When you are in a spin (truely out of control) you want to look at where you are going to impact something or where you're going to stop. That means that the first place you'd better look is the direction in which the car is traveling, because you are not in control, and it has made that decision for you. If it's not going in a safe direction, then you have to do something else, which is what I said in the post. I didn't go into the details, but only said that the something else would depend on the situation. Certainly it would include looking where you want to go, but when you're in a spin and the car is out of control with both feet in, you'd better look where you are going first, because that may or may not be where you want to end up.

IOW, you've got to decide where you want to go before you can look where you want to go, right Mike?

 

That is how I define a driver who sucks.

 

i spun out two times within the first month i had the car.
your alignment should be fine.. but if you were going all over the place like i was.. you would have wore down alot of tread on your tires. luckily i didnt hit anything both times.






be careful!

 

the irony is killing me

thank you ckit for the laugh of the day

 

Exactly. There are the "good" drivers (so-called by the insurance companies) who don't crash because they don't "try to get silly". And then there are the skilled drivers who can put the car into more challenging situations and not crash. And then there are the sucky drivers -- the ones who aren't skilled enough to challenge themselves but who aren't smart enough not to.

The sucky drivers can usually learn not to be sucky. But it's kind of like a 12-step program. The first step is to realize they are sucky. Until then, they think they are skilled and just unlucky -- and so they never learn how to really become skilled.

 

To get to be "not sucky" one has to challenge one self. One will make mistakes when challenging one self - it is how one learns. I am happy for those of you who went from getting your drivers' license to "skilled" drivers in one go without passing through the "sucky" stage. For the rest of us - let's just hope when it happens it is not too bad, we don't injure ourselves or others.

 

Sorry, but it is how stupid people learn. Stupid people learn from their own mistakes. Smart people learn from other people. (And yes, we are all stupid sometimes.) There are classes and books and videos and all sorts of ways to learn this stuff without just hopping into your car and "challenging yourself" until you crash.

I'm not saying expert drivers never get into trouble, but they don't do it very often. This game is too expensive and too dangerous to screw up in a lot.

When an expert driver exceeds their limits, they almost always do it by just a tiny amount -- then they recognize it and pull back in with no harm done. When a clown tries the same thing, they don't know they are in trouble until they are standing by the side of their wrecked car and telling themselves, "well, this sort of thing happens to people, it's how we learn".

Meteors hitting you from space are something that "just happens". Crashing your car is almost always something you screwed up.

(And yes, I have crashed my car, twice in 25 years of driving. Once on the street and once on a track. Both times I screwed up and made a stupid error in judgment.)

 

x 100.

I didn't trust myself or my skills enough to correct a small mistake before it turned into a big mistake when the margin for error decreased (FI + Snow).

That's why I opted for the aftermarket traction control. It lets you know that it's kicking in and allows more time and ease to correct the mistake. Being able to adjust the slip angle allowed is like progressive removal of training wheels.

I didn't want to learn the limits of the car without a safety net.

 

that's why they should have dry sump oil system on our cars.

 

The difference is people "challenging" themselves on the street instead of the track. Someone messes up while learning at the track (or an open parking lot) and its cool. Someone messes up while screwing around on the street, then they are a sucky driver. I agree with mike, good drivers progress with tiny steps.

Someone spins the car while going to the mall, barely missing my grandma in the oncoming lane, and tearing up their car around a tree... I tend to think they weren't trying to learn anything, they were screwing around showing off to someone (other cars?). They are sucky drivers who don't have the skill set to drive a car to the mall. But they still think they are great drivers.

Are they a good driver because they can make miracle saves or are they a good driver because they never get to the point they need to make a miracle save?