst driving a car. As we all know, removing your hands from the steering wheel, even for a fraction of a second, could result in death, destruction, and global warming.
I’ll be the first to admit that this is my biggest fault as a driver. I am extremely intolerant of other people’s mistakes, and this is the biggest single cause of stress to me as a driver. The best advice I was given in relation to this was from a senior instructor – “Reg, forgive them, for they know not what they do”.
If you’re ever in any doubt as to how inattentive and thoughtless the average driver can be, come and have a run out with me at work for a few hours. At some point, we’ll get a “code 1 emergency”, and the blue lights, flashing headlights and sirens will be switched on. Now, having worked for several years at my force driving school, teaching, amongst other things, probationary Officers how to drive correctly en route to an emergency, you’d have thought I’d have seen it all by now, but more often than you’d think, someone will do something astoundingly daft, and force me to re-write the book again.
People will pull out from junctions in front of me, indicate right and then pull to the left, pull out to pass the car in front which has pulled over to let me past, or just sit there, in lane 3 of the motorway, at 85mph, without realising I’m behind for 14 miles.
This is interesting – if there are a substantial minority of drivers out there who can’t see a fully liveried Police car with lights and sirens on, what chance have I got of them seeing me on my way home, in a blue BMW? It’s also the reason why I don’t ride a motorbike.
So, what’s the best way of dealing with these situations? Obviously, when you’re in a Police car, people’s reactions are fairly uniform if they realise they’ve made a mistake – they just want to curl up and die, and apologise profusely. If you’re en route to an emergency, it doesn’t really matter anyway, as you’ve got to continue to the job, and you just want the person out of the way.
If you’re in your own car, however, how do you avoid getting stressed if someone cuts you up, forces you to take avoiding action, or blatantly attempts to kill you?
Let’s go back to what the old sweat instructor told me – “Reg, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. In the vast majority of cases, these people genuinely don’t do these things deliberately. They make mistakes. Once the mistake is made, no amount of horn-blowing, headlight flashing, gesticulating, swearing, and suggestion of what coffee they should be drinking will make the mistake go away. It’s done.
The best drivers I’ve sat alongside take other people’s mistakes in their stride, shrug, and continue as though nothing happened. Unfortunately, I’m not wired that way, and for years, I was a fist-shaking horn-blower.
These days, I’ve learned that the best way for me to deal with these things is to laugh at them. Laugh at how stupid the other driver is – chuckle at their choice of car – guffaw at the aftermarket spoiler they’ve fitted – anything, in fact, that’s remotely amusing about the person, car or situation. If you laugh at it, your stress levels drop almost immediately, and your ability to go back to concentrating on your own driving returns.
You can, of course, learn to spot the drivers who are going to make mistakes, before they actually make them, but I’m off to work in 10 minutes, so that’ll have to wait till next time.
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Better than the deed itself - the moment...of anticipation
*Title courtesy of lounge lizard Jacques Brunswick from "The Simpsons"
I mentioned last time that it was better to forgive and forget other drivers mistakes, in order to keep your stress levels to a minimum, but how about if you actually knew what people were going to do before they did it? How much less stressful would driving be if you knew the vehicle you were approaching from behind on the motorway was about to move from lane 1 to lane 2, or if you knew the car in front was about to turn right, or if you were sure that the car waiting in a junction ahead was going to pull out in front of you?
If you knew these things in advance, then you'd be able to compensate for them before they even happened. You could move to lane 3 or adjust your speed on the motorway, slow down and move nearside for the right-turner, or adjust your safety position and be ready to brake for the car in the junction.
I can hear you - "don't be daft Reg" you're saying, "who do you think we are? Derren Brown? We're not bloody mind-readers or paranormal mentalists or anything".
Derren Brown is an interesting comparison at this point. I'm not a huge fan of magicians or conjurers, but I do like to try to suss out how they perform their tricks. I'm always disappointed when I find out it's done with wires and mirrors, but Derren Brown performs much subtler tricks, involving mind-reading and mental manipulation. What's more, he'll often tell you how the trick is done. When he's doing the mind reading stuff, he isn't performing psychic miracles, he's just watching people, spotting tiny clues in their body language and facial movements, and interpreting them correctly. Tiny eye movements, very slight head movements, hand rubbing, changes in respiration rate - such small things seem totally innocuous to most of us, but he's able not only to spot them, but to realise their significance, and make it appear as though he's "mind reading".
Drivers give off similar "body language", and you can, over time, learn to spot the signals that other drivers give off, interpret them correctly, and anticipate what they're going to do next.
Let's go back to the driver on the motorway first. The commonest problem you generally come across when driving along the motorway is people unexpectedly changing lanes - but do they always do it completely without warning? Usually, people will move from lane 1 to lane 2 in order to overtake a vehicle in front of them. If you extend your observations a bit further in front, you can train yourself to look for closing gaps, which indicate that one vehicle is catching up with another. If you spot one of these closing gaps early, you'll have plenty of time to move over to lane 3, or adjust your speed, before the inevitable happens, and the vehicle moves into lane 2. You'll often get a wave of appreciation from the driver too if they're any good, as their plan would have been to wait for you to pass, and by spotting their intentions and adjusting your position/speed, you've made it a little easier for them.
