Icy road slide correction (turn into slide?)

I had a similar situation yesterday in WV.
Water, not ice, but much the same thing if you are sliding.

My drives lost traction on a left hand curve and started slipping, turning me to the left - drives were slipping to the right.
I let up on the throttle and gently steered slightly to the right, in the direction of the slide - just barely enough to check the rotation. As I lost a little speed the tires started regaining traction and everything got straightened out.

You really have to resist the urge to make a big correction. Just a little too much and you can whip it around the other way pretty quickly. And on ice your steers may not have much traction like I did on water, so a big correction will simply do nothing at all... at first. After that it gets real bad.

 

If you slide into the median for example and there is a police access cut coming up. Make your steer tires hit it dead on let the suspension and frame take the hit. Don't have those steers at any angle other because if they were, the bite will jackknife you and maybe roll you too. That's not good.

 

I'm a betting man.

I bet there's a story behind this wisdom.

 

There are two.

One involving a Policeman that had to displace.

Those two stories will never see the internet. The structure of the little access crossovers are usually raised above the V deep of the median and it's a problem.

 

That's a sure-fire way to guarantee a worst-case outcome.

 

I hate hearing people say "steer into the skid" and crap like that, because people are stupid and they panic. They do "steer into the skid" all of the way to the steering stops, then the car whips around the other way and there isn't a dern thing they can do because it's happening faster than they can react.

Keep your steer tires pointed where you want the vehicle to go. It really doesn't matter WHAT the rear end of the car (or even the trailer) are doing, you keep the steer tires pointed where you want to go. Do that, and while you're still "turning into the skid", it is in a controlled and certain amount.

Now that you're steering the skidding vehicle to control the skid, now you've got to get out of it. WHY are you skidding? Did you enter a turn too hot and are sliding sideways? Are you trying to accelerate and the rear lost traction? Are you trying to slow and the rear just isn't cooperating? Whatever it is will require a different reaction from your feet...but the steer tires STILL need to keep pointed where you need to go.

 

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

 

I thought of your post as I was driving today, from OKC to Texarkana by way of I-40 east to catch the Indian Nation Turnpike southbound. I have a habit of reading "sign", the singular form of the word. It's a habit formed as a young boy that spent many a day hunting, fishing, or trapping. You read sign, like tracks, rub marks, chewed off twigs, etc to get the story of who or what came by and what they did.

Anyone familiar with the Indian Nation Turnpike knows that the hammer lane can be a treacherous place if you don't have perfect lane control. Some dim bulb of a road engineer thought it was a good idea to create a two foot tall grass covered mound to separate the north and southbound lanes. No guard rail. Just a slope of grass that comes down pretty steep to meet the left lane fog line.

You see tire tracks of folks that get too close to the grass and go for a bit of a ride, sometimes a short wake up call and sometimes much more.

I saw a fresh set of tracks, with mud splattered in the hammer lane. The driver's side steer tires caught in the rain soaked grass and looks like it got yanked to the left up the hill, spraying mud to the right. It looks like the driver yanked right just in time to stop the uphill climb at the crest, followed by a set of duals playing follow the leader. So here he is tilted sideways with his left set of tires almost to the top of the hill.

Then it got bad.

There it was. A police turn around forming a 10' wide gap. The tire tracks launched cleanly off the top of the berm, then there was a gouge mark in the concrete just before the berm started again, and a HUGE gouch in the dirt that took out the first three feet of the berm as the wheel marks got back to pavement.

It must have been a quick, scary ride. About 100' of off road adventure. He did leave plastic littering the road from his final impact.

"Uh, no boss. Somebody must have hit me while I was taking a shower."

 

I appreciate the lessons and reminder.

Please tell me that #### road way is not that narrow. Either that or your lenses is a fixed one.

Clean forgot about the median as you described it. When you .. actually If... (Conflicted in choice of words) you lose pavement you would think the Engineers would level the #### ground with a spot of drain but to do in your favor so you don't start rolling violently into the opposing traffic and kill 50. What are they thinking?