Correct cornering in Front Wheel Drive?

2yung2adm

Joe 90 wrote: »

I suspect that really some people want to drive as a method of transport and don't really have any interest in it. They learn to pass a driveing test. Other people have in interest in driveing and learn to drive.

But we should all be interested in it for our own safety, the safety of our passengers and the safety of other road users.
We cannot be flippant about driving and safety.

If we are not prepared to improve or skills then the legislators should legislate and make it compulsory to undergo courses.

Most people can drive a car when everything is going ok. It is when something happens that we need to rely on our acquired skills.

buckled

LIGHTNING wrote: »

Id personally prefer if they would teach people how to use motorways,roundabouts and the proper use of indicators (i.e the basics)before teaching advanced car control.

I think that's more driver behaviour

BostonB

The vast majority of people would not have the reactions to catch a car that goes into over-steer. Using the handbrake would put most of them though the hedge backwards. Which is why most people are better driving a FWD which is deliberately biased to under-steer as its far easier to catch.

BostonB

buckled wrote: »

Unfortunately by the time most drivers realise there driving too fast, it’s too late. I sure most people have under estimated the severity of a bend at some stage or maybe it tightened mid corner. ....

If they can't grasp they're driving too fast, which is pretty basic. Theres no way they'll grasp anything more advanced. Most modern FWD are easily recoverable in under-steer and designed that way deliberately. If they can't recover from that, they are most likely ballistic, and need airbrakes, flaps and a parachute.

buckled

djimi wrote: »

I dont consider learning how to use the handbrake while driving or left foot braking to be basic skills of driving tbf. If we thought people to read the conditions more effectively and avoid putting themselves in situations where they have to use techniques like that then that would be far more valuable.
.

I agree prevention is better a cure; however inexperienced drivers pose the biggest risk on our roads and I feel drivers should also be thought how to recover from a bad situation should it occur.
Please don’t assuming these techniques are only useful for driving fast and correcting the mistakes that you make. What about when another driver makes a mistake and you need to take evasive action? I don’t mean left foot breaking and pull up the hand break, I mean techniques like breaking and steering at the same time in a car without ABS and teaching them how to recover from a skid on oil or ice.

BostonB

LIGHTNING wrote: »

In all fairness in a modern car all you have to do is ease off the throttle and maybe reduce steering input if they have thrown in a heap of it.

Deja vu?

BostonB wrote: »

...Most modern FWD are easily recoverable in under-steer and designed that way deliberately....

BostonB

buckled wrote: »

I agree prevention is better a cure; however inexperienced drivers pose the biggest risk on our roads and I feel drivers should also be thought how to recover from a bad situation should it occur.
Please don’t assuming these techniques are only useful for driving fast and correcting the mistakes that you make. What about when another driver makes a mistake and you need to take evasive action? I don’t mean left foot breaking and pull up the hand break, I mean techniques like breaking and steering at the same time in a car without ABS and teaching them how to recover from a skid on oil or ice.

Personally I think the problem in Ireland with inexperienced drivers, or indeed all drivers is bad driving, and bad basic driving skills. Not a lack of advanced driving skills. Well that in addition to the lack of enforcement and bad road design/layout.

Esel

meathstevie wrote: »

I've done an advanced driving course entirely based on it.

esel wrote: »

Where, and how much?

Stevie?

CiniO

ianobrien wrote: »

The main thing when driving a FWD is not to lift off the power mid corner. Left foot braking can help settle the car over bumps, but keep the power on is the key. Brake before the corner, and if you reckon you're going too fast, turn in anyway. If the car is understeering, a pick of the handbrake is needed, while keeping the throttle wide open. Having said that, modern cars have massive levels of grip, and 99% of people never get near the limits of the car in normal day to day driving.

I really wouldn't recomend it to anyone.
Handbrake can be used to tighten an turning angle on very sharp bends or U-turns at low speeds. No one reasonalbe would pull handbrake while car is at high speed and running out of the bend. In FWD left foot braking is what you use in that situations.
Talk to any rally drivers, see onboard videos, that no one uses handbrake at speeds above 30 - 40 km/h.

CiniO

djimi wrote: »

The idea of suggesting that anyone use the handbrake to correct the handling in the car shows either how out of touch with reality the guy is or else that he really is talking about purely off road driving. For normal road use the handbrake is there solely to keep the car stationary, nothing else! Most people would sh1t bricks if they pulled up the handbrake while the car was moving, especially if they were taking a corner at the time...

Not neceserly...
It happens to me to use handbrake f.e. to do U-turn on narrow road. Otherwise I would have to shift between 1 gear and reverse few times to turn the car back.
Sometimes I also use handbrake on 90degree bends - probably just to have a bit more of fun from driving.
I don't think it's illegal. Anyway knowing guards attitude, I never do it anywhere where other road users are, so no one can really see it.