There are other, even more subtle things you can look for which will warn you that a vehicle is about to change lanes. People generally drive in the centre of their chosen lane on the motorway, however, just before they change lanes, they make a slight, wandering move in the direction they want to go, then they move back to the centre of the lane, and then they change lanes. I've considered this long and hard, and I think it's their physical reaction to their own mental planning process. They think about changing lanes, and as they're thinking, the vehicle wanders towards that lane slightly, then they correct it, and then act on their decision and change lanes.
If you can spot this slight wandering move, you've enough time (less than with closing gaps, but enough nonetheless) to change lanes or adjust your speed. Don't just take my word for it though - next time you're on the motorway, look for that little move, and you'll see that Reg isn't feeding you bull - it really works.
Here's another good one - it's not motorway related, and will probably ring bells with any Police instructors who are reading this. If you're driving along, and a vehicle emerges from a junction on the left ahead of you, and travels in your direction, there is a very strong possibility that it will turn right at some point in the next mile or so. There's nothing particularly scientific about this - if a car is coming from your left, it'll generally be continuing in that direction, which will mean a right turn somewhere ahead. It's a trick that Police instructors have used for years to impress passengers during a demonstration drive. They won't mention the vehicle pulling out, but after a few hundred yards, they'll include in their commentary "I'm anticipating that the vehicle in front will turn off soon, probably to the right".
Lo and behold, the instructor goes up in everyone's estimations when the vehicle does the (easily predicted) right turn.
So, that trick is good for showing off, but it's also very useful. If you can spot the ones that are going to turn off, it won't be a surprise when they do a lastminutebrakeandindicate, as favoured by a seemingly large number of todays drivers.
There are thousands more of these little "car body language" clues that you can pick up when driving around, and looking for them can really liven up a dull journey, and can genuinely improve you as a driver.
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Forgive yourself
There comes a point in a driving course when the nature of an instructors job changes. Take an advanced course for instance, which in my force is 4 weeks long. The first three weeks are very intensive for the instructor, who initially "drives" the car from the passenger seat, constantly staying ahead of the student, and issuing timely instructions designed to encourage the student to change their driving habits and improve their observations and planning.
Towards the end of week 3, however, the instructor starts letting the students have a go by themselves, and into week 4, they should be consistently producing drives of an advanced standard, without instruction. This is really the make-or-break point for the student, because it's the point when the instructor finds out whether all their efforts have been worth it, or whether they might as well have taken the opportunity to have the occasional drive themselves, because a student is hopeless when left to their own devices.
By far the most difficult task for an instructor is getting students ready for test. It goes without saying that driving tests of any description, by their very nature, are stressful events. Imagine, however, the additional stress on a students shoulders if that test meant the difference between getting their dream specialist role, or going back to their old job. That's why, on the lead-up to test day, the instructors role changes from teacher to psychoanalyst/coach/ego-booster/confidence builder/mind-reader and all-round shoulder to cry on.
The most difficult aspect for students to deal with is how to cope with their own mistakes. A common misconception is thinking that the examiner is looking for the perfect drive. Believe me - if the examiner were looking for a perfect drive from a student, they'd have the most disappointing job in the entire world. The thing is, you see, being human beings, none of us are perfect, and we all make mistakes.
Every single time I drive a car, no matter how far, I make a mistake or a series of mistakes. I could take you out and give you an advanced-level demonstration drive with full commentary, which to the untrained eye would be smooth, systematic, progressive and correct in every way, but there would be mistakes in there. I might allow my following position to slip back to 3 seconds a few times, or conversely, I might accelerate within my following position when overtaking. I could mis-judge my acceleration sense and have to brake gently on a motorway, or I might position incorrectly in a following position and miss an overtake. You might miss all the errors because my commentary would be directing your attention further up the road, but I'd know they were there.
So what chance have students got then, after 4 weeks training, of producing a perfect drive?
None whatsoever, and this is what's difficult to get across to them on the lead-up to test day.
You will make mistakes during your drive, and the examiner isn't looking to fail you for those mistakes. What they're looking for is your ability to recover from the mistake, and for you not to make the same mistake again. The examiner's view is that everyone can make a mistake, but if you make the same mistake again and again, then it's not a mistake anymore - it's a fault, and faults will fail you.
So how does this translate to our everyday driving? Better than you might think, actually.
The trick, if you can do it, is in three parts...
1. Recognise the error immediately.
2. Make a mental note of it.
3. When similar circumstances arise again, don't make the same mistake again.
And above everything else, you must forgive yourself.
If you carry on with the drive, mentally beating yourself up about a mistake that you have made, your ability to concentrate on your driving will drop considerably. I've known students who, for the first half of a test, have produced a very good, advanced-level drive. They have then made a simple mistake around the halfway point, and spent the rest of the drive going over that mistake in their mind - the second half of the drive has then suffered dramatically and the student has failed, simply because they struggle with the mental process of forgiving themselves.
If you're out for a drive and you make an error, providing an accident doesn't occurr, just forgive yourself, wave an apology to anyone else who might have been affected, and then leave the mistake where you made it.
Just remember to make that mental note, and don't make the same mistake again.
For the length of that particular drive, anyway.
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What's next?
