Nearly crashed-wondering if better driving option
Discussion
Sorry, this is a repost i made on the roads section to have rant about non signed t junctions, but I'm wondering if the way I handled this situation could have been better, i.e would not braking so hard have put me in the hedge OR allowed me to corner better?. obviously at the time instinct took over, but for future reference...
"Going down a country road at 60 (ok maybe 62-63ish) at night in my celica, when suddenly out of nowhere, with no signposts I come to a t-junction. theres a wall of hedges in front of me, and mounted banks at either side. slam on the brakes and the car skids, twist the wheel to the left and just about make it round the corner (even got the back end out), only trouble is ive oversteered and now i'm facing the bank on the nearside of the road having come round the corner, so i throw the wheel back the other way (all the time the car is still skidding (wish i'd bothered with the traction control model)) and finally manage to straighten up. Had anything been coming I'm sure my car would have been a bit of a mashup.
I'm pretty sure this wasn't my bad driving, but actually the road signage and layout, even my girlfriend admitted that the junction came out of nowhere.
Anyway, just wanted to rant about the abismal signage."
"Going down a country road at 60 (ok maybe 62-63ish) at night in my celica, when suddenly out of nowhere, with no signposts I come to a t-junction. theres a wall of hedges in front of me, and mounted banks at either side. slam on the brakes and the car skids, twist the wheel to the left and just about make it round the corner (even got the back end out), only trouble is ive oversteered and now i'm facing the bank on the nearside of the road having come round the corner, so i throw the wheel back the other way (all the time the car is still skidding (wish i'd bothered with the traction control model)) and finally manage to straighten up. Had anything been coming I'm sure my car would have been a bit of a mashup.
I'm pretty sure this wasn't my bad driving, but actually the road signage and layout, even my girlfriend admitted that the junction came out of nowhere.
Anyway, just wanted to rant about the abismal signage."
I suppose i would suggest one of the following:
Driving too fast for the conditions
Not paying enough attention
Tired
Cr*p headlights (did you have full beams on?)
Or possibly all four.
But with full beams on at night and driving at a suitable speed for the conditions, I can't see how you would fail to see a T-junction until that late. Country roads often have little or no signage: you need to drive at a speed where you can spot and respond to hazards.
What if it had been a bend and someone coming round it?
BTW I would have just done an emergency stop, not tried to turn. You're better doing your braking in a straight line.
Driving too fast for the conditions
Not paying enough attention
Tired
Cr*p headlights (did you have full beams on?)
Or possibly all four.
But with full beams on at night and driving at a suitable speed for the conditions, I can't see how you would fail to see a T-junction until that late. Country roads often have little or no signage: you need to drive at a speed where you can spot and respond to hazards.
What if it had been a bend and someone coming round it?
BTW I would have just done an emergency stop, not tried to turn. You're better doing your braking in a straight line.
benbeck1984 said:
Sorry, this is a repost i made on the roads section to have rant about non signed t junctions, but I'm wondering if the way I handled this situation could have been better, i.e would not braking so hard have put me in the hedge OR allowed me to corner better?. obviously at the time instinct took over, but for future reference...
"Going down a country road at 60 (ok maybe 62-63ish) at night in my celica, when suddenly out of nowhere, with no signposts I come to a t-junction. theres a wall of hedges in front of me, and mounted banks at either side. slam on the brakes and the car skids, twist the wheel to the left and just about make it round the corner (even got the back end out), only trouble is ive oversteered and now i'm facing the bank on the nearside of the road having come round the corner, so i throw the wheel back the other way (all the time the car is still skidding (wish i'd bothered with the traction control model)) and finally manage to straighten up. Had anything been coming I'm sure my car would have been a bit of a mashup.
I'm pretty sure this wasn't my bad driving, but actually the road signage and layout, even my girlfriend admitted that the junction came out of nowhere.
Anyway, just wanted to rant about the abismal signage."
"Going down a country road at 60 (ok maybe 62-63ish) at night in my celica, when suddenly out of nowhere, with no signposts I come to a t-junction. theres a wall of hedges in front of me, and mounted banks at either side. slam on the brakes and the car skids, twist the wheel to the left and just about make it round the corner (even got the back end out), only trouble is ive oversteered and now i'm facing the bank on the nearside of the road having come round the corner, so i throw the wheel back the other way (all the time the car is still skidding (wish i'd bothered with the traction control model)) and finally manage to straighten up. Had anything been coming I'm sure my car would have been a bit of a mashup.
