Friday, 29 October 2010

Driver's enviornment -- Seat, Steering, Mirrors

Our first Driving rule, on the track and road, is to set a safe enviornment before we drive. The driver's envionrnment is very important because it serves as a "homebase" for good car control. Once you have that set, you can keep you focus outside the car and far ahead. The enviornment should give us both comfort and passive/active safety. Generally, the three do not conflict. Comfort is different from convenience, because the latter can be achieved mentally via habit. Comfort is predominantly physical: Good ergonomics.

If you suddenly ask someone to go with you to a place about one hour of a drive away and he refuses because it's "too far", that can relate to his driving enviornment. He might not feel physically comfortable to drive for a full hour, and this effects his mentality. Active safety refers to the ability of the driver to see and react to the hazards on the road. Slow reaction times and large blind spots in the mirrors are major causes of collisions that stem from a bad setup of the driver's enviornment. Passive safety revolves around the damage inflicted to a person's body during a crash that has occurred or even when driving over a large bump.

The seat
1. The Seating:
If the seat is positioned, but the driver is not positioned well inside the seat, that's a problem. So, don't sit ON the seat, sit  IN it. Sit upright and push your back and buttocks as tight as possible into the backrest. Sit straight up and down, don't lean sideways. Your legs should also be positioned so that they are as apart from one another as feels comfortable. Most people in most cars can actually lean their knees against the walls of the pedal cluster, on the center console and the doorskin.

2. The seat height:
Adjust so that there is a distance of a handwidth (five fingers) from the ceiling. In convertibles, set it so that the open visor does not obstruct your view. If in doubt, too high is better than too low. A race-car requires lower seating for more stability and feel, particularly a drifting car.

3. The Seat distance:
Adjust according to the pedals. When pressing on the pedals, the pressure should be applied from the balls of your feet, not the toes. The heels belong on the floor and the movement of the right foot from throttle to brake could usually be done by pivoting over the heel.
Place your right foot on the brakes and the left foot on the clutch. In an automatic, the left foot rests on the dead-pedal to the left. Start the engine, press with the left foot unto the clutch or against the footrest. Press on  the brakes a couple of times with your right foot and than squeeze it down. With both feet fully depressing the pedals, the knees should be bent at about 120 degrees.

If the angle is closer to 90 degrees and the knees are crammed, you are too close. If the knee is boltstraight, you are too far back. When in doubt, too close is better than two far. Boltstraight limbs are tiring, lack sensitivity and can suffer from fractures.

4. The Backrest angle:
Adjust according to the steering wheel. Stretch both hands forward and place your wrists directly ontop of the wheel. You should be able to just slightly bend your wrist over the rim. The goal is to manage and do this without hounching your shoulderblades forward.

5. The Steering distance:
Grip the wheel at 9 and 3. Your palms should be placed on the outside of the rim and the thumbs can be hooked over the crossbrace unless it feels uncomfortable or if driving off-road. Grip the wheel lightly, feel it mainly through your fingertips, not just the palms or thumbs.

Adjust the distance of the wheel so that you can perform stage (4) without houncing any part of your shoulder forward and with a slight bend in your elbow, all without erecting the backrest to 90 degrees. You should avoid placing the hub of the wheel closer than 25cm from your chest. Place your hands on the wheel at 9 and 3 (both sides), the elbows should be bent at about 120 degrees. Too close is better than too far.

6. The Steering height:
Adjust according to the height of your shoulders. The palms at 9 and 3 should be just slightly lower than the shoulders, about 5cm. Too low is better than too high.

7. Head-Restraints:
Headrestraints are terribly overlooked. They are crucial for avoiding a dangerous whiplash. Adjust it to a height where it is in line with your eye-browes (if in doubt, too high is better than too low) and most importantly, so that your crumped fist cannot be placed between your upright head and it. New cars have highly adjustable restraints that can be adjusted for comfort and safety equally.

8. Seatbelts
Seatbelts are most important, no upright seating, low seat position, safety seat, airbag or head restraint can even be close to replacing it. There is more to it than just buckling it up. Pull it slightly to tighten it around your waist. If adjustable, set it's height to fit unto your collar bone (shoulder) and not on your arm or neck. If in doubt, too low is better than too high.