By far the most valuable skill a driver can learn is planning. An advanced student is taught a whole range of skills during a driving course - systematic driving, skid control, overtaking, cornering, etc, etc, but the one skill I want them to keep above everything else is their ability to make driving plans.
Roadcraft says that good observations allow a driver to make driving plans based on...
1. What you can see,
2. What you can't see and
3. What you can reasonably expect to happen
Number 1 is easy, and shouldn't need any further explanation, unless you're a taxi driver or my mate Andy, who can't drive for toffee.
Numbers 2 and 3, however, aren't as simple, and could do with a little expansion.
A good driver isn't just someone who can react to what's happening in front of them. Young drivers naturally have very fast reaction times, and so, if fast reaction times were a measure of driving ability, young drivers aged between 17 and 23 would have the lowest accident rates. I don't think I need to dig up any accident statistics to show that isn't the case, do I?
Even the best drivers only have an average reaction time - I remember reading that Michael Schumacher had his reactions tested a few years ago, and had basic reactions that were no quicker than any other Joe Soap of a similar age. Reaction times are just that - the time it takes a person to react to basic stimuli.
"So come on then Reg - stop mucking about - what does make a good driver then?" I hear you ask.
Two essential ingredients. An active imagination, and an ability to constantly ask yourself questions.
An active imagination is necessary in order to fulfil number 2 above - what you can't see. As you drive into a left-hand bend with a limited view, you can see lots of things - the limit point, the camber of the road, the condition of the road surface, the white line system, on-coming vehicles, etc, etc. What you can't see are the car that's parked in an awkward position just out of view, the cyclist going in your direction (which is also going to pass the parked car), the dog off it's lead, the bus coming in the opposite direction that will cut the corner, and Arnold Schwarzenegger in a Harrier jump-jet, who's about to land in the road.
All the things that are out of sight are the reason why the fourth principle of cornering is that you should always be able to stop on your own side of the road, in the distance you can see to be clear. But, having such a good imagination, you already knew that, didn't you?
The thing is, you have to be careful not to let your imagination run away with you. An over active imagination can be as much a hindrance as not having one at all. If you actually did think that Arnold was about to land after every corner, you'd never get above 5mph, and that would be bordering on tedious.
A good driver will combine their imagination with an ability to ask themselves questions as they go along. If there is a combination of parked car/cyclist/on-coming bus around this corner, what is my plan? Will I slow down and let them sort themselves out? can I safely pass the cyclist before I get to the car? Do the wheels on the bus go round and round?
The most important question I teach people to ask themselves as they drive along is "what's next?"
What am I going to do next? What is the next hazard? after this corner, what's the next one like? When I've completed this overtake, what's next? I don't need to go on - you get the idea.
Start asking yourself "the question", and you'll find that your attention is drawn further up the road and your planning skills will improve no end.
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Zen and the art of changing gear
I regularly get friends asking me to take them out for a few hours driver training, so they can improve their skills and tell their mates they've been taught "by a proper Police Instructor".
If I get a full day with someone, I can give them a little taster of most aspects of advanced driving. A sort of Chinese buffet, starting with the basics of smooth car control, moving on to improving observations and planning, and then, if I've got some confidence with their ability, doing some higher speed cornering and overtaking. There's no way I could get anywhere near teaching someone everything they'd learn on a full course, but they get a small sample of most aspects, and I've never had anyone who doesn't think they've improved at the end.
Occasionally though, time will be limited, and someone will ask me to take them out "just for an hour or so" and teach them something.
So I always teach them something with which they'll feel a difference immediately, and which they'll go away and practice. It's also something that their regular passengers will notice immediately (a number of wives have already thanked me
) and it's something they can show off to their mates if they are so inclined.I teach them to change gear.
"Teach them to change gear Reg? Don't be daft - everyone knows how to change ruddy gear. Except for the Americans and they're too fat to use a proper gearstick."
Well, most people do know how to change gear in a manual car, and some people know how to change gear smoothly, but I can teach people to change gear so smoothly they can out-smooth Sean Connery (before he lost his hair and starred in Highlander).
It's a well established fact that you should operate a cars controls smoothly, but why? What difference does it make? To be honest, it doesn't make a great deal of difference at lower speeds - my mum is rougher with the gearstick than Big Daddy used to be with Kendo Nagasaki, but she only trundles round at town speeds, so it's never caused her a problem. The point at which smooth car control does start to matter is when the speed increases. When a car is travelling at high speed, the potential weight transfer either under heavy braking, hard acceleration, or high-G cornering is very high, and it's this transfer of weight across the car which can seriously unsettle it if it's not done smoothly. Changing gear is one way of transferring the vehicles weight backwards and forwards, and so, if you can do it as smoothly as possible, the weight balance of the car moves around in a more stable manner, and your progress will be safer. Plus, your passengers will appreciate it too.
So, what's the secret? Well, it's not one thing, but, as with most things in driving, it's a series of actions which must be coordinated and timed to perfection in order to get it right. I've seen grown men - some of them high ranking Police and Army officers, congratulating themselves, and feeling chuffed to pieces at getting one gearchange correct. Remember, these are people who make life-or-death decisions, and they were impressed enough with their own improvement in a basic driving skill, to say "let's do it again" with a big grin on their faces.