I'm pretty sure this wasn't my bad driving, but actually the road signage and layout, even my girlfriend admitted that the junction came out of nowhere.
Anyway, just wanted to rant about the abismal signage."
You couldn't stop safely in the distance you could see to be clear. There's your problem.
Signage was poor, yes, but that doesn't exonerate you.
Edited by CommanderJameson on Saturday 7th April 10:36
saxmund said:
I suppose i would suggest one of the following:
BTW I would have just done an emergency stop, not tried to turn. You're better doing your braking in a straight line.
BTW I would have just done an emergency stop, not tried to turn. You're better doing your braking in a straight line.
Braking in straight line would have ended me in the hedge.
Didn't have full beam on as cars were coming other way on the part of road I was on. Lights were on on highest setting, but just didn't see the junction.
All in all probably was going too fast and didn't see the tjunction in time, so i'm accepting that, but aside from that there must have been something i could have done better
benbeck1984 said:
saxmund said:
I suppose i would suggest one of the following:
BTW I would have just done an emergency stop, not tried to turn. You're better doing your braking in a straight line.
BTW I would have just done an emergency stop, not tried to turn. You're better doing your braking in a straight line.
Braking in straight line would have ended me in the hedge.
Didn't have full beam on as cars were coming other way on the part of road I was on. Lights were on on highest setting, but just didn't see the junction.
All in all probably was going too fast and didn't see the tjunction in time, so i'm accepting that, but aside from that there must have been something i could have done better
IMHO, you'd have mitigated pretty much everything had you been going a bit slower, as you say. Once the faeces hits the air-con, all bets are off anyway.
benbeck1984 said:
Didn't have full beam on as cars were coming other way on the part of road I was on. Lights were on on highest setting, but just didn't see the junction
There obviously wasn't anyone coming the other way when you failed to see the T-junction so you should have had full beams on then. Surely you flick them off when they would start to be a nuisance to an oncoming car and then flick them on again as you pass? If you really can't drive on full beams then you have to accept you can't see as far as you'd like and slow down accordingly. I think Commander Jameson has it in a nutshell.
Putting aside the issues of speed and main beam which have already been discussed, the question is how to avoid driving into the scenery. If your car has ABS, you can brake as hard as possible and steer at the same time. It sounds as though you locked up the wheels, however, so I assume that you don't have ABS. In that case you only have two choices. One is to brake in a staight line, then to come off the brakes and steer (difficult if you are rushing towards the bank); the other is to cadence brake while steering. This is the technique of pumping the brake pedal as quickly as you can, alternately locking the brakes and then relaeasing them so that the wheels revolve. The point is that the car will only steer when the front wheels are turning, so you need to avoid keeping the brakes locked on. In effect, ABS emulates cadence braking but it is much more sophisticated, sensing when individual wheels are locking and releasing that individual brake momentarily and very rapidly.
Cadence braking does work but it takes practice to force yourself to release the brakes in an emergency such as you describe. Instinct tends to keep your right foot jammed hard on the middle pedal!
Of course, no technique or driver aid can overcome the basic laws of momentum and grip, so best to avoid such situations in the first place!
Cadence braking does work but it takes practice to force yourself to release the brakes in an emergency such as you describe. Instinct tends to keep your right foot jammed hard on the middle pedal!
Of course, no technique or driver aid can overcome the basic laws of momentum and grip, so best to avoid such situations in the first place!
benbeck1984 said:
Braking in straight line would have ended me in the hedge.
If you were driving straight towards the hedge and had enough grip to make it round the corner, you had enough grip to stop. In fact, stopping would have required less grip.
Having made it around the corner with the car travelling more or less in the right direction but out of control and pointing the wrong way, this would have been a good time to brake as hard as possible and lock all four wheels. If you do that, you'll stop quite quickly in a straight line regardless of which way you were pointing.
You were driving too fast for the conditions if you couldn't stop within the distance you can see.
