Driving Miss Lotus: Skidding Into Focus

Clarifying some of the worst advice we've ever been given.

[NOTE: This article was first published in the reMarque magazine, the official publication of the national Lotus Ltd club.]

One of the most confusing things we’re ever taught could be life-threatening.

When we learn to drive, what are we told to do in a skid? “Turn into the skid,” right? Or turn in the opposite direction of the skid. These instructions are deceiving. I’m not saying they’re wrong. Technically, they’re absolutely the right things to do. But the advice is not at all clear, so unlikely to help.

Imagine that you’re driving down a hill. The road is covered with packed snow that’s almost turned to ice. At the bottom of the hill is a stop sign. You apply the brakes to begin slowing down. Your car starts to skid sideways until it’s now facing to the right —and pointed towards the parked cars on the side of the road.

Okay, what do you do? If you recall your driver’s ed class from back in the day, you might think, “Turn into the skid.” But what does that mean, exactly? Does it mean turn the steering wheel to the right? To the left? Let’s see, the car is skidding…so the front is skidding to the right and the rear is swinging to the left…so that means I turn the steering wheel to the right…no, left…no, wait…crash!

In that split second when your life is passing before your eyes (or at least your car’s life), it’s confusing to decide which way the skid is going and which way to turn the steering wheel to control it. And you’re likely experiencing a rush of adrenaline and sheer panic. If you turn the wheel the right way with the proper timing, there’s a good chance you’re going to control the skid and be okay. If you turn the wrong way, there’s a very good chance you’ll crash into something.

Over the past four decades, I’ve taught thousands of drivers how to better control their vehicles, and skid control has been part of that training. And of all the people I’ve put into a simulation of that very scenario, about one-third of the drivers do the correct thing. Another one-third does the exact opposite — they turn the steering wheel the wrong way. And the remaining one-third? They don’t do anything! Well, almost nothing. Many in this group take their hands off the steering wheel, perhaps cover their eyes, scream, and usually slam on the brake pedal — the very last things they should do.

***

The second car I ever owned was a dream come true for me: a 1969 Lotus Elan Plus 2 (yes, I’m reliving my life all over again, as I now have a 1969 Lotus Elan S4).

I’d go out and drive my Elan for hours every day, just to practice shifting, the line through corners, braking smoothly, balancing the car on the limit…and controlling the car if it skidded. And I learned that “turning into the skid” was rather useless advice. Let me explain.

Perhaps not surprising, I’ve been asked many times what I think is the key to success in racing. I think the people asking are looking for just one thing, the silver bullet.

Success in any endeavor does not come down to just one thing (despite what Jack Palance said in the movie City Slickers). But if you do a few critical things, you’ll be more successful. One of those keys is looking where you want to go, and not where you don’t want to go.

One night, I was out practicing my cornering technique on a twisty, narrow mountain road in my Lotus. In third gear with the engine revving sweetly, I popped up over a hill and came to a sudden realization: the upcoming corner was a lot tighter than I’d originally thought and I just wasn’t going to make it. I did what most people in that situation do: I looked at where I was going to crash. I looked to the outside of the corner and saw a small ditch, a strip of grass about a foot wide, and then trees. Lots of trees. Big, strong, Lotus-destroying types of trees.

I remembered what I was taught to control a skid. I thought about turning into the skid, but that didn’t really mean anything to me in that instant. That’s when I realized that “turn into the skid” didn’t help when I needed it most. It may even be the worst piece of advice a panicked driver needs to decipher.

Then, in a fraction of a second, for some reason that I’ll never know, I turned my head and looked through and beyond the turn. Maybe I just wanted one last quick look at where the ambulance and tow truck might come from to rescue me. Whatever the reason, I looked where I wanted to go, even though it seemed that I was never going to make it there.

But guess what? My body started doing things that I never thought it knew how to do. It gave the brakes just a slight squeeze and gently released them, then completed the smoothest and most perfectly-timed downshift into second gear that I’ve ever done to this day. It was like my feet were dancing on the pedals and my hands followed right along. In fact, my legs, feet, arms, and hands all moved in a blur, almost as if they were possessed by someone else.

And get this — my hands “turned the steering wheel into the skid.” The next second I found myself drifting sideways through the turn and accelerating along the straight section after the corner.

I made it! I didn’t crash my Elan! But how in the hell did that happen?