Making car skid intentionally is pretty common practice while driving on the snow. In Ireland sadly we don't get snow surface to often, so people are completely no used to that kind of situations.
That's sad, because whenever road surface becomes slippery, accidents start to happen extremaly often. That wouldn't be the case, if drivers were practiced with controlling a skids.

BostonB

http://www.donegaldemocrat.ie/donegalnews/Garda-observed-Kerrykeel-man-doing.6237781.jp

AFAIK, intentional skidding, lost of traction, wheelspin, would all be similar.

CiniO

BostonB wrote: »

http://www.donegaldemocrat.ie/donegalnews/Garda-observed-Kerrykeel-man-doing.6237781.jp

AFAIK, intentional skidding, lost of traction, wheelspin, would all be similar.

The driver admitted undertaking the illegal turn and could offer no explanation for it, the garda added.

Just a question - why illegal? Where in road traffic act or any other law, it's mentioned that skidding with car is illegal?

To be honest I understand that if 20 y.o. made a 180 handbrake turn just in front of the Garda and near the housing estate, it wasn't wise thing to do.
But would someone who skids on snow or ice (even on purpose) be treated the same?

In my opinion, doing such things is dangerous, because it might scare other drivers that a person doing it is out of the control of the car.
But when someone is doing it far from sight of anyone, I can see no harm.

RandomAccess

Some of the advice being bandied around here is massively irrelevant.

For a start, only a few people have addressed the issue which the OP identified as causing a serious problem and that is adverse camber.

http://www.whatcar.com/car-news/what-car-q-and-a/what-does--adverse-camber--mean/219528

The op specifically mentions a fast corner with bad camber, unfortunately the majority of cars will struggle to do anything but understeer on these type of corners because of the way the cars weight transfer will be affected. The effect, as someone else pointed out is akin to entering a corner in an overly high gear and feeling the nose of the car feel like it is running wide because it is mildly understeering.

A car with stiff suspension might be less inclined to understeer on an adverse camber but it will have an effect for everyone, thats why they are sometimes signposted. Imagine yourself going around one of those on a motorbike and it will be easier to picture the forces that are at work.

The best way to avoid getting caught out by adverse camber is to try and spot the tell tale signs as you approach the bend, or perhaps more sensibly you could avoid driving fast on a road with which you are unfamiliar.
Everyone can get caught out on an unfamiliar road, for example some roads feature bends which are much longer than you initially thought and perhaps they also tighten up mid corner. If you are driving quickly or are driving to maintain momentum you might find that the weight transfer of the car you had anticipated, progressively becomes exceeded. This again will cause the car to understeer to some degree, depending of course on the amount of momentum you were carrying when you entered the bend. Generally if you recognise this early you should apply very gentle braking to scrub off some of the momentum, this will push the cars weight a little too far forward but a little understeer is better than sliding scarily wide.

You may be aware of a roundabout near you which has only two roads leading into it, they are often built near planned industrial estates and on bypass ring roads, these can be useful for gaining a feel for how your car behaves when carrying mildly excessive momentum into a low camber corner.

As regards what the op was saying, "I suppose brake, half throttle around and accelerate as you straighten up"
Thats a start but you need to fill in the gaps with buttery smoothness,

for a start, I frequently drive at night on a twisty national route which I know like the back of my hand and unless I'm pushing on I don't usually brake for the majority of the corners, Instead I try to maintain the cars momentum through the bends. Once you get used to this you will have a good knowledge of your cars weight transfer and grip, even if you were to accelerate hard on the straights and then brake before the corner you won't be traveling any faster through the bend than you would be when you are maximising momentum. This is a good point to begin driving faster between the bends and introducing braking technique. Say for example you are now driving fast towards a bend you know, move smoothly from acceleration to braking before the bend, scrubbing off speed and feeling the weight transfer move forward as you are about to enter the bend, then just as smoothly begin to ease off the brake while turning in until the cars weight transfer is settled just aft of the front axle now you can gently introduce a little throttle to move the weight to the center of the car and progressively unwind steering and increase throttle as you effectively slingshot out of the bend.

Finally, some of the advice seems to advocate taking the racing line which implies that you cut the corner. On a public road this is a really bad idea unless you can 100% for certain see that the opposite lane is clear. Once you enter a bend it is not too difficult to tighten your line and straighten the bend for yourself, however doing the opposite, loosening your line is really difficult as there is a pendulum effect on the cars weight transfer as you steer out and back in again, this could cause you to lose control fairly easily.