9. Windows:
Always keep one of the windows slightly open. In the summer, it helps keep the compartment ventilated when air circulation is activated. In the winter, it helps keeping fresh air incoming. In the city, where fully open windows can replace using the A/C, prefer them open. On the highway, avoid having a window opened more than that little gap ontop, as it increases fuell consumption due to drag. Avoid keeping a window halfway open and do not place hands on or beyond open windows.

10. Air Conditioner
Internal circulation is usually better than external air circulation, as it blows more air. When you need to cool a car that stood in the sun, internal circulation works best unless the car is very hot, but it's preferred to use external circulation to filter out pollution from the plastic within the car. When cleaning fumes from the glasses, circulation can also work, but most cars work better with external circulation.

11. Glasses
Keep all glasses: Windows, mirrors, lights -- clear. This allows to see better, illuminate the road better and suffer from less glare.

12. Interior mirror
The mirrors are adjusted without moving your head from it's straight forward position.

The interior mirror should be set to get just the rear window, that's it. Any aftermarket mirror designed to show you more, or any attempt to use the mirror to see what's going on inside the car, are bad and hazardous. Clear any obstruction you can from it's way and tilt the little switch under it into "night mode". This way, you will not suffer from glare through that mirror and you will be able to get a clear image.

If you want to see what happens in the rear seats, buy a small additional mirror that sticks unto the windshield with vaccum taping. Place it to not interfere with your peripheral vision or with any of the visors.

13. Driver's side mirror
In the US, for the sake of disscussion, the (left) driver's side mirror is bigger for both European or American-made cars, than the right, passenger side mirror. When the opposite holds true, the adjustment is reversed. Place an assistant about 3 feet behind and tell him to move to the left untill he is about to dissappear completly from the interior mirror. Now, open the left mirror untill you just bearly see part of him in it.

Now, the mirror is opened to the minimal amount of overlap with the interior mirror. Normally, with this adjustment, you will not be able to see the edge of your own car in the mirror. Move your head towards the glass untill you see it. Memorize how much you needed to move your head to see that tiny bit of silver in the mirror. In most European cars it takes just the slightest movement of the head. In most American cars you get the head all the way against the glass. In some cars it's somewhere in between. This way, you know next time how to adjust/check the adjustment of the mirror quickley by yourslef.

14. Passenger side mirror
In countries where you drive on the right, in American or European cars, this mirror is quite small and needs to be opened further away, to overlap at a larger distance, about 5 feet. Place your assistant at that distance and to your right so that he is about to dissappear completly from the interior mirror, and open the side mirror as far as possible without losing a slight sight of that's person. Move your head towards the passenger's seat and see when you see the edge of your own car in the mirror: It might be when you are in line with the center of the interior mirror, or with it's far edge.

This might feel uncomfortable at first, but it increases your field of vision dramatically. A small, eliptic auxiliary mirror mounted below the original mirror can be helpfull during parallel parking and reversing. Adjust it to show you a large portion of the car's body. It can also help if passengers obstruct your view in the interior mirror.

15. Blind-Spots
When you have adjusted your mirrors like this, you have very small blind spots that are almost none-existant and very rarely hazardous. However, there are actions to be taken to check those little blind spots too.

a) Blind spots in front of your front bumper or when you pull out from some stop signs or parking spots, that require looking over your shoulders and through the rear side windows, are not connected to mirrors, but it's important to mention them.

b) A scooter/bike over one lane aside: If I was hugging the left in the left lane and a bike was, for any reason, to hug the right side of his lane, the distance between the car exceedes one lane and at that distance there is usually a small blind-spot that the bike/scooter is normally just large enough to fit into. While it's extremlly rare for a rider to sit fully and over time in that blind spot, it's important to deal with it by:
(1) Constantly checking all mirrors, so that you are aware of all cars and bikes around you and know when they are inside your blind spots. (2) Make gradual lane-changes: First to the edge of your own lane, check side mirror again, move over. This also helps other road users to avoid you if you missed them/they missed you.

c) A scooter/bike in the third: It's important to know what is going on in the third lane. Usually, you can see cars in the third lane, but bikes can fall into a certain blind spot. Constantly checking the mirrors helps avoid this. This is the only case where the mirror requires being backed-up by a shoulder check. You simply tilt your head a bit to the side, start moving over and than add another little peek like this. The two peeks enable to look into the area hidden by the B pillars.

