Trying to lighten the mood slightly

With your looks, you'd have to be something like an E-type Jaguar or a Ferrari 250GTO.

Smooth

...who's son thought that he (the son) was Scotland's answer to Ayrton Senna.

Wasn't that Colin McRae?

Actually, these days skid pan training could turn out to be counter productive. The problem is that if you get into the habit of steering into a skid and holding it all under control in that manner ESP (if you have it) is going to detect that you have got steering input but that the car is not responding. It will the do something about it and pitch you straight into a crash which you have got no chance of avoiding because you can't react quickly enough. It's the reason that Devon & Cornwall Constabulary have abandoned all skid training, all their new vehicles are fitted with ESP so the idea now is to just let the electronics sort it out.

Get her out on country roads and get her thinking about how slowly you actually need to be going when it gets narrow. Throw the importance of road position into the mix, something many urban instructors don't address very well, and get her a copy of Roadcraft.

Been up to the crash site tonight, by myself, it was horrible :( judging from the distance from the corner to the tree's he hit, he had had a little bit of a fight with it but lost.

Tbh 50% i think ESP causes nothing but problems, not so long back going round a roundabout with my winter tyres on, it was about 12 degrees so they were like jelly, the front end let go completely the ESP locked the from n/s wheel, causing the rear end to step out and i have to correct it before it span round. Thankfully i was going slow enough for me to have plently of thining and reaction time but if the ESP had not of kicked it would of just run wide not nearly spun

Tbh 50% i think ESP causes nothing but problems

The bottom line is that most people don't have a clue how ESP works and the only experience of it is when they're driving on the limit and it can exacerbate the problem.

Chris

Tbh 50% i think ESP causes nothing but problems, not so long back going round a roundabout with my winter tyres on, it was about 12 degrees so they were like jelly, the front end let go completely the ESP locked the from n/s wheel, causing the rear end to step out and i have to correct it before it span round. Thankfully i was going slow enough for me to have plently of thining and reaction time but if the ESP had not of kicked it would of just run wide not nearly spun

Tend to agree with that.Only time I've been in a car with ESP in snow/ice ,it handled better with ESP switched off,as with it n ,it was kickin in regularly and causing problems .I've driven cars with it ,but never seen any indication that it kicked in, but then I learned to drive ( after my test ) in RWD cars, which you drove by the seat of your pants .

But will she be able to afford a car new enough to have ESP. If yes, forget the skid pan training, unless it's for times when she's wise enough to switch it off .If no - as I said before ,it not only teaches you how you arrive at the situation ,but how to get out of it, and more importantly ,how to drive to avoid one. I've been there , done it and got the T shirt, but thanks to ingrained training ( none of it practical) ,got out of problems on a badly cambered road in the middle of nowhere .I now keep my hand in on any large expanse on the first snow fall .Your first skid of the winter is best done ( IMHO) as one you engineer ,in a place you choose ,and at a speed you can control .

Country lanes are best aproached from the angle of not how fast you can go down them ,but how safely. A good defination of the correct speed to drive at is "A speed where you can stop safely ,on your side of the road, IN THE DISTANCE YOU SEE TO BE CLEAR"( Courtesy of Safespeed site) . Something that many years of driving on single tracks taught me. Round that bend might be an HGV,a herd of sheep, or cows. Or a group of school kids from your village.Pity that ROSPA don't delve into the archives and put up the old DOT advert ,showing a lot of hazards, hidden by a bend, or blind rise . ( Hazards were , a broken down car ,just over the rise , aliens, and others I can't remember. But it made the point. ).Something like the motorbike safety ad shown recently, but for cars

Edited 20 March, 201214 yr by VWD

The bottom line is that most people don't have a clue how ESP works and the only experience of it is when they're driving on the limit and it can exacerbate the problem.

Chris

I understand how it works and like i said i was going round a roundabout so i wouldt say i was on the limit. In my opinion it made a bad situation worse.

There are times it does its job correctly but sometimes it does not help at all

I'm not going to quote all of the above, but I WILL disagree with all of you.

ESP does not cause crashes, ESP does not "pitch you into an accident" ect ect.. to suggest ESP causes your car to be more likley to crash is rediculous.

Have any of you actually doen any testing with ESP and what its capable of? I have. keystone driving says that by turning into the skid ect will cause it to confuse ESP and crash ect..