In true driving school style, I'll split the subject into two sections. Predictably enough, they are...
1. Changing up through the box.
2. Changing down through the box.
But before I move on to the more advanced sections 1 and 2, lets start with how you move the gearstick.
Most people simply change from the gear that they are in, to the gear they want to be in. But in reality, it's slightly more complex. What you're doing is taking the car out of the gear it's in, putting it into neutral, taking it out of neutral and then putting it into the next gear. I know they sound the same, but there's a very subtle difference, and if you can get into the habit of pausing for about 1/2 a second whilst in the neutral phase, you will give yourself enough time to operate the most important pedal for smooth gearchanges - the accelerator.
Oh, and a quick note on holding the gearstick. Police driving schools teach the "thumb up and thumb down" method and I quite like it, as it encourages you to place sideways pressure in the correct direction, and helps to avoid selecting the wrong gear. Basically, hold the gearstick with the palm of your hand, and if you're selecting first or second, point your thumb down. If you're selecting third, fourth or fifth (or sixth!), point your thumb upwards. If you place the pressure on the gearstick with your palm, you'll always move the gearstick in the right direction.
Most gearboxes are sprung so that the stick "rests" in neutral between third and fourth gears, so sideways pressure is only ever needed when selecting first, second and fifth (and sixth) gears. Changes to third and fourth just involve a movement either straight forward, or straight back from the neutral plane.
Right - back to 1 and 2.
In explaining how to change up through the 'box, I'm going to assume that you'll move the gearstick correctly, as described above - most importantly, including that essential pause in the neutral phase.
The most important aspect of changing up correctly is what you do with the accelerator pedal. A lot of drivers will press the clutch and completely release the accelerator pedal whilst they change gear. They will then release the clutch prior to re-applying the accelerator. This technique will usually result in the car jerking forward when the clutch is released because the engine speed doesn't match the road speed for that gear. This jerk is more pronounced in lower gears than it is in higher gears.
The way to avoid this jerk is to release pressure on the accelerator before and during the gearchange, but not to release it completely. I'll talk you through it.
Lets assume we're about to change up from 2nd to 3rd in an average car, at about 40MPH. In this imaginary average car, the engine will be doing 5000RPM at 40MPH in 2nd gear, and 3000RPM at the same speed in 3rd.
Before you start to change gear, ease off the accelerator slightly so the rate of acceleration slows. Then press the clutch and change gear as described previously. Whilst you're changing gear, ease the accelerator back until the revs have dropped from 5000 to 3000, and then hold the revs there whilst you release the clutch. Once you've released it, squeeze the accelerator, and continue accelerating. Allowing the revs to drop correctly will remove that jerkiness from the up-change, and you'll notice the difference immediately.
Changing down is very similar, but the process involves raising, rather than lowering the revs. Racing and competition drivers "blip" the throttle on down-changes to match engine speed to road speed, but I'm talking about road driving, which is slightly different. A blip is only suited to very fast gearchanges, which aren't necessary on the road, so in advanced road driving, the revs are raised during the downchange, and not blipped.
As you're changing gear, squeeze the accelerator gently to raise the revs from 3000 to 5000, release the clutch, and then continue accelerating.
It's taken me ages to explain something which can be done in around a second, and it's far easier to teach by demonstration and then trial and error, than it is to write it out, but I think that's my best explanation.
Have a go tomorrow when you get a chance. Don't just change from 2nd to 3rd - I always get students to drive along a straight piece of road at 50MPH, and change randomly through the 'box, without losing road speed. the gearchange will always be heard, but the point is that it shouldn't be felt.
Then, when you've practiced for a bit, see if anyone notices.
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A question of balance
What on earth do we mean when we talk about "balance" when driving a car? It's not like you can fall off it. Well, you can fall off the road of course, but not in the same way as the organ-donors who dust off their Tamajaki ZRZ900s every April and throw themselves around the countryside at warp factor 9.
Balance is an absolutely essential ingredient of high performance driving, and it's not a skill you can learn overnight. It's one that you need to practise, and occasionally get wrong in order to learn correctly. But first off, here's my explanation of balance as applied to driving a car. And before any of you physics pedants start (you know who you are), I know the correct terms for this will include "mass", "acceleration", "force" and no end of other scientific terms, but I'll be sticking with "weight" for now, as I'm a simple man and it's a complicated subject.
Balance is the ability of a driver to control a car in such a way that the transfer of weight involved in accelerating, braking and cornering does not lead to a loss of control.
Blimey - I think I've just written a definition! *Note to self - ring the publishers of "Roadcraft" tomorrow morning*
It's fairly obvious (and actually is written in Roadcraft) that a moving car is at it's most stable when travelling in a straight line at a constant speed. Any action that the driver takes to alter that state - increasing or decreasing speed and cornering - will transfer the vehicle's weight around the car. Braking, for instance, will transfer the vehicle's weight forwards. This will have two fairly obvious outcomes - there will be more weight pressing the front tyres into the road, and less weight pushing the back tyres into the road.
Imagine for a moment that you're driving a car with two boots - a Mk1 Toyota MR2 for instance. If you went out and bought a couple of sacks of potatoes and stuck them in the front boot, then the car would handle very differently than if you put them in the rear boot. If you're a fast driver, then you're effectively shifting those sacks of spuds into the front boot every time you brake, and chucking them in the back every time you accelerate.