d) a curb when reversing: When reversing, we need to see part of the car's body in the mirror. For this, we need to tilt our head untill we see the car's edge. A small auxiliary mirror helps greatly. Remember, it's better to work hard during short, slow reversing/parking than in long drives.

e) a blindspot behind the rear bumper: Small objects can dissappear here. The auxiliary mirror I mentioned can help, but to cover it we need to monitor all mirrors constantly, reverse slowely and perhaps install reverse sensors that make a sound when you near an object.

f) An object hidden when the interior mirror is obstructed: Heads, headrestraints and rear doors can obstruct the view directly through the interior mirror. Again, you can tilt your head and/or install a small auxiliary mirror. The auxiliary mirror must be small and is best mounted below the original mirror, so that you can hide it if someone drives behind with rear beams.

g) A broken mirror: If someone breaked one of your side mirrors mid-travel, you can set a auxiliary mirror on the opposite side mirror, so that you can see directly behind, and than set your interior mirror slightly to the other side, where your side mirror was knocked off, and use shoulder checks when nessecary.



Saturday, 16 October 2010

Trails for December

In this page, we summarize the tips and trails for the upcoming month: 

Reading the road surface:
Scan the road at the distance, checking both for hazards such as cars, bikes and pedestrians at the distance, but also look for changes in the shape and texture of the road surface at a slightly shorter distance (but still far ahead). Look for changes in tarmac color, for changes in the color of the water on the road (perhaps indicating a mixture of dirt or oil, or a deep puddle), for gravel and dirt, ice and snow, and for glimming surfaces (presence of oil or diesel).

Acquiring braking skills:
Learn to perform both emergency braking and performance braking. Go on an empty surface. Best when wet, to reduce tire wear. Set a point to start braking at. Use a few friends to help you: One or two to secure the surroundings, one to stand near the braking marker and blow a whistle to make your timing more accurate. 

Assest the braking distance at 50km/h. Now, head on and try to stop from that speed. Try a second time, after filling your tires with air appropriately. See the difference? Now, assest the stopping distance for 70km/h and than try it. See the difference? Before you run for the next time, consider your former attempts: Try to stomp on the pedal, not squeeze it down -- kick it. Practice with the standing car:

a) moving the foot off of the throttle as swiftly as possible

b) Keeping the foot in the air and than kicking the pedal at once.

c) If you have a clutch, move the left foot just after the right foot and not simultanously. Try do it simultanously when the car is standing and you will see you find yourself with both feet momentarily airborne and your leverage is hence crippled.

Try and perform this braking procedure at the test at 70km/h. Did it work? What was the difference? What did you feel? Was it juddering, or just screatching? If it was juddering, you have ABS. If it's screatching, you have standard brakes.

Next time, remove the cone, and have your friend sit with you in the car and guiding you around untill, suddenly, shouting at once and out-loud to brake (simulate a surprise) while clapping his hands against one another or against the dash. See how well you perform this braking procedure under surprise.

Having done this, try regressive braking. Set the cone, brake hard as before but than back off of the pedal and reapply a bit less hard, about 70% of pedal travel. See the difference in braking distance. Now, repeat, but this time -- when you ease-off and reapply, apply the brakes harder, untill you reach the point where you feel the car is slowing down as fast as possible, without the wheels locking up or the ABS working. You will feel the pedal become harder, somewhat vibrating even, and applying strong pressure against your foot. Repeat "pumping" the pedal like this untill you reach the desired result. Did you stop faster? Not yet, right?

Repeat the practice. Improvement is measured by the number of cycles you need to perform to hit that point and than keep it by constantly easing off of the pedal. This practice can be split for several days to avoid brake damage. Make stops between every attempt. 

Eventually, you should be able to hold the car at the threshold on just one cycle. If you do not have ABS, you can now work on classic regressive braking. I.E. Perform just that drill, but without letting go of the pedal, just brake hard to wheel lockup, wait a fraction of a second, and than back-off slightly (begin by simply curling your toes) to get the tires rolling again. If succesful, your braking distance should become somewhat shorter with one to three such backing-off operations.

Now, try to go for serious Threshold braking: Try to make the shortest stopping distance by applying the brakes hard -- but not all the way down and not in an instant application like before -- and nail just the point of the threshold, and than keep the car just on that point. Try performing regressive braking under surprise and than full-force emergency braking to finish with.