Traction control (i.e. not stability control) wouldn't have helped you here as you were off the power.
You should take this as a wake up call that you may not be reading the roads as well as you think. I take your point that a sign would have given you early warning of the junction but there are no signs to warn of the stopped car/bike/tractor/horse around the bend or the group of walkers on the road. These things are common in both town and country and are the reason behind all advanced training having the key message of 'be able to stop in the distance you see to be clear'.
Why not see if a local advanced driver will take you out and give you some tips and how to improve your observation?
You should take this as a wake up call that you may not be reading the roads as well as you think. I take your point that a sign would have given you early warning of the junction but there are no signs to warn of the stopped car/bike/tractor/horse around the bend or the group of walkers on the road. These things are common in both town and country and are the reason behind all advanced training having the key message of 'be able to stop in the distance you see to be clear'.
Why not see if a local advanced driver will take you out and give you some tips and how to improve your observation?
Right Ben, without patronising you or putting you down, let's break this down and see where you've gone wrong. Most of the relevant points have already been made, but I'll look at things individually.
The whole problem has arisen at this point. Not, as some people think, because you were going too fast, but because of a combination of not reading the road correctly, and travelling too fast for the view(there's a subtle difference). There is a basic safety rule in driving, that you should always be able to stop, on your own side of the road, in the distance you can see to be clear. During the day, this is reasonably easy to get your head round, and at night, it isn't a problem on roads with street lighting, but on unlit roads at night, the distance you can see to be clear is no further than the distance that your headlights illuminate. At this point, some people will try to be prescriptive and say that you shouldn't travel above Xmph, but it's not as simple as that. It's your car, so you'll know it's braking capabilities, so that choice is down to you. Whether you've got your headlights dipped or on main beam makes a massive difference as well, and if, as you say, you were on dipped beam because of oncoming cars, then the distance you can see be clear is seriously reduced, both by the shortening of your headlight beam and by the dazzle of oncoming headlights.
There could also be some issues about how you look along the road, but that's not something I could say for sure without actually seeing you drive. Rather than just stare straight ahead, you should be looking in a broader arc, picking out features such as hedges and tree lines which could indicate the position of a junction. It's not really fair to comment further on that, though, without having driven the road at night myself.
When you say "skids", I'm not quite sure what you mean, as there are lots of different kind of skids. If you mean that the brakes locked the wheels up, then I'd be quite surprised, as I'm sure your car should have anti-lock brakes fitted. If you triggered the ABS, you'll have felt a momentary pulsing through the brake pedal, which means you're braking as hard as possible, but the car will still allow you to steer.
There are some words that you've used which are much more of an indicator as to what's gone wrong though. "Slamming" on the brakes and "twisting" the wheel suggest that your inputs were panicked and rough. It's not easy to be smooth with the vehicles controls when things are going wrong, but hitting the brakes immediately full-on will unsettle the rear of the car, because the weight is transferred forward very quickly, away from the rear wheels, and that's why the car oversteered.
That's because you've over-corrected with the steering. It's very easy to do when the car is skidding, as it's difficult to judge how much corrective lock you should put on, but if you put too much on, as you've done, when the car starts gripping again, it'll inevitably go in the direction that the front wheels are pointing.
Traction control does exactly what it says on the tin - it helps the driven wheels keep traction i.e. helps to prevent wheel-spin. In your case, you weren't accelerating as you were skidding, so traction control wouldn't have helped at all.
Not wanting to sound patronising, junctions don't just come out of nowhere, and I imagine that no-one else had an accident there that night. The junction may well be badly laid out and signed, but that's something you should be expecting.
Having said that, I think, actually, you recognise that you've got things wrong, otherwise you wouldn't be posting your experiences in an advanced driving forum.
benbeck1984 said:
Going down a country road at 60 (ok maybe 62-63ish) at night in my celica, when suddenly out of nowhere, with no signposts I come to a t-junction. theres a wall of hedges in front of me, and mounted banks at either side.
