Situation:

I was doing between 10 and 15mph around a medium-radius corner (very icy this morning with rain on top, so lethal) and met a car (4wd Audi A4) coming the other way, pretty fast. The lane was wide enough for 2 cars to pass (just!). As it was icy, steering at the speed I was travelling was having no effect (even with gentle steering) so I stood on the brake pedal to make the ABS do it's thing, scrubbed ~ 5mph off my speed and then reattempted the steering (with the ABS still applied). I managed to miss the person (who hadn't stopped) by about 2 - 3 inches.

Did I do the correct thing, or should I have released the brake pedal to make the turn?

As an aside I thought that 15mph was an appropriate speed around that corner but it evidently wasn't - lesson learnt.

locking the brakes will not help with steering, was reading the other day get into second gear and the car is more manageable letting it tick over kinda thing.

locking the brakes will not help with steering, was reading the other day get into second gear and the car is more manageable letting it tick over kinda thing.

I thought the idea of ABS was to enable you to brake and change direction at the same time? I know that with no ABS holding the brake on is stupid, but ABS has introduced a bit of a grey area for me

Steering on black ice (or any slippery surface) is like oversteer writ large in many ways, in which case what you did is pretty good in my limited opinion - try to lose speed, and back off on the steering until the skid comes under control, then gently reapply steering input.

As for coming off the brakes, it was an evasive manoeuvre rather than a racing move, so I think staying on the brakes was the correct thing to do, since the whole point of ABS is to allow steering to continue at the limit of adhesion.

The main thing is you sounded in full control of your vehicle and didnt panic, so I say you did the right thing also. You knew the road was slippery and had adjusted your speed accordingly, and as mentioned, ABS is designed to keep as much braking force as physically possible to the tyres on the surface of the road while you steer.

Some good points raised above. It's a difficult situation as you don't know how much grip is available and ABS should take the headache away and allow you to steer if there is some grip available, although with summer tyres it can prolong stopping distances as a result. One other approach would be to select a lower gear (not sure which one you were in at 15mph) and use engine braking to scrub off the same speed while keeping the car a bit more neutral and without the risk of locking up the wheels.

Ultimately you avoided an accident so what you did wasn't wrong

Chris

Did virtually the same thing this morning :cool:but was doing 5 mph and slid the best part of 150 metres down the road with abs fully on ....slowed me down to about 2 mph so let off the brakes and gently steered round the corner ........not nice.......went back and gritted the road from a roadside grit box and could barely stand up

2nd gear in a fabia vrs with goodyear eagle f1s by the way.

Pretty much in agreement with everyone else but note that none of the rest of us probably know the road in question.

Incidentally, I'd have been in 3rd at 15, with the heavier and less torquey Octy 110.

I had a nightmare along these lines in a Nissan Micra a couple of years back, with no ABS and very snatchy brakes. There was a 50m or so section of road leading to an angled T junction where the surface had been replaced and for some reason it was the only part that iced over under the snow. Travelling slowly on the approach to the junction, it became clear that there was no traction to the degree where the car was starting to move into the camber and it was needing countersteer to keep it straight. The breakes would lock the second I brushed the pedal so I had no choice but to run down through the gears to drag it down and take the junction in a lightly powered slide just to keep it on course. There was a transit coming the other way towards the junction that was also slipping all over the road, and we managed to glide past each other to within a couple of feet. I think I must have left pucker marks in the seat cover

Got in trouble after that actually - work wanted to stay open until midday even though the forecast for mid morning suggested a very heavy snowfall, so I told my team to get themselves home and I'd deal with it later. Most of them came from out in the sticks and would have struggled no end. Eventually work relented and agree that the time they'd taken was justified, but I had to argue for it.

Pretty much in agreement with everyone else but note that none of the rest of us probably know the road in question.

Incidentally, I'd have been in 3rd at 15, with the heavier and less torquey Octy 110.

