How To Drive A Motorcar
A Key To The Subtleties Of Motoring

HOW TO DRIVE A MOTORCAR The Front-wheel Skid It may be that some readers are not fully aware of the insidiousness of a front-wheel skid, so that it may be well to make the point clear. Suppose, then, that one is following a bus, or other vehicle, at, say, 15 miles per hour on a wide road in town, and that for some reason or other the bus applies its brake so sud- denly that one would have to swerve out in order to avoid running into it. Naturally one steers fairly quickly to the right, but if—to one’s utter consterna- tion—the car goes along in a perfectly straight line, taking no notice whatsoever of the steering gear, that A front-wheel skid—car refuses to answer to the helm. is a front-wheel skfd. Such occurrences usually happen on a well-cambered road with a greasy surface, more especially if one has not got a non-skid tyre on one of the front wheels. In such an eventuality it is hard to lay down a definite rule ; in fact, it is not over easy to give any advice. Obviously, if there is time to stop by a violent application of the brake (which one would not have indulged in otherwise), by all means stop. Fail- ing this, endeavour to remember (if conscious of the fact that the amount which the steering wheel has been turned would be sufficient to clear the vehicle in front under normal conditions) not to increase the lock, as this will in some cases make matters worse. As already stated, it is not a subject upon which it is easy to give advice. The writer, however, has fre- quently experimented on greasy roads with imaginary 106