NOTE: This is only a preperation drill, it cannot replace practicing regressive/threshold braking with a personal trainer, and cannot teach you to apply regressive braking at a real emergency. Emergency braking is performed by braking as hard as possible as quickely as possible, and than pressing the clutch if existant.





Friday, 15 October 2010

Rain racing

Wet racing events are a unique experience, particularly for the unskilled and inexperienced. As such, it can be surprising, fun or, frightening. What's the difference? Obviously, water decrease grip levels. The tires must be treaded so that they could drain the water. This reduces the amount of rubber on the ground, and gives the tire an extra toll. At 60mph, the average road tire drains one gallon of water per second, all in the area of the contact patch alone! 

However, with the right tire, grip levels on a wet track or road are not drastically reduced. The serious problem begins when water mixes with other chemical agents. Soaked dirt turns into highly slippery mud, oil, diesel and rubber marks from tires -- all contributes to a further reduction in grip levels. Depth of water also changes the equasion. Banked pieces of tarmac can turn into little pools of water and foliage that are very slippery.

The way around this problem is based on driving style rather than mechanical car setup. The idea is to look for the grippiest parts of pavement. Those pieces are normally treated as where no one has driven before the rain, but it is in fact much more complex: Slopes tend to drain water away from certain positions on the track, while making other sides of it flooded. Also, the most common place for dust and even oil is the sides of the track, to where cars are skidding and on which "marbles" of dirt from the shoulders lay.

The rain line is normally sharper and tighter. First, we brake slightly earlier and deeper into the turn, and wait for a relativelly late stage to turn the wheel. Not the average late APEX, but a still-later one. At the right moment, we turn the wheel decisivelly into the turn and than let the car turn by it's own, while trailing off of the brakes. Also, as we turn-in, APEX and Track-out, we would not be using the whole width of the track, because the built-in banking of the track surface will cause water drainage to the sides of the track.

Things to beware of:
1. Glimmering surfaces: As you look up, scan the road surface ahead for anything shiny. This would indicate oil or diesel, which decreases grip levels. Beware of them and adjust your line to avoid them where possible and/or beneficial. If you must drive over a relativelly slippery part of road, try to adjust your line so that you drive over it with a minimum of steering input, at a reasonable speed and as close as possible to a constant speed.
2. New pavement or concrete are normaly more slippery, though not quite as the former. They often requires changes in line and pace.
3. Standing water and streams should be avoided where possible. They can result in hydroplaning, which creates the most dramatic reduction of grip, only comparable to glare ice or skidpad enthol. 
4. First rain: The more dry and hot the road surface is, the more slippery it turns when soaked in water. Even on a dry track, dew can absorb oil and dust and create little points that are almost as slick as first rain. Whenever it rains after 4 days of dry weather, it is a first rain. First rains are also a psychological hazards because drivers take time to readjust themselves to the conditions.

The second problem: Visibility
Visibility in the rain is reduced. Check the glass of the windscreen, side windows, rear window and helmet, and even use special materials that can be scraped over the glasses from the inside (and some from the outside) to avoid the fogging of the visor. Most airconditioned cars have the ability to defume the front windscreen, and sometimes the side windows and the mirrors. Use these options. Combine them with cold air intake from external circulation and a partially open window.  For fog on your helmet-visor, breath downwards.

The greatest hazard: Hydroplaning
Hydroplaning is when a car exceeds it's ability to drain the water on the surface. The result is for the car to skim somewhat over the water, reducing grip levels to about 0.1 as slippery as glare ice, on normal tires! The feeling is that the car's progress and acceleration are somewhat hindered and engine RPM increases. The wheel feels very light.

During hydroplaning, any sudden movement will jerk the car into a nearly irrecoverable skid. The normal course of action is thus to gently-gently reduce throttle input to a minimum, without lifting-off. If ineffecient, ease off of the pedal completly. If this is inefficient, reapply slightly. If this is inefficient, or if the car skids, declutch. In the latter case a steering correction will also be required.

If you get oversteer and you try to use the throttle to renew rear grip, you are bound to either overpower the rear wheels of a rear-wheel drive car (making the situation worst) or spin the front wheels of a FWD to a level where no forward acceleration or weight transfer takes place. The line between too little and too much is more thin as grip levels are reduced, so we simply bang down on the clutch. This gives us natural tire rolling action that helps reduce the slip angles (no tractive forces working on the tire), a bit of acceleration during oversteer or a bit of deceleration during power understeer or even power oversteer.

