Handling A Driving Emergency
If you find your car skidding while you are driving, or the steering or brakes suddenly failing, or perhaps one of your car tyres suffering a blow out, do you know what to do? Unfortunately in those situations it is easy to make things worse by braking sharply, or yanking on the steering wheel, so it is important to know what you should do. That way you will find it easier to stay calm!
In general:
- Don’t panic!
- If you need to brake, try to steer first so that you will be braking in a straight line. However, if you are driving fast at the time, you need to steer gradually as sudden steering can make matters worse by leading to skidding or even flipping the car.
- Anything you can do to slow down before braking will help, so take your foot off the accelerator pedal and change down a gear.
Loss of steering control:
- First gently take your foot off the accelerator pedal, then steer (gently again!) in the direction that the rear of your car is sliding. This can be counter-intuitive, but basically, if the rear of your vehicle is sliding towards the drivers side, you want to slowly steer to the right to attempt to help the wheels align with each other, and vice versa.
- Rather than braking, use your engine to slow down by changing to a lower gear.
- As soon as you can, switch your hazard lights on to alert other drivers to the danger.
Brake failure:
- You should always test your brakes after driving through any flooded areas.
- As long as you are on a straight road you can use the engine to slow down by changing down through the gears.
- Look out for any slopes or grass verges that you can use to quickly lose some speed.
- Once your speed is below about 20mph it is safe to use the handbrake to stop.
- If possible, park the car away from the traffic and call a breakdown service to tow your car.
Puncture or blow out:
- In this case, you want to use many of the tips we have already covered, with the addition of keeping the car in as straight a line as possible, so keep hold of that steering wheel!
- Sudden braking will make things worse, so gradually apply the brakes, and also change down through the gears.
- Park in a safe place and fit your spare wheel, call for a mobile tyre fitting service, or if you have driven any distance on the rims, you may need to call for a recovery vehicle.