Now, I'm not saying that the transfer of weight is a bad thing - far from it. In fact, it's an utterly unavoidable consequence of moving a ton-and-a-half of car along a road. Without it, none of us would enjoy driving high performance cars, as it's the transfer of weight which produces the sensations of speed that we all love - the hard cornering, the shove in the back under acceleration, and the dive under braking.
No - the transfer of weight isn't the problem. What is the problem, is how you transfer that weight.
Let's look at braking first, as it's a fairly simple operation in a car (none of this twiddling hand and foot levers that the organ donors have to do) involving pressing a pedal. That's it - you just press a pedal and the car slows down.
Well, not exactly. If you just jumped on the brake pedal really hard every time you braked, you wouldn't last very long. You'd get a sore right leg, it wouldn't do your car much good, and I'd give you 10 minutes before a taxi ran up your rear. The other problem when applying the brakes as though they are a switch is that pressing the brake pedal hard and fast transfers the vehicles weight forwards hard and fast. This can unsettle the rear end of the car and leave very little front-end grip left for steering.
The correct technique when braking is to start applying the brakes gently, and then firm up the pedal pressure as you go. I'm not talking about building up the pressure over several seconds - you should be able to do it smoothly in less than a second. You can use this technique even when braking very hard - the amount of weight you're transferring forwards is just the same as if you jumped on the pedal, but if you're smooth in your brake application, that weight transfer takes slightly longer, and that's what allows you to keep better control of the car. This is what I'd describe as "balancing" the car under braking.
Whilst we're on the subject of braking, it's just as important to be smooth coming off the brakes as it is to be smooth when applying them. It's relatively easy to learn how to press the pedal smoothly, but when you're steaming on, your attention is always on "what's next?", and it's very easy to just jump off the brakes and move straight back onto the accelerator for the next corner. Don't forget that you've transferred all that weight forwards when braking, and when you come off the brakes, it will settle rearwards again. Jumping off the brake will suddenly release weight from the front of the car, and if you're entering a corner, this can be disastrous. A much better technique is to ease off the brake pedal, which moves that weight rearwards at a slower rate, and helps to keep the car balanced. My instruction to students is never "off the brakes" - it's always "ooooofffff the brakes". They look at me as though I'm retarded - granted - but they get the idea.
The same is true for acceleration. If you just jump on and off the throttle, particularly if you drive a powerful car, then the resultant weight transfer can move around too quickly and unsettle the car. Take lift-off oversteer as an example. If a driver is pressing on in a corner, close to the cars limit, and has to suddenly tighten their line, then the car is liable to start sliding. If that driver then reacts badly and lifts off the accelerator in a panic, then the weight will inevitably move towards the front of the car and, more importantly, away from the rear, which will put the car into an oversteer situation that will take some skill and clear thinking from which to recover. The average driver's usual response at this point will be to hit the brakes, which, of course, transfers more weight forwards, and will pitch the car into a spin.
In a similar situation, a good driver will feather back slightly on the throttle, and use the accelerator to move the weight around to their advantage, rather than to their disadvantage. The key, as with most aspects of performance driving, is to do it smoothly.
It's the same with steering.
I reported a fatal accident a coupe of years ago in which a young driver lost control of his car whilst negotiating a bend on an NSL road at high speed. As part of the investigation, we prepared a video of the scene to be played in court. I demonstrated that a similar car could be driven through the bend almost 20mph faster than the speed at which the young driver had lost control. It wasn't a problem because my style of driving is smooth, whereas marks at the scene showed that this lad had chucked the car into the corner, and the manner in which he'd done it had put the car out of control.
Here's another nice little line.
If you sneak up on your car and make it jump, it'll throw a strop, but if you tell it what you're going to do, and ease it into it, it'll do whatever you want.
So there you go - keep your balance.
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The darkest of the dark arts - overtaking
If there is one skill that is misunderstood, badly practised and which frightens and intimidates drivers more than anything else, it's overtaking.
This doesn't have to be the case - there's no big mystery to overtaking, and when it's carried out correctly, it's no more dangerous than any other manoeuvre that we carry out whilst driving. For some reason, however, the general motoring public (bless 'em) seem to view overtaking as a potentially disastrous move only carried out by idiotic johnny-boy-racers. You only have to see the reactions I sometimes get from other drivers when I've carried out perfectly safe overtakes, to realise how many people have an unnecessary aversion to overtaking. If I had a pound for every time someone had suggested a method for putting vinegar on my chips after an overtake, I wouldn't be driving around in an 8 year-old car. And don't they know the bottle works the other way up?
This "overtakaphobia" seems to be a particularly English problem too. I've driven in France, Italy, and extensively in Scotland where I've found the locals far more inclined to assist you in overtaking by moving nearside or giving a helpful indicator when it's safe to go.
I'm of the opinion that this particular phobia stems from two sources - the unnecessarily over-pressed "speed kills" message, and the fact that no-one is ever taught how to overtake properly (unless they take further driver training, and unfortunately, that's only a very small percentage of drivers at the moment).