A note on setup
Besides changing tire type, other changes can also make a car more fit for rain racing. A car on the rain tends to slip less and roll less. Hence, making the car generally softer, and maybe readjusting it's camber are helpful.


Coefficients of Friction
I have compiled the grip levels on various road surfaces:
  • Dry Pavement: 0.89-0.75. Ranges between high quality tarmac and racetracks and main roads, to bumpy, cracked tarmac, concrete, or white/scrubbed tarmac.
  • Wet Pavement: 0.60-0.50. Depending on water depth and the type and smoothness of the soaked road surface.
  • Dirt, Grass; Gravel, Mold, Rocks: 0.58-0.42. Gravel, mold and rocks are less grippy, but a wheel sliding over gravel or loose dirt, tends to dig into them, hence slowing down and regaining grip. With gravel, it also finds a grippier layer beneath.
  • "First Rain:" 0.38-0.32. A small rain shower after at least three days of dry weather and some traffic. This causes dirt, oils, rubber left-overs and acrilic colors, to float over the water, making it seriously slick. Even when the water dries out, the foliage can remain.
  • Diesel, Petrol, oil, brake fluid, fresh tar: 0.30-0.20. These are all defined as oils, but these are rather sticky, giving better grip that most people think. They tend to become quite more slick when they absorb moist.
  • Mud: 0.30-0.25. Mud and animal feaces are to be aware of when driving on rural roads.
  • Partial frost/Hail: 0.60
  • Advanced frost: 0.53
  • Full frost: 0.39
  • Fresh Snow: 0.36. Grippy tarmac beneath can help make slides more recoverable, like with loose dirt.
  • Packed snow: 0.35. Chance of frost or ice beneath the snow.
  • Snow and ice: 0.32
  • "Black ice": 0.30. Small, thin layers of frost that are penetrated by sun rays.
  • Bright/wet ice: 0.24
  • Motor/gearbox/differential oils: 0.19
  • Glare ice: 0.19. Ice at the temperature range that offers minimal water buildup untop of the ice.
  • Skidpad surface: 0.12. A surface made of a chemical agent (enthol) resembling icy condtions or hydroplaning.
  • Hydroplaning: 0.15-0.9.


Winter Driving

With the Autumn on the way and the days getting colder, we should think about the hazards in store for us in the soon-to-come days of cold and wet. If you are afraid of winter driving, don't be. Fear is not appropriate here. Fear is a paralyzing factor, it should be minimized just to the level of a healthy sense of self-preservation. Many people, myself included, find driving in the rain and even driving wet tracks, to be nice.

The first rain is the time to recheck your point of view: Do you focus on the potential skid or of the hazard of lesser grip? The two are identical, but the latter one should prove better when driving in the wet. Modern cars have very high limits to grip and, when maintained and treated according to basic instructions, will not be very easy to iritate.

If you have looked into the subject of "Effective Driving", you probably recognise the extreme importance of setting your safe and compatible driving environment before you hit the road. The way to do this is to make sure the car is fit and that the driver's enviornment is fit.

The car should be checked primarily for tires. They are the most important car part in need of steady maintainence, especially in the winter. Cheap, old, worn or badly inflated tires cost in dearly in grip levels and driveability. You will be amazed by how quickely the car reaches it's limits on bends, or how further it takes to stop it with the brakes pinched to the floor, when the tires are under-inflated! And that's without considering particularly low-friction surfaces and the extra time of perception, reaction, hesitation and car response, untill the car starts slowing down effectivelly.

Take a personal gage and check all four tires and the spare one. If the tire is hot from driving you should add 10% to pressure. If it's very cold, you actually let out pressure progressively. If in doubt, prefer an overinflated tire over an under-inflated one! The overinflated tire is stiffer (less likely to fall apart) and will penetrate the layers of water or even frost and snow that an under-inflated tire would skim over.

