Skidpan - January 24th 2009

Tuesday, 27 January 2009

Caralyn Duignan's experience...

I had booked on the skid pan course back in 2008 because Ian, my observer, was arranging the courses for 2009 and I hadn’t given it much thought as January started to move towards February. Then suddenly, there it was. Saturday January 24th and I knew that I had to go to Speke for the morning session of the car control course. I was surprised to find myself very nervous and wondering what the day would bring.

I passed my advanced driving test in December and I regularly drive around 40,000 miles a year but I really didn’t know what to expect. I have read the books about how to handle your car if it goes into a skid – foot off the accelerator and driving into it etc – but now I was going to have the chance to really do it.

I arrived at the venue in Speke with a couple of friends and we met up with Steve, the instructor, and the other people who were taking part, whose ages ranged from about mid 20’s upwards, both male and female.

We started with a brief 10 minute presentation about car control, looking at how a car behaves when it is put under pressure and the balancing act that the tyres have to play. It is quite a realisation that at any given time, the car is only in contact with the road surface on the area of four CDs. When that area is covered with slippery diesel or ice or water there is potentially a real problem to the driver who is unprepared.

Steve then took us out in groups of three to the converted BMW 3 series car. Through his controls he was able to represent any road condition for the car and driver to deal with. We were on a large private car park, with cones laid out to form the route to be followed. He drove round it for us and then demonstrated a full 180 degree spin following a loss of control. He then showed us how to mitigate the spin so we didn’t shoot backwards at an alarming rate. This was followed by learning the skills to control the car when traction was lost going round right and left hand bends as a result of oversteer. We all took it in turns to go through the manoeuvres and it was very instructive to see how everyone was coping with it. Different lessons came out with all of us, which enhanced our own driving.

The next stage was the “terminal understeer” problem. This is the situation when you are on ice and try to turn right round a bend for example and the car just carries on in a straight line. The tricks we learnt here were contrary to everything that you want to do and it felt very strange to start with, but with practice we built up the confidence that the techniques really worked.

Finally we were put through our paces with a fun timed slalom event. The trick was to drive fast enough as well as being able to control the car when it started to slide. Too slow and it was boring! Too fast and the chances of spinning out were vastly increased! And in our group the competitive nature of all of us came through! We all came away laughing but with a lot of added confidence about handling a car in adverse conditions.

I can’t wait to do it all again. I feel that I now have the basic skills which can be built on. I can read books about car control for ever and nothing will prepare me for the actual feeling of being in a car that is out of control. And then finding that I am able to control it. The skills may be enough to gain me one or two seconds in a nasty situation and that may be enough to save my life, and that of my passengers. But one course won’t be enough – I think this should be treated as part of life-long learning of car control, with regular annual refreshers. Try it – nothing to lose and skills to be gained.

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