Safety Tips to Tackling Corners When Driving

Most accident occur at corners. However, most of the accidents could have been avoided if the driver had better driving skills. When driving into corners, the golden rule is 'slow entry, fast exit'. When you drive into a corner, the front tyres will take most of the force, leaving the 'tail' light. This causes unbalance of weight or down-force distribution between the front and the back of the vehicle. If the corner is sharper than you had anticipated, you will automatically turn the steering wheel more - trying to bring the car into a tighter line. In doing this, there is a tendency to over tighten the line and the 'light' tail of the car will swing out. This sudden and abnormal car movement frightens the driver and such he stomps on the brake in a desperate attempt to stop the car but instead locks up the tires which in turn causes a massive skid.

The correct approach to all sharp corners is:

- Try to size up the corner by getting clues from the speed of the oncoming traffic, roadside warning signs , its exit point, the camber of the road and other telltale signs as you gain more experience.

- Use common sense to judge your speed of approach, that is, do not enter a corner at speeds higher than you think can manage in case the corner is sharper than you had anticipated.

- Look at the surface of the road. Oily, broken and loose surfaces should be treated with utmost respect. Your tyres will not have a good grip round the bend and the chances of you losing control of your car are higher.

- If you are coming downhill and the corner is an acute 45-degree bend, change down your gears to a lower ratio (3^rd even 2^nd, depending on the speed of your vehicle) so that the engine helps to slow the vehicle down and not depend too much on the brakes.

- Aim to tackle the corner with the brakes off which means to say that you have to do all the braking before the corner proper and not during cornering. The brakes tend to lock up the tyres which in turn will lose adhesion and send your car off course. Moreover, sharp braking with the vehicle pointing other than in a straight-line position has unpredictable, if not, dangerous results.

- Hold the steering wheel tight when cornering as the front tyres usually send kickbacks to the steering wheel. When you relax your hold on the steering wheel, the front wheels will not be pointed in the direction you originally wanted them to, which in turn will cause your car to deviate from your intended line of travel with possible disastrous results.

- Maintain a constant speed through the first half of the corner.

- After cornering the halfway mark of the corner, accelerate and power your car out of the corner to resume your normal travelling speed.

Always remember the 'slow entry, fast exit' rule. The trick of fast cornering is to ensure that the front and rear wheels maintain level throughout the manoeuvre. Too much dipping in the front causes the rear to 'swing' and unbalances the car. There are also other factors to watch out for. They includes potholes in the middle of the corner which will unsettle the car , oil spills that will deprive your tyres of the vital grip on the road and of course, the condition of your tyres and suspension system.