The whole problem has arisen at this point. Not, as some people think, because you were going too fast, but because of a combination of not reading the road correctly, and travelling too fast for the view(there's a subtle difference). There is a basic safety rule in driving, that you should always be able to stop, on your own side of the road, in the distance you can see to be clear. During the day, this is reasonably easy to get your head round, and at night, it isn't a problem on roads with street lighting, but on unlit roads at night, the distance you can see to be clear is no further than the distance that your headlights illuminate. At this point, some people will try to be prescriptive and say that you shouldn't travel above Xmph, but it's not as simple as that. It's your car, so you'll know it's braking capabilities, so that choice is down to you. Whether you've got your headlights dipped or on main beam makes a massive difference as well, and if, as you say, you were on dipped beam because of oncoming cars, then the distance you can see be clear is seriously reduced, both by the shortening of your headlight beam and by the dazzle of oncoming headlights.
There could also be some issues about how you look along the road, but that's not something I could say for sure without actually seeing you drive. Rather than just stare straight ahead, you should be looking in a broader arc, picking out features such as hedges and tree lines which could indicate the position of a junction. It's not really fair to comment further on that, though, without having driven the road at night myself.
benbeck1984 said:
Slam on the brakes and the car skids, twist the wheel to the left and just about make it round the corner (even got the back end out), only trouble is ive oversteered and now i'm facing the bank on the nearside of the road having come round the corner
When you say "skids", I'm not quite sure what you mean, as there are lots of different kind of skids. If you mean that the brakes locked the wheels up, then I'd be quite surprised, as I'm sure your car should have anti-lock brakes fitted. If you triggered the ABS, you'll have felt a momentary pulsing through the brake pedal, which means you're braking as hard as possible, but the car will still allow you to steer.
There are some words that you've used which are much more of an indicator as to what's gone wrong though. "Slamming" on the brakes and "twisting" the wheel suggest that your inputs were panicked and rough. It's not easy to be smooth with the vehicles controls when things are going wrong, but hitting the brakes immediately full-on will unsettle the rear of the car, because the weight is transferred forward very quickly, away from the rear wheels, and that's why the car oversteered.
benbeck1984 said:
Only trouble is ive oversteered and now i'm facing the bank on the nearside of the road having come round the corner, so i throw the wheel back the other way
That's because you've over-corrected with the steering. It's very easy to do when the car is skidding, as it's difficult to judge how much corrective lock you should put on, but if you put too much on, as you've done, when the car starts gripping again, it'll inevitably go in the direction that the front wheels are pointing.
benbeck1984 said:
(all the time the car is still skidding (wish i'd bothered with the traction control model))
Traction control does exactly what it says on the tin - it helps the driven wheels keep traction i.e. helps to prevent wheel-spin. In your case, you weren't accelerating as you were skidding, so traction control wouldn't have helped at all.
benbeck1984 said:
and finally manage to straighten up. Had anything been coming I'm sure my car would have been a bit of a mashup.
I'm pretty sure this wasn't my bad driving, but actually the road signage and layout, even my girlfriend admitted that the junction came out of nowhere.
Anyway, just wanted to rant about the abismal signage."
I'm pretty sure this wasn't my bad driving, but actually the road signage and layout, even my girlfriend admitted that the junction came out of nowhere.
Anyway, just wanted to rant about the abismal signage."
Not wanting to sound patronising, junctions don't just come out of nowhere, and I imagine that no-one else had an accident there that night. The junction may well be badly laid out and signed, but that's something you should be expecting.
Having said that, I think, actually, you recognise that you've got things wrong, otherwise you wouldn't be posting your experiences in an advanced driving forum.
That's a good post Reg, especially where you talk about too fast for the view. Driving around country lanes is quite a different kettle of fish to normal A and B road driving, especially in the dark. I usually do it in a lower gear than usual, as it means I can slow down for bends, side turnings, blind humps, poor lines of sight etc but keep both hands on the wheel. Then I'm in a low enough gear to speed up once the obstacle has passed and I've got a clear view again. But it might make a good topic for one of your articles - making good progress safely around country lanes.
THanks to r u local, that was probably the most useful input, especially about the being able to brake in the area I can visibly see, thats something I dont think enough about and would have helped in that situation.
To be honest i've pretty much forgotten what happened in the situation now as it was a whole night ago and my memory is slightly faded. IMO the junction still came out of nowhere and i remember wondering if people crashed there often.
