henry wrote: ↑20 May 2019, 14:10
Car control is a small subset of the skills required to drive on the public highway. It could be argued that if one is having to use significant car control expertise somebody has made a mistake.
Agree, that´s the reason I did this clarification
Andres125sx wrote: ↑20 May 2019, 11:37
Actually we don't even need to control the car in dangerous situations, just learning when the car is reaching its limits to increase safety margins would save many lifes
I´ve lived at least two situations when the driver caused an accident, or almost, because of not knowing car limits. One was my mother spinning on a roundabout in the wet, because she knows nothing about car limits, car control, etc. She did a right turn to enter the roundabout, then a left turn to take the corner. That direction change caused the spin. If she would have know something about car control, or at least when the car is about the limit (wheel feedback, vibrations, etc.) she probably could have save it, but she didn´t and actually didn´t understand the reason of the spin until I did explain it to her.
The other was a friend of mine going straight on a corner. Thankfully it was a very slow corner with plenty of space to not crash anything. His face when the understeering took him by surprise, wondering about the reason the car was not turning despite he turned the wheel will be on my mind forever. It was enlightening to me, things wich we motor fans think are obvious are not for many people on the roads, not even a simple understeer or where are his car limits, and this means they are VERY dangerous on any dangerous situation. At least my mother and my friend don´t like driving and do it slowly, but there are many people with same lack of knownledge who drive much faster...
Once you know some basics, you know how to read car feedback to notice if you´re close to the limit or not. For example I´ve noticed this on some old and dirty roads in the rain, where grip was so low I was almost on the limit even when driving slow. I did notice this due to wheel feedback (becoming too light) so I adapted and slowed down. Someone like my mother or my friend would have never noticed this, and maybe they may have crashed on next corner.
My point is, even when we should never drive on the limits, some accidents could be prevented with some basic knownledge about car control. That´s the reason I hope in a future with AVs as a norm, humans will be allowed to drive if they prove they know the basics. But that´s just my naive hope, knowing how things usually work some politician will ban humans from roads sooner or later I´m afraid