Now, I can't do much about the first point, other than to say that excessive speed is only a small factor in accident causes, particularly when compared with driver error, but I'm afraid I'm powerless to change the government's stance on speeding, so I can't help there.
What I can do, however, is give you a few pointers on how to overtake safely and efficiently, with maximum control and minimum fuss. So here goes...
The Following Position
"Oh no Reg - not that old chestnut again."
Bear with me - I know the following position is a much discussed topic, but it's a vital element in safe overtaking, and it's where the majority of overtakes start from. There are two main reasons for this - it's far enough back to give you a good view of the road ahead, and it's far enough forward to allow you to quickly move into the overtake if it's on.
If you sit two seconds behind the car in front (slightly more if it's a larger vehicle), then it won't be filling too much of your field of vision - you'll still have a reasonably good view of the road in front of that car. If you move your car sideways at the appropriate times, you can vastly improve your view of the road ahead, but the key is knowing when and where to move your car.
How many times have you seen drivers looking for an overtake by moving their head to the right to improve their view? In most cars, you can only really move your head by a maximum of about a foot, so the improvement in view by moving a foot to the right is fairly minuscule. It's much better practise to move the whole car, as the distance you can potentially move the car sideways is much greater and so, subsequently, is the improvement in your view.
So, where should you be moving to? That depends entirely on what the road is doing.
Lets start with a straight piece of road, as that's the easiest. Move your car towards the centre line whilst in your following position, and look into the distance. If it's safe to do so, you can then move your car across the centre-lines, over towards the offside of the road. This offside move is very alien to some people, but believe me, it's by far the best way to see if the road ahead is clear. The amount of sideways movement can vary from having your offside wheels on the white line, to straddling the white line, to moving completely over to the offside of the road, dependent on the available view. Don't get sucked into the old "right and wrong side of the road" stuff - unless white lines dictate otherwise, it's perfectly acceptable to use the full width of the road if it's safe to do so.
The most common mistake people make when moving offside for a look is this...
They look with their right foot.
To expand on that, people confuse the move offside with the start of an overtake, and, even if they know that they're just trying to improve their view, they accompany the offside move with a slight inadvertent squeeze on the accelerator. They look with their right foot. This is a problem if the overtake isn't on, because when they move back to the nearside, the inevitable result of looking with your right foot is that you close up your following position to less than 2 seconds. Do this several times, and without realising it, you can end up very intimately involved with the car in front, if you get my meaning.
So the sideways move should be just that - a sideways move for a look, and not accompanied with a forwards move.
On a left hand bend, the series of moves required to obtain the optimum view start with a move to the nearside to obtain a view of the bend down the left-hand side of the car in front. Once you've got that nearside view, it can be improved as you get closer to the corner, by moving the car offside. There's no prescriptive distance that you should move offside - just move enough to improve that view down the left-hand side of the car, without going so far that you end up blocking it.
I've just read that back, and it sounds complicated, so I'll try to simplify it...
Approaching the corner, move nearside and look nearside. As you get into the corner, move offside, but keep looking nearside.
There - that's better!
As you round the bend, you'll get a brief view of the road ahead as it straightens up, and if it appears clear, this view can then be confirmed with a move further offside, the outcome of which will finalise your decision as to whether to go or not.
For right-hand bends, the process is to initially move offside on the approach to the bend, and then, on entering the bend, to move as far nearside as it's safe to go. This move nearside should be accompanied with a slight closing of the following position to about 1 1/2 seconds (the only time I advocate getting closer than 2 seconds), and you should then obtain a good view down the offside of the car in front. As you round the bend, from this position, you'll obtain a good, early view of the road as the bend straightens, and if it's safe, you should be able to get out into the overtake nice and early - often whilst still negotiating the bend.
Again, that reads quite complicated, so I'll simplify it...
Approaching the corner, move offside and look offside, and then on entering the corner, move nearside, close up, and look offside.
Don't forget, though, that if the overtake isn't on from the right-hander, you should drop back to a 2-second following position.
So, that's how to move your car around from the following position to obtain a good view, but what else is there to consider?
Other considerations
This list could go on and on, and I'm in no doubt that I'll miss some things, but here goes...
Are there any junctions or entrances to the right? If there are, the car you're intending to overtake could possibly turn right, or something could emerge from the junction and come towards you. If you can get your overtake in well before you get to the junction, then fine, but if not, you should wait until you can see that nothing is going to emerge, and you're happy that the car in front isn't going to turn right.
Is there a faster moving vehicle behind that could overtake you? Organ-donors are notorious for this, as nothing's faster than their Tamajaki 900RSR is it? Your sideways movement looking for a view should be a good visual clue that you're looking for an overtake, but motorcyclists aren't usually too bothered about the complexities of overtaking - breath in and wind it on is the normal motorcyclist's overtaking technique, so us drivers have to compensate for them. A mirror-check is a vital part of the overall planning process for an overtake. Don't go if you're about to be overtaken yourself. And with that in mind...
Is the vehicle you're looking to overtake also looking to overtake? Do the movements of the vehicle suggest they're also looking for the opportunity to go? an un-trained driver will follow the next vehicle quite closely, and their decision to overtake will generally be made much later than a more advanced driver. They usually accompany this with an inability to check their mirrors before overtaking, which means that whilst you may have decided that it's safe to go, and started overtaking, their later decision making could mean that they move out and accelerate just as you're passing them, which isn't good.