The skid i refered to was the wheels literally all locking up, would this be caused because I tried to steer as i was braking? What i was trying to get out of this post really was to see if that if i had stopped braking and started to reaccelerate as i left the corner would I have been more controlled or just put myself in more trouble? Its a hard thing to do at the time, but does it give better road holding?
I'm still baffled as the why the ABS didn't kick in, there was definately no pulsing from the pedal, and I've had the car apart with my dad today to have a look at it, to no avail.
Yeah i do accept that I made a mistake, hence why i've posted on here to get input into not doing it again, so will be taking everyones views into consideration, so thanks for the input. I'm looking into doing an advanced driving course infact, as i believe its free if your under a certain age. I'm only 22. so hopefully that'll give me a few more pointers
To be honest i've pretty much forgotten what happened in the situation now as it was a whole night ago and my memory is slightly faded. IMO the junction still came out of nowhere and i remember wondering if people crashed there often.
The skid i refered to was the wheels literally all locking up, would this be caused because I tried to steer as i was braking? What i was trying to get out of this post really was to see if that if i had stopped braking and started to reaccelerate as i left the corner would I have been more controlled or just put myself in more trouble? Its a hard thing to do at the time, but does it give better road holding?
I'm still baffled as the why the ABS didn't kick in, there was definately no pulsing from the pedal, and I've had the car apart with my dad today to have a look at it, to no avail.
Yeah i do accept that I made a mistake, hence why i've posted on here to get input into not doing it again, so will be taking everyones views into consideration, so thanks for the input. I'm looking into doing an advanced driving course infact, as i believe its free if your under a certain age. I'm only 22. so hopefully that'll give me a few more pointers
One more point no-one else has mentioned. You should use all the available visual clues and sources of light at night. You mention cars towards you - if there were cars towards you their lights should have given you an idea of the road layout. If you had already gone past the cars towards you then you should have been back on full beam. As you get close to cars coming towards you on an unlit road it is extremely difficult to see past them - expect both to slow down for this situation and to search the road very carefully for hazards before the approaching car gets close.
On the ABS question, you say you have taken the car to pieces - but have you tried an emergency braking exercise to see whether the ABS is working? My guess is that you did not in fact brake hard enough to operate the ABS, and skidded as a result of your steering input.
By traction control I am sure you meant Electronic Stability Programme (also known by many other names). An ESP system maximises your chances of retaining control in this sort of situation.
On the ABS question, you say you have taken the car to pieces - but have you tried an emergency braking exercise to see whether the ABS is working? My guess is that you did not in fact brake hard enough to operate the ABS, and skidded as a result of your steering input.
By traction control I am sure you meant Electronic Stability Programme (also known by many other names). An ESP system maximises your chances of retaining control in this sort of situation.
waremark said:
One more point no-one else has mentioned. You should use all the available visual clues and sources of light at night. You mention cars towards you - if there were cars towards you their lights should have given you an idea of the road layout. If you had already gone past the cars towards you then you should have been back on full beam.
My thought as well. If they were coming at you from a t-junction you were about to reach, possibly you could have seen them turn onto your road and have been expecting at the very least a 90' corner coming up.
Hi Ben,
R U Local has answered comprehensively, but I just wanted to say well done for having the honesty to post here. I very much hope you'll go onto an advanced driving course.
Basically, you have a few options:
- The Institute of Advanced Motorists offer a one-off DriverCheck for £25: www.iam.org.uk/eshop/membershipsho
- The Institute of Advanced Motorists offer a full programme of advanced driving for £75 for anyone under 25: www.iam.org.uk/eshop/membershipsho
- RoADAR offer a cheap but very comprehensive programme of advanced driving too: www.roada.org
- One free kick-start would be the Young Drivers Day organised by the High Performance Club. Highly recommended
www.hpc.org.uk/guests/ydd.html
A professionally taught course from the likes of www.ridedrive.co.uk or one of the coaches listed here: www.hpc.org.uk/guests/guestjoin.ht would be the best. These aren't cheap, but you do benefit from superb instruction. You might want to invest in one of these when money permits.
