Feel your car!

What the heck am I talking about? I don't mean rubbing your hands down the side or caressing the dashboard. I'm talking about what the car is telling you through your sense of feel as you drive. Feel would be the second most important sense you utilize as a driver. Well, the third if you include common sense, which of course should be number one. So this being the case, the order would be; Common sense, Eyes and then feel.

There are several key areas where a driver gathers, "feel" information from the vehicle. If you utilize the seating position talked about in an earlier post, you will be in a better position to acquire the information from these key points. Lets break down these key areas.

First, HANDS. What information are you gathering through your hands? If you said steering wheel you are close, but that's a little over simplified. Think a little deeper. What ultimately is the steering wheel connected to that you could gather information from? The front wheels.

Lets say for example that you are rounding a corner and you drive over something slippery with the front tires. This will create a bit of understeer (front tire slip). The steering wheel will, depending on the severity of the slip, feel lighter than it originally did. It will become easier to turn. This is because of reduced friction, which means less force, which translates to a lighter feel of the wheel in your hands.

Or maybe you hit a pothole with your right front tire. This will be communicated primarily through the steering wheel. If the impact creates a flat tire, you should notice a change in the way the steering wheel feels in your hands. Likely you would feel a bit of vibration as well as a pull of the wheel to the right.

In order to gather this information through the wheel you should not be squeezing the steering wheel aggressively. Hold the wheel firmly, but don’t squeeze it. Also, having your arm extended straight out to the 12 O’clock position on the wheel with your wrist draped over the wheel is not going to give you adequate information or control.

Next point for information would be the “SEAT OF YOUR PANTS”. It’s the information that translates through the seat. Where does this information start? Suspension is a common answer to this question. Although this is not horribly wrong, it again is not specific enough. If the steering wheel is telling you what’s going on with the front tires, then the seat of your pants and your lower back area is telling you what is going on with the rear tires. In my opinion this feel point is the most important, especially when it comes to car control or performance driving. There is so much information that you get from the seat of a car. Acceleration forces, wheel spin, rear sideslip and suspension to name a few. With the proper seat position you are better postured to gather this information as well as give appropriate feedback.

Your feet can also tell you some information about the car that you may not think of. When I ask the question “What kind of information does a driver get through his/her feet?” a common response is “acceleration”. Now as true as this may be, when I ask for another option, most tend to draw a blank for a while. “BRAKING!” I’ll say. You can feel braking. Its funny the looks that I get when I say that, It’s as if people don’t think about the brakes pedal. BECAUSE THEY DON’T! When you use the brakes you can feel if you have activated ABS (Anti-lock Braking System) or if you don’t have ABS on your vehicle you can feel possible wheel lock. The more sensitively tuned in to the brake pedal you are, the smoother you can learn to utilize it. Or the more aggressive, whichever the situation may dictate. So yes, through your feet you can feel acceleration and braking.

So these are the key points of gathering feel information from your vehicle. It starts with proper seating and then you fine-tune your senses to the car through experience. Otherwise known as “seat time”. You see, you need the seat time to learn WHAT the car is telling you. You may have the proper seating position and your car may be giving you the information and you may be feeling it. But if you don’t understand or know WHAT it is that you are feeling, the information is useless to you. If you have never locked up the brakes on a car, how can you expect to know what it should feel like? Or if you have never had the front or rear tires break loose and slide, how will you recognize that’s what’s happening when it happens? I have literally been in the right seat teaching a student on a skid pad, the car spins out, and the student has no idea weather the back of the car slid or the front of the car. Well if that’s the case, how do you know what the proper reaction from you, as a driver should be? You don’t! That’s why a lot of people do nothing. They just freeze up behind the wheel, and that’s not good.

So as always, seat time, experience and education is king. There are several ways to get the experience of what its like to slide a car, lock up the brakes, utilize ABS and drive at the limit. The legal way is to attend a school. There are several driving schools throughout the country. Most of them work on all of these types of things and have instructors that will coach you along the way. Some of these schools provide cars for you and some you may bring your own. The schools can range in price from as low as a few hundred dollars up into the thousands of dollars. Find one that is within your budget and give it a try. Remember, even if the cost of the school may seem expensive, it’s typically cheaper than the cost of one accident. And that’s provided no one in the accident gets hurt. When you factor in human injury, well, there’s really not a price that should be placed on that is there? Especially when there are schools out there willing to teach you how to reduce or prevent these situations to begin with.  Ya feel me?