Basic Skid Control

Introduction

This section aims to help people control a skid, rather than to provoke one and then bring the car back under control.

The golden rule of a skid is to slow down. Unless you are provoking the car, if you have gotten it into a skid, you were probably going too fast for the conditions.

Of course, there are occasions when somebody leaves a banana skin on the road, or more likely, diesel oil, or it’s slippery and you feel that you were unable to prevent the skid. In every single example I know this is a fallacy: it is always possible to escape the skid!

Cadence Braking

The definition of cadence braking can be found here.

The art of cadence braking is best learnt at an official skid pan, preferably under expert tuition. A lot of what I’m about to tell can only be detected through trying it out.

The first thing that you must understand is what it feels like when a wheel locks. If it’s dry you should hear the screech of the skid, but if it’s wet, icy, snowy or greasy you might not get this clue.

There is often a “thump” as the wheel locks very quickly. The skid starts immediately before the thumping sensation as the wheel starts to decelerate but the noise and sensation remains your best clue.

As soon as you detect the skid, immediately reduce pressure on the brake pedal. Under all but the most extreme of circumstances this will accelerate the wheel so that it is no longer skidding. Then reapply more pressure. Repeat as necessary.

Front Wheel Skids

To start with, I’ll deal with skids in front wheel skids, since these are the easiest to bring back under control.

The first thing to do is to ease up on the power. If the front wheels are skidding, it is because there is inadequate grip (for whatever reason). If you can reduce the requirements on the tyre, you may well do enough to bring the car back under full control. Then, you gently steer into the skid. So if you’re traversing a left hand corner and the front starts to drift wide, you ease up on the power and give it some more left hand lock. If it’s a dry road, and of course you were not being reckless, often simply easing up on the power will be enough to bring the car back under full control. If you have just hit a slippery patch on the road, say a small puddle of diesel, the car may well regain control once you leave the slippery patch. It is important that you are gentle when giving it more lock, because if you were to give it another turn, you are making the tyres’ job that much harder, and when they do grip, you’ll tug the nose about, scrub off more speed, and you might encounter power off oversteer, which requires a different technique altogether.

Rear Wheel Skids

If you encounter a rear wheel skid in a front wheel drive car, this is usually because you’ve eased off the power whilst traversing a corner, or you’ve used the brakes, or perhaps you’re recovering from a front wheel skid. The first thing to do is to let off the brakes, if you’re on to them - this should make it easier for the tyres to regain grip. Then you need to steer into the skid. In other words, if you were going around a left hand corner when the rear started to slide out, you’d back off the steering, and start to turn the wheel right.

If you encounter oversteer when driving a rear wheel drive car, under load, ease off the power and steer into the skid.