Cheers
R U Local has answered comprehensively, but I just wanted to say well done for having the honesty to post here. I very much hope you'll go onto an advanced driving course.
benbeck1984 said:
I'm looking into doing an advanced driving course infact, as i believe its free if your under a certain age. I'm only 22. so hopefully that'll give me a few more pointers
Basically, you have a few options:
- The Institute of Advanced Motorists offer a one-off DriverCheck for £25: www.iam.org.uk/eshop/membershipsho
- The Institute of Advanced Motorists offer a full programme of advanced driving for £75 for anyone under 25: www.iam.org.uk/eshop/membershipsho
- RoADAR offer a cheap but very comprehensive programme of advanced driving too: www.roada.org
- One free kick-start would be the Young Drivers Day organised by the High Performance Club. Highly recommended
www.hpc.org.uk/guests/ydd.html
A professionally taught course from the likes of www.ridedrive.co.uk or one of the coaches listed here: www.hpc.org.uk/guests/guestjoin.ht would be the best. These aren't cheap, but you do benefit from superb instruction. You might want to invest in one of these when money permits.
Cheers
Edited by SVS on Sunday 8th April 11:43
Just to add further thought to this, many years ago, while batting along at very high speed realised that i would not make a righthander 90 under a bridge, so in desperate mode locked everything up to avoid going striaght on through fence down into field, but at the same time turned to follow road to right.
Managed to scrub a large amount of speed of and released brakes which gave the front tyres an opportunity to grip.
Fortunately the tyres were in good enough condition to save the day, they dug in gripped, and the car literally bounced 90 degrees right, stayed on the road and continued round the bend.
Now thinking back that may have been the last time i ever went fast in and shit scared out, it is always slow in and fast out now.
Managed to scrub a large amount of speed of and released brakes which gave the front tyres an opportunity to grip.
Fortunately the tyres were in good enough condition to save the day, they dug in gripped, and the car literally bounced 90 degrees right, stayed on the road and continued round the bend.
Now thinking back that may have been the last time i ever went fast in and shit scared out, it is always slow in and fast out now.
benbeck1984 said:
THanks to r u local, that was probably the most useful input, especially about the being able to brake in the area I can visibly see, thats something I dont think enough about and would have helped in that situation.
To be honest i've pretty much forgotten what happened in the situation now as it was a whole night ago and my memory is slightly faded. IMO the junction still came out of nowhere and i remember wondering if people crashed there often.
The skid i refered to was the wheels literally all locking up, would this be caused because I tried to steer as i was braking? What i was trying to get out of this post really was to see if that if i had stopped braking and started to reaccelerate as i left the corner would I have been more controlled or just put myself in more trouble? Its a hard thing to do at the time, but does it give better road holding?
I'm still baffled as the why the ABS didn't kick in, there was definately no pulsing from the pedal, and I've had the car apart with my dad today to have a look at it, to no avail.
Yeah i do accept that I made a mistake, hence why i've posted on here to get input into not doing it again, so will be taking everyones views into consideration, so thanks for the input. I'm looking into doing an advanced driving course infact, as i believe its free if your under a certain age. I'm only 22. so hopefully that'll give me a few more pointers
To be honest i've pretty much forgotten what happened in the situation now as it was a whole night ago and my memory is slightly faded. IMO the junction still came out of nowhere and i remember wondering if people crashed there often.
The skid i refered to was the wheels literally all locking up, would this be caused because I tried to steer as i was braking? What i was trying to get out of this post really was to see if that if i had stopped braking and started to reaccelerate as i left the corner would I have been more controlled or just put myself in more trouble? Its a hard thing to do at the time, but does it give better road holding?
I'm still baffled as the why the ABS didn't kick in, there was definately no pulsing from the pedal, and I've had the car apart with my dad today to have a look at it, to no avail.
Yeah i do accept that I made a mistake, hence why i've posted on here to get input into not doing it again, so will be taking everyones views into consideration, so thanks for the input. I'm looking into doing an advanced driving course infact, as i believe its free if your under a certain age. I'm only 22. so hopefully that'll give me a few more pointers
I would suggest you do an IAM or a RoSPA course because i like you put myself into similar situations as yourself and found the RoSPA course to be really insightfull and it imprpved my driving ten fold. I was forever arriving at obstacles suddenly when if id judged the situation better it wouldnt of happened.
P.S. I was 22 when i did mine
Gassing Station | Advanced Driving | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff