Dealing with emergency skids

With practise and a sensitive feel for the brakes, you should not skid during the emergency stop exercise; even if the road is wet or snow covered (in poor conditions you hopefully won't be driving like the driver in the picture below!).

However, if you are faced with a skid in a real emergency, or if your nerves make you a little heavy footed during your practise sessions you will need to deal with the situation.

The best way to learn about skid control is to visit a specialist skid training school. If the opportunity arises during the winter months I always take my car to an empty, snow covered car park and 'play' for 20 minutes or so.

Whether or not you get a safe opportunity to practice skid control you must know the theory.

There are various causes of skids. Although there are three factors involved in all skids:

• The driver

• The vehicle

• The road

It is always the driver who causes the skid.

Skids can be caused by harsh braking or acceleration, rough steering, excessive speed for the conditions sudden release of the clutch.

Emergency stop skids in cars not fitted with ABS are induced by harsh braking. By pumping the foot-brake (cadence braking) you will help the tyres to grip the road surface and enable you to regain control. Note that these days it is becoming more and more unlikely that you will be driving a car without ABS unless you have a classic car - ABS has been compulsory for all cars sold in Europe since 2004 (and motorcycles since 2016).

As soon as the skid starts, rapidly release and re-apply the foot-brake, repeating this until the car stops. This action does not require finesse!

If the car skids to the left or right (because it has become unbalanced), look well ahead and steer for safety.

By looking where you want to go (as opposed to where the car is pointing) you will naturally turn the wheel in the direction of the skid; this in turn will straighten the car and help you to regain full control. This is often described as 'steering into the skid'.

Given the possibility of skids, it is of the utmost importance that you take the relevant safety precautions when doing the emergency stop project.

Modern ESP technology

Next: Your emergency stop project in Step 5.