When checking tread depth, do not settle for the legal minimum of 1.6mm of depth (like with the "penny test"). A good depth is at the very least, 3mm. Likewise, if you do have some very worn tires, do not "put the good tires in the back". The good tires belong...on all four wheels! That's when it's time to replace the whole pack. If you put the good tires in the back, you get more grip at the back and a tendency to understeer, which is a more predictable and highly recoverable manner of road handling. But there is a catch: By reducing the front-end grip, you lose not only steerability (causing understeer) but also most of your braking force, which comes from the front wheels.

Since the average driver best deals with a terminal skid by hard braking, and since a significantly shorter braking distance might be better than stable, straight-line braking over a longer length, there is no place for compromise: The good tires go on all four wheels!

Having checked the tires, we now turn to our driving enviornemnt. This begins by driver clothing. In the postmodern lifestyle most of us manage, driving can be made into a place of tranquility and freedom, instead of bringing your stresses and noise into the cabin. When you enter the car, take off long, warm heavy clothing like coats. They interfere with concentration, steering, and with the seatbelts. When you intiatly take off your upper cloth, it feels very cold. Wait a second before you put it back on. It will become easier.

With addition to that, make sure your soles are clear of moist and mud. You will be surprised by the amounts of accidents caused by a slipping foot! Take care for your seating position, grip of the steering wheel and check your mirror adjustment. Use the A/C to reach a nice temperature, plus defume your windows and mirrors. Do not overheat the compartment: Set the A/C for circulation and keep one of the front windows slightly open for fresh air. 

So, we have adjusted our driving enviornment to suit the two factors of winter driving: The effect of temperature on the driver and the effect of weather on the road surface. However, when we do start going, we need to consider a third, perhaps most important factor -- visibility. Use the wipers and defrost to keep the windscreen clear. Having done that, we ask ourselves what can we done in real-time? Well, very little and I am not trying to be negative. My point is that we should not try to forcibly get over the problem by trying to focus our eyes on the road ahead. Alternatively, we should keep our eyes relaxes, open. This gives us a wider field of vision, and less eye fatigue. Like with taking off your clothes, it feels strange at the first moment when you try it, but getting  used to it is not too hard.

 Having done that, we need to keep our eyes UP, so that any hazard can be detected early and planning of dealing with it begins earlier. The problem is that the issue of visibility, puts an obstruction in our way: In what distance can we clearly see objects on the road? Well, that depends. Another road user on a car or bike, or even a pedestrain, can be seen from quite afar. However, another important thing to see, is the road surface itself. 

Why? Oh, just a little thing called "Reading the road surface" -- which is especially important in the winter. You should look for changes in the texture of the road to detect puddles, deeper water surfaces, glimmering greasy surfaces, icy conditions or mud, and this can only be seen at a shorter (albeit still quite large) distance. In order to combine the two, we look up to a far distance, as far as we can see road and scan the road from it towards a closer point, in which we can see the road surface for imperfections or flashes or a greasy surface.

Okay, so we established the importance of making the preperations and of looking up, but what about the practical inputs to the controls? Well, what about them indeed? Like with vision, very little. Do less with the controls and the chance of error will be less. Also, more energy will be available for mental planning of the driving. Driving in the winter, like all sorts of driving, is mental at heart. We need to create a direct link between the point the tire contacts the road, and our mind. The data should pass throughout whatever is in between (tire sidewall, steering mechanism, springs, dampers, wheel arms, chassis, steering wheel and seat, hands and legs, etc) as quickely as possible. 

The same works the other way: The driver does not control the car with the "controls" of brakes, steering and accelerator. He drives the car mentally in his mind and uses the controls as tools that aid him in getting it there. Planning is the key. If you look ahead in space, think ahead in time and plan ahead, you will be "one step ahead" of the car. This is the most effective way of how not to crush when travelling from A to B: If you see B and picture yourself getting there, it's as if you are already there.

As for practical advice: Keep your inputs minimal, accurate and smooth, but also relativelly quick when required. There is really no need to turn the wheel in an endless row of tiny hand movements. Instead, use one long, smooth but relativelly quick hand motion. Do not fight with the car. Fighting with the car through the controls is the opposite of driving it mentally. Turn the wheel in the above manner and let the car respond, even if it appears to respond slightly late or too progressively. Accelerate with particular ease and let the car pull itself onward. Brake with ease and let the car roll to a gradual stop or reduction to the appropriate speed.

