Defensive Driving Course
Finally used up my gift voucher for a defensive driving course. The day-long course was held down at Oran Park Raceway and I found it very informative. A great deal of the day was spent practising emergency braking – straight line, around corners and swerving, which is not a huge deal if you have ABS, but pretty interesting when you don’t, like my car. The aim is not to jump on the brakes (which is intuitive), but to quickly squeeze the brakes as much as possible without locking the wheels and skidding. To illustrate the point, the instructor did a neat demo where he showed that he could apply the proper braking pressure using his hand instead of his foot to hit the brakes. It takes a few goes to get the pressure right, and it’s not the sort of thing you’d try out by yourself – not to mention that the car smells of singed rubber afterwards! Saw a lot of demonstrations showing rear wheel lockups (and subsequent spins), front wheel lockups, oversteer, understeer, and what not to do in such situations. Then we got to try it all out, which was the fun bit.
It’s a bit pricey, but I would recommend one of these courses, they are surprisingly worthwhile and you pick up a lot of extra info about your car and how to handle it.
1:28am (GMT +10.00) tomorrow 
I wish I could’ve taken one of those before I got started driving. Not that I’ve had an accident, but I’ve had some close calls. Just didn’t know about snap understeer and snap oversteer. Ahh, the worst of both worlds (FWD and RWD) have gotten to me. Snap oversteer sent me into the empty but still oncoming traffic lane, while snap understeer nearly sent me straight into a guardrail. Bah, all in the name of rain, so I am good with it.
I taught my own defensive driving course. =) It helped learning to drive in all the snow we get here in Utah in the States, but I seriously spent my first few years driving like a jackass, which helped me become a better driver. Now that I’ve got kids, I drive much more conservatively, but those years of driving hard taught me what to do when making actual emergency maneuvers.
Oh, just another tip: It’s all in the tires. Get good ones (see reviews in magazines). Check the tread block depth, make sure it is reasonable. Miser tip: Check tire pressures regularly. If you keep them properly inflated, you can get better traction for acceleration and deceleration. Properly inflated tires also provide for higher gas mileage due to lowered resistance. Save that 1USD at the gas pump by putting 0.25USD into the air machine.