Trust me - it's really not good.
What is the performance potential of your car? This may be an obvious one, but it's always something to consider. My plans for overtaking in my M3 differ considerably from my plans for overtaking in the MX-5. It's actually a good exercise to learn how to overtake in a slow car, as the planning required for overtaking is much more intense than if you drive a fast car.
Have I got somewhere to land? Landing space is essential, as you shouldn't be forcing other cars to slow down or alter their position just to allow you to overtake. If the car in front is a tailgater, but they're not actually overtaking, then your plan should always be to overtake both vehicles rather than to take one, and force in between them. If you're overtaking in a line of vehicles, it's much nicer to use acceleration sense to slot into your chosen gap than to over-accelerate and then come in under braking.
Is there a vehicle that you can't see which is currently out of view but travelling towards you? I use organ-donors as an example for this one too, as they're the fastestthingontheroad (TM). Imagine that there's a motorcyclist travelling at full chat towards you, but currently out of view. Can you complete your overtake before coming into conflict with them? If you can, then all well and good, but if you can't, then wait. This is another example of when a good imagination is important to an advanced driver.
Have you selected the correct gear? Gear selection is critical when overtaking. You need a gear which will give you the correct degree of acceleration when you start to go, but not one which is so low that you'll need an up-change halfway through the overtake. I prefer to have both my hands on the wheel whilst overtaking, thank you very much. That correct gear selection should also be considered when you're in the following position. The entry to corners should be accompanied by a change to a flexible gear in anticipation of an overtaking opportunity. If it turns out the overtake isn't on, then you should change back up again and wait for the next one.
Do I have an alternative plan? If things go badly wrong, what are you going to do? Can you brake and get back in behind the vehicle? Is there somewhere else you can go to avoid a collision? Did you put clean underpants on this morning?
As I said, this isn't an exhaustive list - take each overtake as it comes and consider every possible scenario as part of your planned approach.
Completing the overtake
In my mind, once you've weighed everything up and decided to go, that's it - the overtake is done and dusted, and mentally you should be moving on to the next hazard. Physically, you'll be accelerating and completing the overtake, but mentally you should be waaay ahead of that and well into the planning stage for your next manoeuvre, whether it be another overtake, a corner, a roundabout or any one of the other million things we have to deal with as drivers.
The overtake should be completed with a minimum of fuss, and should be started with a move offside, which should not be accompanied by any acceleration. This is very important, as you shouldn't be getting any closer to the vehicle in front than 2 seconds (or 1 1/2 on a right-hand bend). Once you're out, then you should accelerate to pass the vehicle.
You should aim to come back nearside leaving at least a 2 second gap between the overtaken vehicle and yourself. I find that the easiest way to get this right is to wait until you have a full view of the overtaken vehicle in your centre mirror before moving back to the nearside.
Of course, we know that information changes all the time, and once you're out on the overtake, you might decide that there is another one on. Mentally assess each overtake individually, taking account of all the points above, and if it's on, stay out and continue to overtake. My record was a memorable 18-vehicle overtake on a single-carriageway A road, carried out in perfect safety by one of my students.
Remain calm and level-headed when planning overtakes and never base any of your decisions on anger or aggression, or on the fact that you're late - this will affect your ability to make a rational decision and could introduce the one thing that you should always try to keep out of driving - an element of risk.
This has been by far the longest and most difficult post I've written so far. I apologise if I've gone on a bit, but as you can see, it's a very wide-ranging subject and I've tried not to miss anything out.
Although I'm sure I have done.
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How to stop things getting worse
We all get things wrong sometimes. It's the nature of being a human being - no-one is perfect (except Mrs Local of course, but I wouldn't dare say otherwise, would I?), and we're all disposed to getting things wrong once in a while. I've mentioned before that a good driver learns from and remembers prior mistakes, without dwelling on them, and uses them in their future driving plans as what not to do in similar circumstances.
There are occasions, however, when you can get things wrong, and your actions in trying to correct that mistake can either save the situation, or bugger things up even more than you already have. I'm talking, of course, about skidding.
Now, there's some very good advice in Roadcraft, and I've taught and stood by it's principles for a long time now, but there's one area where I feel that Roadcraft is fundamentally lacking (apart from the overtaking position, and I think we've argued that one to death now), and that's the books teachings on certain aspects of skid control.
It's not that the book is wrong, exactly, it's just that it's teachings on skid correction are just too basic for what is supposedly an advanced drivers manual (bible, even). Of course, most people don't get the benefit of some skid training (although a damn site more, and - dare I say - all new drivers should), and so you could argue that any skid training is advanced, in that it's beyond what an ordinary driver would get, but for me, some of the techniques it recommends are clumsy, basic, and in one case actually dangerous if you're travelling at high speed.
- Reg looks up to a room of silence - you could hear a pin drop. A Police instructor who doesn't agree with Roadcraft? What the chuff is going on?*
Roadcraft's description of skids, how they occurr and it's advice that the best option with skidding is to avoid getting into skids in the first place is all spot on, and not worth repeating here.
