I was caught out a while back...What could i have done?

[ironictwist]

About a month ago i had the unfortunate situation of putting my beloved Astra into a ditch.

No injury, the offside was a little screwed. A few hunded spent, back to normal.

However, i remember the helplessness when trying to avoid getting into that situation in the first place.

My mind was in a rather dangerous state aka "Complacency". I was running around in my weekend job as a take away driver, i know the roads like the back of my hand etc etc, except this one. I had been done it once previously (as a passenger), but despite that i KNEW the road is a little "interesting" at times. As a result, where i was expecting a gentle left hander, it cut short into a very tight hairpin style left. Cue major understeer, full lock to the left & me ploughing straight on into said ditch.

My thinking is my reactions to the situations were too slow, my headlights also were rubbish as i've discovered since putting in better bulbs & retreating back to said location in similar conditions. My speed? Well, had the situation been as i anticipated, fine. As it wasn't, it proved inappropriate.

My question is, & i know this is difficult to answer without being there, but would there have been anything i could of done bearing in mind the limitations with FWD. I've had a very similar situation with the 328 quite some time back (although this time it was screwed signs, which pointed one way & went the other) & managed to swing the tail out in order to avoid what would've been a VERY messy situation. Got off with just buggered rear wheel bearings in that scenario.

But yeh...Thoughts?

• Actually, i just realised, i have some photo's at home which may help get a better understanding of the situation, will post them when i get in later

Edited by ironictwist on Saturday 17th May 00:17

[vonhosen]

Sounds like you didn't 'read' the bend/limit point accurately & carried too much speed in. It also sounds like the speed was such that physics took over. If the vehicle is understeering, then to retrieve you need to give the front tyres more grip. Putting more steering on doesn't really help that, it has no real effect until the front tyres grip. When they do the car then lurches in the direction they are pointing. Quite often people who understeer into a left hand bend actually end up going off road left (on the inside of the curve) as a result. You need to resist placing more steering on initially & instead raise the maximum transferable force that the front tyres can accommodate by increasing weight on them softly. Initially that is through coming off throttle. As speed drops grip will gradually come back & then you can steer. Of course all this can only work if you have sufficient time & space to recover it. If you've misread it by a large enough margin & haven't got sufficient time & space to recover it, then physics takes over & determines where you end up.

A large proportion of collisions happen on roads people know well. Never be complacent, drive roads you know well just like those you don't. Don't assume the road you drove down yesterday is exactly as it was yesterday. There may well be road works on it today & somebody may have nicked the warning signs to adorn their bedroom wall. Drive to what you can see today, not what you remember. If you are going to use historical knowledge it should be used for less speed not more.
i.e. 1) There were roadworks just around the bend yesterday, so I'll show a little extra caution today just in case. Oh they've gone. Never mind I've lost little but increased my safety margin into the bargain. Not 2) I know it opens up off the is bend so I'm going to pick up the drive a bit early in anticipation of it. Ooops there is a broken down car there today & one towards. In that case you've gambled on reducing the safety margin for progress & lost.

One thing I forgot to ask is if your vehicle has any DTC/DSC/ESP system fitted ?

Edited by vonhosen on Friday 16th May 10:54

[HRG]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZhLuJLCfZs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb2gZVuoNU4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ykNYvPZOc0&

Advanced biker seems to have some good videos. Some of the trainees aren't positioned particularly well but the camera bike's positioning is good. What I haven't been able to find so far is one showing a closing limit point which was what you appeared to miss.

Basically (and hugely oversimplifying) if the limit point is closing on you the bend is still tightening and if it's moving away it's opening up. If the limit point is getting closer as you approach the apex then you need to lose more speed before you run wide!

[vonhosen]

HRG said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZhLuJLCfZs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb2gZVuoNU4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ykNYvPZOc0&

Advanced biker seems to have some good videos. Some of the trainees aren't positioned particularly well but the camera bike's positioning is good. What I haven't been able to find so far is one showing a closing limit point which was what you appeared to miss.

