You're driving down the road and suddenly get a flat in your left front tire, your car abruptly veers left. What do you do? Instinctively, most drivers sharply turn the wheel right to steer back on course, but is this the right thing to do?
According to the experts, its not.
So the driver's immediate reaction is to grab the steering wheel and jerk it in the desired direction, which can put the vehicle in an uncontrollable spin, cause it to go sideways across other traffic lanes or make a bad skid worse.
In a recent news article interviewing expert drivers, they offer the following advice.
Correct overcorrecting
1. Do not immediately steer back onto the pavement.
2. Grip the steering wheel and drive straight while you slow down.
3. Straddle the pavement edge while slowing.
4. When traffic is clear in both directions, turn the steering wheel toward the pavement and get back onto the road.
5. Carefully counter-steer to prevent veering into the opposite lane.
6. As soon as you've fully recovered, accelerate to normal traffic speed.
While our firm is in the business of representing victims of serious automobile accidents we are also committed to doing whatever we can to make our highways safer. In my 30 years of representing seriously injured car accident victims I've learned that most accidents are avoidable. We can all do our part. Thanks for reading.
For more information on this subject, please refer to the section on Car and Motorcycle Accidents.