Hope thats useful to someone anyway. Feel free to poke holes in any of it as we might all learn something.

rubensni

CiniO wrote: »

Just a question - why illegal? Where in road traffic act or any other law, it's mentioned that skidding with car is illegal?

To be honest I understand that if 20 y.o. made a 180 handbrake turn just in front of the Garda and near the housing estate, it wasn't wise thing to do.
But would someone who skids on snow or ice (even on purpose) be treated the same?

It would be careless driving or, as in this case, dangerous driving. How could 'skidding' be an offence?

CiniO wrote: »

In my opinion, doing such things is dangerous, because it might scare other drivers that a person doing it is out of the control of the car.
But when someone is doing it far from sight of anyone, I can see no harm.

I understand your point, but you could injure yourself, or if you spin off you could damage road barriers, etc. It's a public road, and you're only supposed to use it to get from A to B, not as a racetrack.

Them's the rules.

BostonB

let me paraphrase that for you...

RandomAccess wrote: »

... perhaps more sensibly you could avoid driving fast on a road with which you are unfamiliar.....

CiniO

rubensni wrote: »

I understand your point, but you could injure yourself, or if you spin off you could damage road barriers, etc. It's a public road, and you're only supposed to use it to get from A to B, not as a racetrack.

Them's the rules.

I also understand your point, but not really agree..
Public road is a public place. Of course rules apply.
But let's say someone might be driving 40 km/h on a road with 100km/h limit, and get a flat tyre and crash into the barrier and injure himself. Accidents happen.
I feel confident enough, that I know I can do handbrake U-turn on a road about 4m wide easily. That's not just doing experiments, but I was training that kind of things for hundreds of hours and I feel confident doing it the same as someone else can feel confident to drive in straight line at 50km/h.
The same you could say a clown riding an unicycle in the centre of Galway collecting coins for it from public, can do some harm. That's also a public place (a pavement) and people are supposed to walk there, not unicycle. But this guy is trained, and he knows he can do it without causing danger - I can't see anything wrong with it.

But as I said earlier - you won't see me anywhere doing anything like this, because I would never do it in the sight of anyone.


PS. Funny example in here. A Policeman doesn't want to let Marcus Gronholm drive in broke car. He says it's too dangerous. Everyone know that he can drive it and considering his driving technique and skills, he can drive it, even if it looks dangerous to ordinary drivers.

See on this video from 6:10 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qJDDaYQCIM

Wibbs

BostonB wrote: »

The vast majority of people would not have the reactions to catch a car that goes into over-steer.

I would say the vast majority of people wouldnt have the reactions when stuff hits the fan fullstop. Even racing driver types who would have the skills. It's down to concentration. If you're on a track going 10 10ths you're concentrating fully on what's going on, so if you have the skills you're on the problem as it happens. Big diff to driving normally listening to the radio on a public road and you happen to hit a patch of diesel on a corner.

Using the handbrake would put most of them though the hedge backwards.

Yea why would anyone go next nor near the handbrake in oversteer? It's gonna make it far worse. Dont rally cars have a different handbrake arrangement? Where there are no clicks, no ratchet in the handbrake? So if you pull it the second you let go it slams down and off? So way more control. Its no longer a parking brake

Which is why most people are better driving a FWD which is deliberately biased to under-steer as its far easier to catch.

I dunno. I suppose its what you get used to too. I started my driving in rear wheel drive cars. I found the transition to my first front wheel drive a bit weird TBH. Understeer frightened the bejeesus out of me the first time I felt it(still does) and I drive like a granny, so it wasnt as if I was doing a Fangio at the time. Even to this day I would feel safer or more in control with RWD. I'd feel way more confident of catching an unexpected oversteer. I like my current FWD car for a couple of reasons, but handling wise mainly because it doesnt feel very FWD at all. If you do overcook it it seems to throw the bum out. Of course this is gonna be subjective, so Im not claiming science here

One thing about more FWD on the roads and understeer though... When I was a kid there were more RWD around and I dont recall nearly as many head on type accidents being reported? If two cars going in opposite directions around a bend are both FWD and understeer are head on type collisions more likely?

djimi

esel wrote: »

Stevie?

Theres an advanced driving school just outside Maynooth.

http://www.leinsterdrivingcampus.ie/

djimi

CiniO wrote: »

I also understand your point, but not really agree..
Public road is a public place. Of course rules apply.
But let's say someone might be driving 40 km/h on a road with 100km/h limit, and get a flat tyre and crash into the barrier and injure himself. Accidents happen.
I feel confident enough, that I know I can do handbrake U-turn on a road about 4m wide easily. That's not just doing experiments, but I was training that kind of things for hundreds of hours and I feel confident doing it the same as someone else can feel confident to drive in straight line at 50km/h.
The same you could say a clown riding an unicycle in the centre of Galway collecting coins for it from public, can do some harm. That's also a public place (a pavement) and people are supposed to walk there, not unicycle. But this guy is trained, and he knows he can do it without causing danger - I can't see anything wrong with it.

