It is becoming more and more obvious to me that very few drivers on the road these days have a clue about how to control a skid. I don’t know if it’s because driving schools don’t teach it or because most drivers nowadays are learning from a friend or parent who never learned it either or for some reason skip that lesson.

Skid control is not something you can learn on the spur of the moment when the need arises. You either know it ahead of time or you reap the consequences. Quite often fatal.

When I taught my wife and three sons to drive, quite a few years ago, I took them out on empty, snow or ice covered mall parking lots to practice. I would make them put the car into a skid on purpose and practice regaining control where there was no risk of hitting anything. You can know the theory perfectly, but without actually practicing it you’re only half ready for a real life situation.

The first thng you need to know is whether you’re driving a rear wheel or front wheel drive vehicle. Skid control methods are almost completely opposite for the two and many drivers of rear wheel drives don’t realize when they change to a front wheel drive that they have to relearn everything they know and even change their instincts. Hence the need for practice.

Almost all skids involve loss of traction by the drive tires. Thus, on rear wheel drives its the backend of the car that slides either left or right. On front wheel drives it’s the front end of the car that has a mind of its own.

The cause of the skid is usually a difference in the speed of the vehicle and the rotational speed of the tires.

The last thing you want to do in the event of a skid is apply the brakes. This tends to lock up all four wheels and you’re now in a four wheel skid intead of only two. Vehicles with ABS brakes are only slightly better if you’re already in skid mode. All four wheel brakes will still be applied long enough to make a skid worse.

Here are the simple rules for skid control:

Rear wheel drive

Take your foot off of the accelerator and steer in the direction of the skid. Eg. If the rear of the vehicle is sliding to the right, turn the steering wheel to the right.
As the vehicle straightens out, apply slight acceleration to match tire speed to vehicle speed.

Front wheel drive

Steer in the opposite direction of the skid and press down on the accelerator. Eg. If the front of the vehicle is skidding right turn the steering wheel to the left.
Do not under any circumstances take your foot off the accelerator. This has the same effect as slamming the brakes on the drive wheels only, and will serve to increase the skid.

You will be least likely to go into a skid if the rotational speed of your tires matches the speed of your car.

I know it seems counter-intuitive to accelerate during a skid, but that’s the main reason so many thousands of cars go off the road every year.

There are only two main causes of all accidents except those caused by mother nature, ie. floods, earthquakes, etc. Those two causes? Inexperience and inattention.

Be safe out there.

As much as I’m made grumpier by drivers who have no clue how to merge, the one’s who really fill me with fear and loathing are tailgaters.  As far as I’m concerned this habit is one of the most despicable, unprofessional, and downright life threatening that any driver can fall into.

Here’s a test for my readers.  What is the guideline for gauging the appropriate distance from your vehicle to the one ahead? I’ll give the answer at the end of this post.

Most of my readers will have either experienced one of these slugs, or witnessed the resulting mayhem caused by their actions.   Not a day goes by while I’m following my profession that I don’t see several potentially fatal collisions just waiting to happen due to drivers who have either forgotten or chosen to ignore safe following distance guidelines.

Don’t get me wrong.  This is not the sole domain of four-wheeler drivers.  Many truck drivers fall into this dangerous practice as well, and they are the worst offenders.  They are driving the heaviest and most dangerous vehicles on the road.  They are the ones with the longest stopping distance.  On top of that, they are the ones who should be most conscious of the dangers, and most importantly the law.

Although the law in most jurisdictions does not decree an exact distance, they all specifically state, “vehicles must leave enough space when following another vehicle to allow a third vehicle to change lanes and enter between them safely”.  A lot of truck drivers use that as an excuse for tailgating.  Their logic is, “every time I ease off and leave an opening, another vehicle cuts in front of me and I have to slow down”. The problem with that reasoning is if everyone thought that way there would never be a chance to change lanes.

When I see a tractor trailer following a four-wheeler 10 feet behind it’s bumper and notice a child or children in the back seat I get sick to my stomach.  What person in their right mind would take this kind of risk? One false move and someone will die.  I’ve tried speaking to such drivers on the CB about it but the usual response is “You drive your truck, I’ll drive mine”. So that pretty well sums up the mentality of people who tailgate. Would they do the same thing if the occupants of the car in front of them were their family members?

I don’t know the solution to this particular problem because stupidity is hard to legislate against. However, the police really need to start cracking down on these thoughtless offenders and the courts have to treat culprits more severely.

No I didn’t forget I promised an answer to the question….  What is the guideline for gauging the appropriate distance from your vehicle to the one ahead?