It's important to manage the gap. Keep a good distance away from the car in front. The default gap is 2-seconds, but when wet it should be increased to 3-4 seconds gap. You need to make sure you measure full seconds by seeing when the car in front passes a stationary land-mark like a certain line on the road, and than count "five-one-thousand, four-one-thousand, three-one-thousand, two-one-thousand" for a gap of full four seconds. 

Emergencies
In spite of these procautions, it is important to refer to emergency situations. We cannot assume that any driver can and/or will use the above guidelines as nessecary or as effectivelly as possible. Likewise, we can assume an external factor, like another road user, has generated an emergency for the driver to cope with.

In spite of being able to break away on any surface, winter driving relates particularly to skids. If you are new to this, you should know that cars do not skid, their tires do. Therefore, any specific wheel can slide and this results in different types of sliding. If the front tire breaks loose, the front of the car is sliding. If the rear tires break loose, the rear is sliding. When refering to the responsiveness to steering, these skids are regarded as understeer and oversteer. When the front slides, the front wheels -- which are turned into corners to get the car to turn -- cannot do their job effectivelly and the car makes the turn at a far wider arc than expected or even ploughs almost straight ahead. When the rear slides, the back-end kicks away and rotates the front all too much into the corner.

The two situations can occur due to various reasons that require various corrective inputs, which can be complex to convey via writing and tenfold as complex to execute. The key is avoidance: Good car setup, mental planning of the drive, smooth and percise inputs, slow corner entry speeds. However, there are simple corrective inputs for the unskilled, average road driver to perform.

During understeer, the wheel feels numb and light. This sensation is the first sign of understeer and will come before the car actually slides out of line. The sensation alerts you via the steering mechanism, that the front wheels have little grip. Now that's WHY the car is sliding, the cause. When the car starts to slide out of line, that's just a symptom. This is important not only because it makes you feel and recover earlier, but also changes how you react. If you treat the symptom, you just turn more steering to force the car into the corner. This can work, but it is not the way to get out of understeer.

This way, you are in fact giving the front wheel additional cornering demands, making them slide MORE. Now, this makes the car slow down faster which can get it to grip again, but sometimes the car would not have the space to wipe off enough speed and even when it does grip, the wheels will be pointed into the corner with excess, so the car might over-react and spin you. This is fighting with the car.

Instead, if you focus on that feeling of numb steering, and slow down gently with the gas pedal and brakes, you will get much better a response. Try it: Go to empty lot of wet tarmac or of gravel, with two friends to guard the surrounding. Bleed out one-two PSI, turn-off any traction or stability controls. Turn the wheel 180 degrees one way and than accelerate very suddenly. You will get that feeling. Turn more and you feel the car losing more stability. Ease the gas and you will regain stability and normal steering feel.

Like with being smooth and not fighting with the car in normal driving, you should be smooth and accurate with your inputs. It's amazing how a slight touch of the brakes can get a car that formerly ploughed straight towards the gaurdrail, to tighten up the turn. So, too much of it, will get the car to "over-correct". Ease off of the throttle and touch the brakes, all without putting more steering, and when you feel (rather than see) that the car grips again, stop the recovery input. One way of achieving this timing actually comes from vision: Looking up towards where you want to go helps a lot. If you slide away from the corner and you look unto the oncoming gaurdrail, you will steer away from it. If you look into the turn, you will steer into it.

The difference between the two is the ability to measure your input accuratly. When you steer away from where you do not want to go, that's panic input. Panic input consumes all concentration and accuracy. You just steer and steer untill you get the response you want, you are fighting with the car. If you look (and hence steer) towards where you do want to go, you have a better feel as to how much steering to apply and when to stop turning. Looking further ahead, rather than onto the ground in front, will improve the accuracy and timing.  If you look five feet ahead and the car turns 10 degrees less than required, you will not feel a serious difference. If you look further, the change of direction would move your point of focus much more significantly.

So that's understeer: Practice it and focus on the feel of the steering and of where you are looking to. Using visuals targets helps with this practice. If you feel you got into a corner too fast, and the car refuses to turn as tightly as you wanted (i.e. it under-steers) you ease-off of the gas and maybe brake with ease. That's it. So, what about oversteer?