Basically (and hugely oversimplifying) if the limit point is closing on you the bend is still tightening and if it's moving away it's opening up. If the limit point is getting closer as you approach the apex then you need to lose more speed before you run wide!

And don't go too early when you think it's opening up because there are a lot of nasty double apexes out there, where the second is much tighter than the first.

[HRG]

I did type a bit about constantly monitoring the limit point but binned it

[GreenV8S]

It sounds to me that you misjudged the speed you could carry into the corner, most likely because you were judging your speed based on how quickly you expected to be able to get round the corner within the available grip.

A better criterion for judging your speed is whether you can stop on your side of the road in the space you can see. If visibility is restricted this will usually imply a speed much much lower than the limit of grip.

[ironictwist]

Interesting posts & points raised, will mull it over.

Added pictures to aid any further responses. Oh also, yes it happened while it was pitch black & you can also make out the tram lines heading towards the ditch, despite my efforts in putting on a full lock :|

Edited by ironictwist on Saturday 17th May 00:20

[agent006]

You're asking the wrong question in "how could i have got out of this situation in FWD". You should be asking yourself why you've found yourself having to take evasive action (especially as you mention you've had to do similar in your other car). Knowing the directon (or thinking you do) is no justification for driving outside the limits of your visibility.

[Hooli]

looks like the sort of road layout that suffers from

oh look NSL
floor it
corner
oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit


if that corner is as sharp as it appears in the pics, im surprised there isnt a sharp bend sign as well. or is there out of shot?

[vonhosen]

Following picture update:

You've seriously misread it. The bend looks like a 90 degree left even from where you took the picture on approach (let alone from the left hand side of the road). I'd also consider it single track width, so it should have been be able to stop within half the distance you can see to be clear, not just the distance you can see to be clear. Good job the lady with the dogs wasn't out there the day you came around the bend, or you'd have been in the doo do.

Edited by vonhosen on Saturday 17th May 10:44

[GreenV8S]

vonhosen said:

Following picture update:

You've seriously misread it. The bend looks like a 90 degree left even from where you took the picture on approach (let alone from the left hand side of the road). I'd also consider it single track width, so it should have been be able to stop within half the distance you can see to be clear, not just the distance you can see to be clear. Good job the lady with the dogs wasn't out there the day you came around the bend, or you'd have been in the doo do.

Edited by vonhosen on Saturday 17th May 10:44

Narrow road, in a speed limit on the approach with a junction close to the corner, from what I can see I wouldn't have wanted to be doing more than about 30 there even without the corner.

[ironictwist]

agent006 said:

You're asking the wrong question in "how could i have got out of this situation in FWD". You should be asking yourself why you've found yourself having to take evasive action (especially as you mention you've had to do similar in your other car). Knowing the directon (or thinking you do) is no justification for driving outside the limits of your visibility.

Agreed, the blanket of complacency screwed me. Always beared it in mind since.

Hooli said:

looks like the sort of road layout that suffers from

oh look NSL
floor it
corner
oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit

if that corner is as sharp as it appears in the pics, im surprised there isnt a sharp bend sign as well. or is there out of shot?

Hehe...Not quite in that scenario. I remember driving to the conditions (At least what i thought were the conditions), but as said, thought i knew the road & you know the rest

vonhosen said:

Following picture update:
You've seriously misread it. The bend looks like a 90 degree left even from where you took the picture on approach (let alone from the left hand side of the road). I'd also consider it single track width, so it should have been be able to stop within half the distance you can see to be clear, not just the distance you can see to be clear. Good job the lady with the dogs wasn't out there the day you came around the bend, or you'd have been in the doo do.

Agreed also. I mean 2 cars can toddle down it fine just the corner is a bh. That specific area/road is virtually deserted especially at the time of night that it happened. But indeed, fortunate no-one else was around. Lesson learned though.