For four-wheelers it’s the two second rule and for big trucks it’s the four second rule.  This is because it takes about twice as long for a truck to get stopped as a car.  The way it works is, you watch for an object close to the side of the road ahead and when the vehicle in front of you passes it you count…..one elephant….two elephant and if you pass that same object before the end of your count you are too close.  In bad conditions such as wet, snow covered, or icy roads you need to extend that distance accordingly.

So. Please try to avoid tail gating both for your own safety and to help cut down on my grumpiness.  I really would appreciate it.

Grumpy Old Trucker

Many folks today would like to know the secret of maintaining a long term relationship.  I’ve always believed the best way to find out things like this is to ask those who are doing it.  With that in mind, here’s is one great example for all of us.

My Buddy Ross in Perth, Australia and his wife Jan will be celebrating their 44th wedding anniversary in January 2009.  I got some insight this week into why they’re still together after all this time.  Ross can still make her laugh and the couple who can laugh together are blessed indeed.

Here’s a segment of an email Ross sent me last week:

**************************************************************************

I played a joke on Jan. She was given a recipe for Pumpkin Fruitcake. I typed up my own ridiculous version of the recipe & replaced the original with my look alike. Jan went to cook the cake yesterday. Got out the recipe & burst out into hysterical giggling. Maybe Jan has a warped sense of humour, like mine? Got so bad I had to get her a glass of water to stop her choking from laughter. I don’t know how Jan detected that I was the culprit? Anyway the attachment is the amended recipe.

Let me preface my comments by saying I’m not trying to pick on California.  I chose them as my topic today because 1). I was there this week for the first time in several years.   2)  I was there for 3 days mostly due to having to reset my logbook, then driving more then 300 miles to get my reload.  And maybe 3) Because they are such a sharp contrast to the part of North America I live in, the east coast of Canada.

First you can’t get much more contrast then two coasts more than 3000 miles apart.  Some of the similarities are unremarkable.  There are friendly and not so friendly people on both coasts.  There are criminals and law breakers on both coasts.  Percentage wise crime may even be the same but due to the much larger population in California the incident rate is far greater.

Most of the things I noticed had to do with the environment.

* Open burning of trash and brush.  Not allowed in Nova Scotia except by special permit and only at certain times of the year.

* It was obvious that a huge percentage of vehicles passing me on the streets were big gas guzzling V-8′s.  Most people in the east have long since converted to 6 and 4 cylinder engines.

* No control on emissions from factories and industrial plants.  The air in California stinks almost everywhere.  The stench even crept into my cab with the windows tightly closed.

* Poor visibility almost everywhere even way out in the country.  There seems to be a perpetual haze in the air.  I assume it’s smog but my only experience with that in Canada is around Toronto and Montreal during a weather inversion or when there are forest fires burning somewhere.

* Maybe it’s just a symptom of an older and more crowded part of the country but there seem to be many businesses and properties abandoned and moldering in states of ruin and decay.  Also a lot of useful land just lying unused and weed choked.

On the plus side, I saw many crews out cleaning up garbage along the highway, though why this should still be necessary anywhere in North America in this supposedly enlightened age is beyond me.  I guess there will always be slobs who think it’s all right to just turf it out the window and let someone else pick up after them.

I’m sure there are many more redemptive qualities to California as well but to the casual observer only there for a few days, it seems the negatives jump out at a person much more readily.  I welcome comments from those who would like to point out some of the better qualities or defend against any of my comments here.  Not that defense is a requirement, but California after all calls itself the Golden State.  The only gold I saw was the sun struggling vainly to shine through the smog.

I’m doing a coast to coast run this week. I picked up a load in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island Tuesday evening and will be delivering in Santa Rosa, California on Monday morning. So that means viewing the water of two oceans in one week.

I saw the water of the Atlantic Ocean from the Confederation Bridge between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick on Tuesday (twice actually) and will be seeing the water of the Pacific in San Francisco Bay on Monday. Let me tell you, it’s a long way across this continent. Six thousand kilometers by the time I bump the dock Monday morning.

The coldest part of the trip so far was Thursday night at Davenport, Iowa where it got down to -13 C. (+8.5 F.) First time I’ve had to run the truck all night this winter. However, the temps since then have been mostly above freezing. It got up to 10 C. (50 F.) today (Saturday) in Wyoming although very windy.

Not very much snow across the country so far, but that doesn’t stop the four-wheelers from hitting the rhubarb in multiple locations. And I don’t just mean rolling off into the median or anything as simple as that. No, they seem to have a talent for flipping on there sides and even totally upside down. Why, oh why, won’t people slow down and drive for conditions?