Tag: steering

Students often ask me, “I’ve been sitting in the backseat of cars watching other people drive for the last 16 years.  Why do I have to sit in the back of yours?”  Well, you have to because the state says to, and it’s part of our graduated licensing program which is a series of steps between you being a non-driver and a fully privileged driver.  I can say that one of the best things that comes from the experience though, is seeing that everyone makes the same mistakes, and that I give everyone the same advice, (in the same tone of voice.)  The advice I give most often is definitely, “Slow in, fast out.”

Lots of students have a hard time with the new steering technique, having not seen people do it very often and learned without even knowing it to copy their parents and friends.   They get very caught up in what to do with the hands, where they should be on the wheel and how to be smooth and quick and still accurate.  They all think I’m crazy when I tell them that most of their issue is actually with their right foot.  Smooth speed control in the turn is usually the real problem.

Most new drivers carry too much speed into a turn.  They need to slow down much more than they think they do before the corner.  The sharper the turn, the more they need to exaggerate this.  I tell them often that you can always speed back up again if it is too slow, but if it is too fast, you have no recourse.  Too much speed will carry the car wide in a turn.  It makes it hard to stay on your own side of the road and feel in control.  They can tell half-way through that it doesn’t feel right, and then they abruptly take their foot off the pedal, which makes the car jerk.  They think that they have made a mistake with the hands to cause the jerk, but really it’s that foot.  They need to be nice and slow going in, ease through the middle of a turn, and not accelerate until they have the car pointed the way they want it to end up.  As they come out and gently accelerate, then they can allow the wheel to slide through the fingers and return to center all on it’s own.  Once the speed is in the right place, the hands will be much easier to work with.  Parents and students alike can tell that a turn doesn’t feel right, and if everything in the car is falling over to one side, and the driver is having a hard time staying in their own lane, this is definitely the answer.

I’ll leave it there, so you can think the same thing about this article.  It started slow, and it’s fast out.