Safe Speed Forums

I can't make my mind up what to make of it! I've never driven one but everything I've heard about it seems to suggest that in practice it is very subtle - that you only notice its effects when you step back into a normal car!

I've always been fundamentally opposed to driver aids like ABS, TC etc, as I felt they diminished the driver's skills, so in the long term the net change was a negative one. But I'm gradually changing my mind, recognising the pragmatic approach that most drivers don't have these skills anyway, so offering a "mechanical substitute" will yield a gain after all.

I'd be very interested to try this adaptive steering though - I'm intrigued now!

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See new thread: "Electronic driver aids"



Yep. Same here.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

when I did my advanced course they discussed steering and it all made a little more sense. If your arms are across your steering wheel hub and the air bag deployes your going to be hit in the face with your own arms. Also If you don't have full control of your wheel then if the unexpected happens the you will probably loose control.

I really do try to keep both hands on the wheel at all times but in reality it's only when I am thinking abou it.

In the next couple of weeks I will be harvesting potatoes with no hands on the steering wheel and not looking where I'm driving and probably talking on the phone, texting, eating, drinking from flask, reading operators manual all of of which will be done while driving in formation, sometimes as close as 1 inch fron the vehicle next to me. And there is no mechanical conection between the steering wheel and the front wheels either.

Horses are clever...

Only just been directed here. My general technique in my very high geared 4WS Accord (under 3 turns lock to lock - and turned almost as tight as a taxi) was a hybrid of a lot of the above. On the straight, right hand at three PM, right elbow on armrest; left arm free for any auxiliaries (razor, radio.....) but when otherwise unoccupied, loosely gripping at 9 oclock, relieving right elbow pressure from armrest. For a single bend, generally I got a pre-emptive fresh grip on the straight - such that I was at quarter to three at the apex of the hazzard. Depending on how fast I was travelling and what the risk of hitting an obstacle was, I would either return to the straight ahead without letting go, then, one hand at a time go back to quarter-to-three, or cautiously let self-centre take it back to the straight ahead, controlling the return with friction, leaving my hands at quarter-to-three. For any combinational hazards, "fixed input" as defined above worked fine.

In this latest Accord, the turns lock to lock is greater and the turning circle smaller. The same technique above as described is used where appropriate, but it often requires some very strange - almost contorted - preemptive grip changes to get to the 9o and 30 grip at the apex.

Not quite sure when I developed this technique or why - but it does seem very ... right. I appreciate that it requires more subconscious computation than if I never left 9o and 3o on the straight ahead, but it works for me.

Not sure what I do in bad weather - and it's been 25 years since I was on a skid pan - and our local police headquarters no longer has a pan. Pity.

I'm confused about what is meant by "fixed-input" steering. I had assumed it to be a technique where you kept a fixed (or constant) steering input throughout the turn. I can think of two ways to do this, with both rarely being safe on the public road:

1. Apply the "correct" steering input to take you around the corner without adjustment. Because bends are rarely perfect arcs, this will involve drifting from side to side as your car follows the "best-fit" arc for the corner.
2. This only works on cars that tend to understeer near the limit. Enter the corner near the limit of adhesion. Turn into the corner with a little too much lock, which you hold fixed as the car travels around the bend. As the car moves towards the inside of the bend, increase the throttle to increase the amount of understeer, and so increasing the turning radius. Continue around the bend controlling the path the car takes by adjusting the amount of understeer. Effectively, you're steering using the throttle.

... well, I did say that these methods are rarely safe on the public road.

FWIW, I'm too tall to use anything other than ten-to-two in normal driving, and my legs prevent me from taking my hands lower than twenty-to-four in most cars. So, it's the BSM shuffle for me. I also keep my thumbs outside the wheel (and have done ever since taking a basic off-road course).

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Will

"Fixed input" merely relates to whereabouts you grip the wheel - it has nothing to do with how much you turn it! If you read the early posts in this thread it's explained there in more detail.

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CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!