NOT TRUE. at least look at the videos ..... educate yourselves... when in oversteer, steering into the skid correctly as you would in a non esp equipped car will work with the ESP to correct the skid (TRY IT OFF ROAD) I have and it works perfectly.... dont be scared of new technology.. if feels odd yes, it feels like its messing up your attempts to control the oversteer, yes...... but it is doing it correctly, and it works...actually look at the videos, actually see the correct steering inputs to control the car (steering into the skid ect) and how the braking pulses work... in understeer, it doesn't brake the front wheels, it brakes the rear, it only slows you down, and alters the pitch of the vehical into the direction you are trying to go (which you couldnt do with your brakes without ESP, you couldnt reduce your velocity without loosing what little steering response you have) on oversteer, it will brake the front wheel, and turning into the skid is EXACTLY what you should do , just as if you had no ESP, but AGAIN, without it, you would not be redcing your velocity, like you would with esp...

just because it feels like its interupting your attempts to correct the car does not mean its pitching you into a crash!

if you wish to argue, fine. we will agree to disagree. but any of you who meet me at a meet, if we get off road capability (like we will on the prague trip) I will take you out in ESP equipped cars, and non ESP equipped cars on the airfield, and do similar manouvers at exactly the same speeds...

I will controll the skid in the non ESP equipped car, and I will do exactly the same thing in the ESP equipped car, and we will see the massive difference between where both cars finish up... it is a FACT that you will stop in a shorter distance than a non ESP equipped car, doing the exact same thing. ITS SAFER!

its easily the difference between the tree or not the tree.

I wont reply on the subject again, as I dont want to get into a pointless argument, but to say ESP is more of a problem than not on a public road, is wrong.

I am a DSA ADI , I have an IHCD qualification in blue light response driving , and I am qualified to teach it all, if you want to try and continue the argument, pay me £30 an hour, bring a non ESP equipped car with you, and we can go somewhere to PROVE my points. the reason I'm going on so strongly, is peoples lives are at risk here... its not just a brisky argument........ if you think a person will be safer in a non ESP equipped car, you are mad.

*rant over.

I'm not going to quote all of the above, but I WILL disagree with all of you.

I'm still standing by my statement. If you are driving an ESP equipped car and get into a skid and apply "armfuls of oppo", as people seem keen to do, ESP may exacerbate the problem as it will assist the car in going in whichever direction the front wheels are pointing. If you understand how ESP works and you steer in the direction you want the car to go, it is a very powerful aid.

ABS is exactly the same and in fact Brake Assist is now fitted to cars (removing brake feel) because people don't push the pedal hard enough in an emergency situation.

Chris

It's hard, no one starts out as a good driver.

Most men will start out driving too fast, too agreessively and taking lots of chances(and girls too more and more now).

Most of us will have lost of near misses and over time those scares plus some experience will teach us not to drive like planks.

But I really don't know how you get around human nature.

Bikes are simpler usually, it'm much more obvious it's going to hurt when you get it wrong and hurt a lot. Most people will fall off at low speeds and learn it hurts pretty quickly without too much damage. Still I cringe when I see people flying around on scooters wearing a helmet but with shorts, tee shirt and no gloves. I'd never ride my bike without full kit no matter how hot it was. So when I came off it hurt but I've still got all my fingers.

Edited 21 March, 201214 yr by Aspman

Sorry to hear about this, sad news.

I'd echo the suggestions of an advanced driving course - that should help quite a lot, gets her thinking and doing this right at the beginning of her driving 'career' will hopefully stop any bad habits becoming ingrained. She should also hopefully be in 'learning mode' still and just soak up all the additional things to learn and take on board

Also PassPlus. How this isn't a mandatory part of the driving test I don't know. The fact that you might have never been out driving at night, and especially on an alien road network... known as motorways (!!) seems complete madness to me.

After I passed I used to do fairly short stints of motorway work, on longer journeys with my parents. This was invaluable I think, in building up confidence of using a motorway and proper lane discipline and obviously the different approach needed to steering input at higher speeds.

You have absolutely the right approach to this though. It's all too easy to think you know it all as soon as you've passed and you're allowed on the open road unsupervised. I'd also try to discourage her travelling with a car-load of friends in the immediate weeks and months following her passing. This has an instant and often automatic change in driving behaviour at that age, in my experience.

Best of luck

Steve

I am a DSA ADI , I have an IHCD qualification in blue light response driving , and I am qualified to teach it all, if you want to try and continue the argument, pay me £30 an hour, bring a non ESP equipped car with you, and we can go somewhere to PROVE my points. the reason I'm going on so strongly, is peoples lives are at risk here... its not just a brisky argument........ if you think a person will be safer in a non ESP equipped car, you are mad.

As it happens, I am also a fleet registered ADI. My source for the quotes about abandoning skid pan training because of the problems it can cause with ESP was one of the senior instructors at our local police driving school. As our local force has one of the best safety records of any force in the country I have to assume that he knows what he is talking about.

Rob.