But as I said earlier - you won't see me anywhere doing anything like this, because I would never do it in the sight of anyone.


PS. Funny example in here. A Policeman doesn't want to let Marcus Gronholm drive in broke car. He says it's too dangerous. Everyone know that he can drive it and considering his driving technique and skills, he can drive it, even if it looks dangerous to ordinary drivers.

Agree or disagree all you want. The fact of the matter is that if a guard catches you pulling a handbrake turn he is going to do you for dangerous driving. If you do it and dont get caught then more power to you, but if you make an arse of it and hit something/someone or if a guard does see you then youre going to find yourself in hot water.

Accidentally skidding the car and deliberately cause the car to skid/spin are two different things btw.

opinion guy

woody33 wrote: »

Yes road driving. Going too fast maybe, but I'd still like to know how to handle the situation.

Go slower.

BostonB

Wibbs wrote: »

I...
One thing about more FWD on the roads and understeer though... When I was a kid there were more RWD around and I dont recall nearly as many head on type accidents being reported? If two cars going in opposite directions around a bend are both FWD and under-steer are head on type collisions more likely?

Most likely is because theres simply more reporting these days. On everything.

-Chris-

CiniO wrote: »

But let's say someone might be driving 40 km/h on a road with 100km/h limit, and get a flat tyre and crash into the barrier and injure himself. Accidents happen.
I feel confident enough, that I know I can do handbrake U-turn on a road about 4m wide easily. That's not just doing experiments, but I was training that kind of things for hundreds of hours and I feel confident doing it the same as someone else can feel confident to drive in straight line at 50km/h.

I don't know how these two paragraphs are even in the same post.

You may as well say "another driver might skid off the road because they hit a patch of wet leaves, but that's ok because I know how to make balloon animals".

There's no connection whatsoever imho, and I don't see how this line of logic is contributing to the discussion or the OP's question at all...

CiniO

CiniO wrote: »

I feel confident enough, that I know I can do handbrake U-turn on a road about 4m wide easily. That's not just doing experiments, but I was training that kind of things for hundreds of hours and I feel confident doing it the same as someone else can feel confident to drive in straight line at 50km/h.

Fair play to you, considering the likes of a Mondeo is over 4.5m long that's very impressive.

BostonB

opinion guy wrote: »

Go slower.

AFAIK there isn't any other answer for a fwd polo on a public road.

Even on a track, in a fwd polo the answer would be the same. Your entry speed for the corner is too high. You'd actually be quicker going slower into the corner. As under-steering, and/or braking, or sliding will make you slower through the corner overall.

Towing the car out of ditch is very time consuming apparently.

BostonB

RoverJames wrote: »

Fair play to you, considering the likes of a Mondeo is over 4.5m long that's very impressive.

Well it starts out that long...

Wibbs

BostonB wrote: »

Most likely is because theres simply more reporting these days. On everything.

Oh I agree, but thinking on it and imagining the same accident, only in one case the cars are FWD and in the other the cars are RWD, the FWD cars are more likely to head straight into each other. The RWD cars will hit alright but more likely to be a glancing blow. more // rather than -- kinda thing.

Joe 90

A car that is understeering will arrive at the accident going frontways. A car that is oversteering will arrive at the accident sideways or backways. FWD cars are more likely to understeer than RWD cars. Likely does not mean guarenteed.
Understeer scares drivers, oversteer scares passengers.
On a public road, drive at no more than a speed which will allow you to stop in the distance that you can see to be clear.
All really very simple.:)

BostonB

None of that makes any sense to me. In general a FWD is designed to easier to recover than a RWD, and an understeering car is usually heading off the road not into the far lane.

I think a more reasonable reason is that modern cars have an excess of grip and power compared to older cars. So people (especially in experienced drivers) are over confident and try things they wouldn't in a car with less power and less grip. So through bad judgment and over confidence they end up on the wrong side of the road more often than they used to, and at higher speeds than in the past.

Its just coincidence that there more fwd cars around now.

Cookie_Monster

BostonB wrote: »

Its just coincidence that there more fwd cars around now.

no, its not. They are much cheaper and simpler to make than RWD. this is pretty much the only reason they are around.

djimi

BostonB wrote: »

None of that makes any sense to me. In general a FWD is designed to easier to recover than a RWD, and an understeering car is usually heading off the road not into the far lane.

Depends on which way its turning. A car turning right will understeer towards the ditch, however a car turning left will understeer out onto the far side of the road.