How to Control your Steering during a Skid
The chance of skidding is what makes winter driving so scary. But skids don’t happen only in winter. A little rain, a little dust, a little mud, and you’ve got a skid waiting to happen. Whenever traction isn’t the greatest, the most important thing between you and the skid is your control of your steering. If you know what you’re doing, you cansteer your way out of the skidin no time.
Types of skids
There are two main kinds of skids. The one you’re probably thinking of is the sideways skid, or fishtail. Many cars fishtail a little as they go around snowy or muddy corners, usually when they’re travelling too fast for the conditions. Don’t think you’re immune to a fishtail just because you’re in a four-wheel drive! They can fishtail too!
In a fishtail, your steering wheels started by following the path you wanted the car to go, but your drive wheels have lost all traction. The result is that your back end spins out behind you into a wide corner. Even if you don’t hit other things that way, the unexpected extra torque can also add that last bit of force to make your front wheels lose traction as well. If you keep braking or gunning it, you can easily turn that wide corner into a full 360 degrees and then some, and then you've got real problems.
The other kind of skid is the straight-line skid. That’s also caused by travelling too fast for the conditions.
In straight-line skids, your whole car wants to keep going in its original direction, just as if you never pressed on the brakes at all. The big problem there is that there’s usually a very good reason you hit the brakes in the first place!
Steering your way out of a fishtail
The trick to steering your way out of a fishtail is to steer the direction you want the hood to go. That comes down to the same thing as steering into the skid, but be careful not to over correct! You've got to turn the wheel gently if you’re going to regain control. Maybe you’ll steer a bit wide if it’s a strong fishtail, but that’s better than spinning into circles.
At the same time as you’re steering into the skid, take your foot off the gas. You've got to let the car slow down to the point where you can feel the tires grip again.
Steering your way out of a straight-line skid
The trick to steering your way out of a basic straight-line skid is to keep the steering wheel straight. Think of it this way. You always want to steer in the direction your hood’s supposed to be going. In the beginning of a straight-line skid, your hood’s still going the right way. It’s just doing it too fast. If you start jiggling the steering wheel, your wheels will probably be facing the wrong way when you get traction again, and then you’ll have an entirely new problem.
So once again, you've got to take your foot off the gas and off the brakes. Your tires have to turn freely until they can catch the pavement again. ABS brakes do this automatically for you. As long as your car’s skidding straight, you've just got to wait until you can get the traction back.
However, a straight-line skid can get more complicated when some of the wheels have more traction than others. That pulls the car sideways or even into a full 180, but it’s still going forward in a straight line.
If your car has started to slip sideways, steer into the skid. But you've got to do this carefully, and you've got to be prepared to turn the wheel again in the opposite direction if necessary. Don’t over adjust! Overreacting can easily make things a lot worse.
Either way, remember to keep your foot off the brakes, unless you've got ABS brakes. Your brakes aren't going to get you out of this until your tires connect with the pavement again.
Preventing skids in the first place
The trick to avoiding the skid in the first place is to slow down! You've got to be able to feel your tires making contact with the pavement at all times. If you’re going too fast for that, you've got a skid waiting to happen.
Remember, it’s always going to take you roughly ten times as long to slow down on slippery surfaces than on normal roadway. That’s not a skid. That’s just normal bad-weather driving. Be ready for it!
