Quote:
Originally Posted by MetroMPG
We used to teach this unconventional rear-crash avoidance technique:
1) IF when you're stopping there is no escape route to either side, and,
2) IF nobody has yet stopped behind you,
3) Then leave 3-4 car lengths ahead of you.
4) Blink your brake lights as cars approach from behind.
5) Imminent collision: you may be able to move ahead and use your front buffer to avoid contact when the idiot behind finally locks brakes/activates ABS.
6) Worst case scenario, and you're going to get hit: you avoid being the meat in the car sandwich and only have one end of your car to repair.
7) Or, as non-idiotic cars are slowing to a stop behind you, creep ahead and close the 3-4 car buffer.
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Gospel. I do the blink blink thing A LOT when I'm coming up to traffic. I'm also a big advocate of leaving space and marking escpae lanes. Rather lose a single place in traffic than both bumpers!
Some of the truck drivers here are absolute idiots. (they don't get the training they do in more civilized places).
Quote:
Originally Posted by jcp123
It was in a Ford Focus. Lift-throttle and trail-braking at once! I was on an unfamiliar road and came to a corner too hot, there was an Integrated coming the other way. I'd been driving maybe 6 months on my own, so I was pretty darn ignorant and panicked a bit on top of that. And this, ladies and gentleman, is how you oversteer a FWD automobile into a barbed wire fence.
I later found out that the Control Blade rear suspension was set up to be a little bit loose. Lift the throttle in a corner under more sane circumstances and it drifts out just enough to neutralize the understeer. Done properly it's actually an exceptionally entertaining FWD car to hustle around corners.
My Echo would snap oversteer on emergency lane changes. I avoided an accident, but I had to juke to the next lane because someone just didn't see me and was muscling in from the other side. The rear just gave up and it took a fancy steering wheel hustle that I'm rather proud of to tuck the car back in to the right heading. IIRC that's a torsion beam under there, and they have a reputation for snap oversteer in sudden maneuvers.
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Focii are absolute sweethearts to lift-oversteer. It'll kick out just enough to keep you entertained, before the Control Blade geometry changes as it loads up and gives you back your grip.
Echo. Nasty. Toyota's small cars are usually under-damped. Add to that a simple rear torsion beam and oversteer can be snappy and stuttery.