Oversteer is more problematic than understeer. Oversteer is a situation that requires a more accurate and quick correction or otherwise the car is far more likely to under-respond, over-respond or respond negativelly, to your inputs. In each case, this makes matters much worst. The problem here is that the car losses balance and attempts a spin and the way to recover from it is...(wait for it)...To pull the car ahead and back straight by using...(wait for it)...the gas pedal! This is a very counterintuitive course of action and even if you do manage to force yourself to make it, it's hard to get just the right amount of throttle and the right amount of steering at just the right moment. 

Yes, some of you might have heared about "countersteering", "steering into/against the slide" or "looking/steering where you want to go", but without throttle this is much like fighting the car with the steering during understeer. In fact, it's much worst. Yes, road speeds and the setups of some specific cars can be more forgiving, but than the car might over-respond, which is the worst-cas scenario.

So, unless you are very skilled and experienced (and one limit-handling/skid-pan course is nothing close to "very skilled and experienced"...), you should not consider such a corrective input and resort to the following action: At the moment when you feel the car sliding and trying to spin, stand onto the brakes as hard as you can, as quickely as you can. If possible, declutch and straighten the steering just after that kick against the pedal, and wait for the car to stop or straighten back up. 

This course of action is the only course of action that gaurentee's the smallest chance for error and the largest reduction of speed over the smallest length by the average driver. The reduction of speed and the slippage of the braking wheels can create a vector opposite to the direction of the slide and pull the car back straight, rather than make matters worst if you just brake without actually puncing the pedal down.

The same course action should be repeated during any emergency stop you need to perform. Some people would argue that, without ABS, this would result in locking of the wheels and in the car skidding, but:

a) Unless something is extremlly wrong with the road surface or car, the car would skid to a relativelly quick  stop and will not sway from it's straight forward direction. Even if the car loses lateral stability (i.e. you feel like it's going to spin) it normally just "rotates" by a few degrees, but the car as a whole keeps on skidding straight. On closed-compound testing, cars are made to spin because of intentional bad setup or by placing two wheels on a different, icy surface. Even than, the spinning car keeps spinning in a straight line!

b) The same people that tell you to brake hard with ABS but not without it, probably never told you about threshold braking, which is a technique that makes the braking distance shorter, even in cars with ABS. They would not tell you this because threshold braking is too complex to be applied in an emergency stop. So, why compromise with ABS, but not compromise at all without it?

c) Locking of the wheels disables steering, but you lose a lot of speed, you usually do not need to steer because the braking distances suffices, and if you do need to steer you ease off of the pedal. Remember, braking preceds veering!

d) If (a) does not hold true you probably squeezed the pedal and not pressed it as quickely and as hard as you should.

Summary
If you read this article carefully, you probably detected a certain stem to it: Driving smoothly, accuratly and decisivelly is the main thing. Looking up is a way to achieve the combination of those three treats. This is true both to avoid sliding, and to recover from a slide. 

Do not be intimidated by winter driving and do not drive out the fear of skidding. Do whatever possible to improve safety before you  drive: Plan for longer time of arrival and notify whoever might be waiting for you, check your tires carefully. Do not bring heavy and limiting clothing into the driving experience. Set the A/C to a nice speed, without over-cooking your brain. 

Keep your eyes open and look up far ahead to see cars and bikes from a further distance, and develop a scan pattern so that you look up to the furthest point where you see cars and bikes, and scan towards a closer (but still remote) point where you can see any obstruction on the road surface and back up to the furthest point. Look for glimming surfaces or puddles in particular.

Drive the car in your mind. When you look up, plan ahead by visualizing the line in which you want to drive your car to avoid the hazards. The faster you can draw that imaginary line and the closer you stick to it, the better your scanning habits and mental planning are. Drive the car smoothly, accurately and quickely when required. Do not fight with it. Be patient and keep a gap from the car in front, which is larger than three full seconds. 

If the car does not obey to your steering inputs, don't force it to turn by steering more sharply. Instead, keep looking into the corner (even if it means tilting your head slightly aside) and ahead, and slow down smoothly by easing off of the throttle and maybe dabbing the brakes. Just focus on looking in the right direction and of the sense of the steering, and your feet -- not your hands -- will get the job done.

If the car starts to rotate too much into the corner and attempts a spin, just brake hard to a stop. Also, whenever you need to avoid an obstacle, brake hard at once. Do not be afraid of: (a) sliding if you do not have ABS. (b) the rattle of a sudden stop if you do have ABS. (c) of being hit from behind. (d) of veering instead of braking.