Edited by ironictwist on Saturday 17th May 14:06

[Hooli]

the lack of anything behind the corner as it were when you approach it wouldnt help i suspect. the lack of visual references to judge the corner at night there must make it interesting. i know there are reflective bollards, but they dont help as much as say a big muddy bank.

[R1_NUR]

Good for you owning to a beginners mistake.

Spend a day with these boys and don't believe everything you read on a forum.

http://www.rapidtraining.co.uk/

They do bikes and cars. You will save the cost of the course with one little incident like the one you had.

[ironictwist]

As luck would have it, i visited that same corner tonight (literally 40 minutes ago), in almost the same conditions, the difference is, it was slightly dampy & greasy tonight rather than dryish the night of the crash. I slowly trundled up to it around 30~ and i was amazed again at how that corner just disappears away from you, even at a trundling speed (sub 30 before anyone says anything lol). It really does surprise you, as is a corner further up along the way, both i'd class as "hairy".

That corner would you believe has been the spot of many "parked" cars apparently. You can actually spot a bollard in the ditch from the previous attempt! & there were bits of car some way along it, the corner further up though, christ, i'm glad it didn't happen on that one, i'd be underwater otherwise

But yep...Very interesting. Going back in the morning after the off & seeing things in daylight was nice opportunity to analyse it all over again & see what i did, how i did it etc, but tonight (a month and a bit onwards) was superb in showing how with a little bit of complacency it could all go awry.

Many thanks for all the posts.


Meantime, IAM here i come & of course will check out all the other options given. Gracias folks!

Edited by ironictwist on Sunday 18th May 00:04

[vonhosen]

Hooli said:

the lack of anything behind the corner as it were when you approach it wouldnt help i suspect. the lack of visual references to judge the corner at night there must make it interesting. i know there are reflective bollards, but they dont help as much as say a big muddy bank.

But that's what you have to expect when you are driving on single track, unclassified ('C') class roads. Less money is spent on signage.

[Hooli]

vonhosen said:

Hooli said:

the lack of anything behind the corner as it were when you approach it wouldnt help i suspect. the lack of visual references to judge the corner at night there must make it interesting. i know there are reflective bollards, but they dont help as much as say a big muddy bank.

But that's what you have to expect when you are driving on single track, unclassified ('C') class roads. Less money is spent on signage.

very true Von. I was just thinking how roads with flat fields behind are harder to judge in that sort of situation than if they were in a cutting or trees. of course its something you have to get used to and allow for, just that sort of situation always reminds me how much info you get from looking at things apart from the road itself.

[mccarn]

This happened to me a few months back (minus the doing any damage). Coming back a road I'd been up a few times before as a passenger, knew the left hander was tightish, so slowed down to about 40. Noticed it pretty much double barreled back on itself. Ended up going very wide on it, lucky nothing was coming the other way. It's not nice.

[Chris71]

At the risk of stating the obvious - if in doubt, slow down.

If you can see what the corner is doing, by all means enjoy yourself, but never assume anything when you can't actually verify it. Basically approach every bend as if there could be, say, a broken down tractor around it.

Once you know the road is clear you can have some fun, but most of the time you don't really get a chance to drive anywhere near the limit of adhesion. The sad fact is that most of the time things like oncomming traffic, junctions and so on limit your speed far more than risk of understeering into the ditch.

[ironictwist]

Chris71 said:

At the risk of stating the obvious - if in doubt, slow down.

If you can see what the corner is doing, by all means enjoy yourself, but never assume anything when you can't actually verify it. Basically approach every bend as if there could be, say, a broken down tractor around it.

Once you know the road is clear you can have some fun, but most of the time you don't really get a chance to drive anywhere near the limit of adhesion. The sad fact is that most of the time things like oncomming traffic, junctions and so on limit your speed far more than risk of understeering into the ditch.

Agreed, it's why i treat my commute in exactly that manner.

Just in this situation I wasn't in doubt, till it was too late of course. Hey ho :|