Craig Beins trains corporation employees in safe driving and defensive maneuvering techniques. The Delta College instructor in Bay County, Mich., also works with Michigan law-enforcement officials, including state troopers, teaching them pursuit and precision methods.
To paraphrase Beins with respect to learning your limits as a driver: Don’t try this at home.
“I tell students to always stay within 80 percent of their capabilities,” Beins said. “And that’s a very individual thing.”
Problem is, to find one’s limits means pushing until you lose control of your vehicle. Beins’ students do this with an instructor on a track, driving a variety of cars and trucks.
To learn skid recovery and avoidance, a driver must lose contol of a vehicle, he said.
“And your abilities change from hour to hour,” he said. “There are more accidents in the evening because drivers’ blood sugar levels are down. As the day progresses, driving abilities decrease.
(Beins suggests eating a good lunch and perhaps a snack in the late afternoon–but not behind the wheel.)
Young drivers, he said, are more likely to exceed their limits, which are untested.
Beins also recommends that drivers not use four-wheel drive if they are excitable or angry or young. Males, especially young ones, enjoy the risk of driving, he said.
In most instances, 4WD vehicles should be driven in two-wheel drive. The 4WD function is designed to get you out of snow or mud, not into them.
“When you sense a problem on the highway, go to two-hand steering with your hands in the 9 o’clock/3 o’clock positions,” he said. This allows the driver to turn the wheel farther without taking hands from it.
“Oversteering is a major problem in accident avoidance,” he said. Turning the wheel too far makes it more difficult to straighten a vehicle or to change lanes again, should that be necessary.
If you are unfortunate enough to get caught in a second skid, you’ll need your wits about you, he said.
“A second skid is always more violent than the first,” he said. “Fluids in the car affect it [their weight already is moving in one direction], the suspension affects it.
When it comes to any kind of skid, hard braking is out! Beins said keeping reactions and movements as smooth and controlled as possible is best. For example, ease off the accelerator; look at and steer the vehicle where you want it to go. If braking, apply brakes evenly. You can’t always avoid damaging the vehicle; keeping everyone safe is more important.