The corner about 10 metres south east of here

Orleton (Worcs)- Orleton Court Lane (adj)?, Worcestershire, UK - Google Maps

10m? You mean 100m, right? The road surface looks pretty poor there too... :(

I'd take that gently for sure, and South bound, be pretty much in the verge on approach to open the vanishing point as fast as possible, but I don't see you did anything wrong.

Incidentally, I nearly got side-swiped on a near straight but very narrow road on my way to work this morning. It was dark enough to merit full beam where consideration allowed, so no way did the other driver not see me other than by not looking!!

10m? You mean 100m, right? The road surface looks pretty poor there too... :(

Sorry, I did indeed mean 100m

I was travelling up the map by the way

Ken how on earth do you get two gearchanges in before 15mph? Or do you block change 1st to 3rd, at just above walking pace? :P

Ed. Nothing wrong with what you did. Were you positioning for maximum visibility round the corner as you approached?

Ed. Nothing wrong with what you did. Were you positioning for maximum visibility round the corner as you approached?

I was positioned away from the verge (so more in the middle of the road than on the left) to see around the corner, but in my opinion that half contributed to the problem as that's what made me so close to the car travelling in the opposite direction.

I was positioned for maximum visibility but in hindsight it wasn't necessary the safest road position given the conditions

2nd gear in a fabia vrs with goodyear eagle f1s by the way.

I've noticed the F1's on the Panda haven't felt as sure-footed at this time of year as they do in the summer, but that just makes driving on them more exciting. I've certainly not had any no-grip situations in them, but we seem to have escaped most of the ice and snow down here so not really a fair comparison

It's an interesting comment about the positioning. I guess you have to weigh up the amount of extra road information the extra vision gives you against how much time it actually buys you to react to a situation. If you'd been tucked in to the hedges would you have been carrying more speed through the corner and still had the same traction problems but had less space to deal with the Audi (which you would have seen later)?

Apologies if this is stuff you already know, but a couple of other thoughts. It's hard to tell from the satellite pictures how tall the hedges are, but another thing to bear in mind when positioning is that grip is potentially going to be less in their shadow (same under bridges, etc) so that's worth factoring in on the approach too. You also only want to position to develop an existing view so if you have limited sight into a bend stay tucked in and expect the worst, whereas if it's a more open bend, potentially with a good crossview, you can afford to take a bolder position on the road to see more and be seen earlier.

And the all important question ... did the Audi make it round the corner or did he run into difficulty too?

Chris

Hi Chris,

Good point. I think had I been closer to the inside of the corner then I'd have had to have made a bigger change to my velocity (as steering input required would have been greater as the corner gets tighter as you get closer to it's centre). So not really sure what being far left would have achieved, other than the possibility of being able to get on the slightly grippier grass verge?

Thanks for the tips about tall hedges and road positioning; will take those on board.

The Audi made it with little to no fuss, and in fact I think he stood on his throttle as he seemed to get out of my way by speeding up to get out of my straight-line-path. I suppose that's one of the advantage of 4wd?

Good point. I think had I been closer to the inside of the corner then I'd have had to have made a bigger change to my velocity (as steering input required would have been greater as the corner gets tighter as you get closer to it's centre). So not really sure what being far left would have achieved, other than the possibility of being able to get on the slightly grippier grass verge?

Interesting, eh? Did I mention there's no right answer I'm not sure wet/icey grass would provide more grip than the road, although it might have bought you some more space away from anything on the road. ABS would also come into its own if you had wheels on different surfaces.

The Audi made it with little to no fuss, and in fact I think he stood on his throttle as he seemed to get out of my way by speeding up to get out of my straight-line-path. I suppose that's one of the advantage of 4wd?

I the answer is potentially 4wd cars allocate power based on which wheel has grip so as long as one of the wheels can get grip the best way out of trouble is to give the car some throttle and let it sort itself out. On a newish Audi, I'd also guess that's coupled with ESP so while it may have looked unfussed, I'm not sure the driver was responsible for the outcome

Chris