Where it is lacking, however, is in it's description of how to control certain kinds of skids - specifically situations where a driver is experiencing oversteer and understeer.
Now, there are two main errors that a driver makes which induce oversteer and understeer. One is accelerating too harshly when cornering, with which Roadcraft deals, shall we say, adequately. The other one is by cornering at excessive speed, which is where I feel the book's advice is flawed.
Let's start with oversteer, and for my example, I want you to imagine that you're driving a rear-wheel drive car without traction control. *Reg sees the TVR drivers ears pricking up*
The advice in roadcraft if you've started to oversteer, is to first of all release the accelerator or declutch and release the accelerator. Now, if your oversteer is being caused by excessive bootage of the right pedal, then this advice is entirely correct - releasing the accelerator or pressing th clutch and lifting off will almost immediately stop the rear wheels from spinning, regain you some road grip, and providing you've counter-steered correctly, then you should have yourself back on the straight and narrow in next to no time.
But what if your oversteer is caused by travelling excessively fast for the corner? Let's start by having a look at what's happening to the car as it starts to break traction. As the car travels round the corner, it's weight is moving over the wheels which are on the outside of the corner. The more speed you carry into (or build up during) the corner, then the more weight is transferred onto the outer wheels. At the same time, the tyres on those outer wheels are trying to counter the cars natural tendency to travel straight on, by holding lateral (sideways) grip with the road surface. Now, as I've mentioned before, there's only a certain amount of grip available to the tyres, and by cornering harder, you're getting less grip from the inside wheels (because the weight transfer to the outside ones means there's far less weight pressing the inside wheels down), and you're demanding more grip from those outside tyres.
- And breathe*
And what is Roadcraft's advice in this situation? The same as before - release the accelerator, or declutch and release the accelerator.
Let's think about that for a minute shall we? In a situation where the rear-end of a car is losing grip, Roadcraft is advising us to perform an action which will transfer weight towards the front of the car, and more importantly away from the rear of the car, thus removing grip from the rear at exactly the time when you want more grip, rather than less.
Not the best advice in my opinion.
So what should you do then Reg, you smartarse?
Don't lift off for starters - not completely anyway. The idea is for you to correct the skid using the steering and throttle by not adding any more speed, and by counter-steering.
When I say "by not adding any more speed", think about whet you do when you're in a 40MPH speed limit area - you accelerate up to your chosen speed, and when you've reached it, you relax the pressure on the accelerator slightly so that the car remains at that speed. Note the wording - you relax the pressure on the accelerator - you don't release it. If you released it, the car would start to slow down, whereas you just want it to stay at that speed, so you relax your pressure, but you definitely keep some pressure on the accelerator.
That's what you should do - relax the pressure on the accelerator just slightly, so that the car isn't gaining any more speed - it's what I'd describe as a slight feathering back on the throttle. Certainly not a release of the throttle.
At the same time, you should steer in the direction you want to go.
The steering part isn't any more complicated than that. I could harp on for ages about steering in the direction of the skid, counter-steering and opposite lock, but all you need to know is that you should steer in the direction you want to go.
You should, of course, be careful not to steer too far in the direction you want to go, as this could induce a secondary skid, and these are, on the whole, much worse than the primary skid, and your trousers probably couldn't cope with the additional stress.
So steer just enough in the direction you want to go, and no less.
What about understeer then Reg? Some of us drive Astra VXRs and Golf GTIs - what about us.
Patience my children.
If you're understeering due to excessive acceleration, then, again, Roadcraft's advice is sound. Release the accelerator, or declutch and release the accelerator, take a little steering off, and you should be all smiles again almost instantly.
But again, Roadcraft is lacking somewhat when it comes to understeer due to excessive speed. Many front-wheel drive cars will react to a lift on the throttle in a similar (although not identical) way to a rear-wheel drive car. They will pitch into oversteer as a reaction to the transfer forward of the cars weight which is associated with a lift on the throttle. This FWD oversteer can be even more difficult to catch than in a RWD car, and so, unless you're playing on a circuit or skidpan, should be avoided at all costs.
So, you've carried too much speed into a corner, the car is running wide and not responding to extra lock, and you're suddenly becoming very concerned about an imminent expensive alloy wheel / kerbstone interface - what do you do?
As explained earlier, don't lift off the throttle completely, but feather back on it slightly. In this case you do want to lose a little speed, so that feathering back should be a little more than you would in the oversteering TVR. The reason you want to lose speed is because this will transfer some weight back onto the front wheels, regain you some front-end grip, and, together with steering towards where you want to go, will have you pointing back in the right direction presently.
I'd better just add that practising this stuff on the road isn't to be advised. You could find a quiet roundabout somewhere and have a go, but there's always the possibility that something could go badly wrong and you may well end up with a dented car, a dented ego, a dented driving licence, a dented wallet and.... I'm sure you get the picture.
My advice if you want to have a go at this stuff is this - pay out a few quid and have a half-day at a skid school. It'll be in someone else's car, so you're car won't get dented, you'll have someone who really knows what they're doing sat next to you, so your ego will remain intact, it'll be off-road, so your licence is safe and although the cost might dent your wallet a bit, the pay-off may well come back and save you a fortune at some time in the future.
Go on - you know it makes sense.
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