Giving It 107 Percent

Alex Yoong probably knows it better more than anyone else on this planet. Imagine this: letting close to five million people around the world watch you not qualify for the German Grand Prix. Not a pretty sight, is it? Now, think of yourself being Mister Yoong rather than teammate Mark Webber—not good either, right?

Despite both running limited machinery, you’d see Webber battling it out occasionally with the Toyotas and the Jaguar-Cosworths, while Yoong is probably more relaxed watching a Grand Prix race from the comfort of the Minardi motorhome. The bottom line here is driving ability. Webber has tons of it, while Yoong has it optimistically in limited numbers.

As the slip-and-sliding Alex Yoong knows by now, proper driving techniques need to be mastered to get most out of any car, whether it be a Ferrari or a lowly Minardi. Similarly, it doesn’t matter if you’re driving a Kia Pride or a BMW 3-series—what’s important is that you learn to handle your car the proper way to avoid accidents. During the typhoon season, accident rates could actually go up by a huge figure. Besides blaming some faults to ill-prepared vehicles (read You’re Not Michael Schumacher for that one), half of the equation always boils down to the driver and poor driving habits.

So, if you wish to save on insurance premiums for both on your car and your life, then stick around and read on—and try to remember that life isn’t one big Formula One race.

Lighting Your Way Around

Think about it—even God created it first. Ever since ancient man discovered the many uses of light, they’ve been mesmerized by it. It has evolved a long way from the candle-and-lantern technology of the horse-driven 1880s. Now, lights come in all sorts of shapes and sizes as well as varying levels of technology imbedded. The careful use of lights is the key to safe rainy day driving.

The general rule of thumb is to turn on the ‘park lamps’ whenever the sky starts to darken. Of course, this is not limited to merely rainy-day driving, but to any occasion where visibility is impaired such as sunrise and sunset. Believe it or not, this simple gesture could reduce vehicular accidents by as much as 30 percent based on a study conducted in the United States.

Park lamps provide some reference point, especially for drivers immediately following you. These lamps provide more increased awareness. Usually, a good sign to follow is to turn on your park lamps when any of your instrumentation becomes slightly unreadable. Cars with manual odometers for instance, should turn on their park lamps when the digits on their trip meters can’t be read without squinting.

Headlights provide the next best defense and are usually used when the visibility gets limited. Headlights provide better sight forward. This pair of lamps is actually aimed slightly towards the road rather than laser light straight, increasing the illumination on the road directly ahead. This makes a great tool in avoiding stalled vehicles, potholes or never-ending Manila constructions. They are more useful when combined with foglights.

Tempting as it maybe, never ever use bright lights during heavy downpour. A common misconception is that the bright beams provide more illumination than standard headlights during wet weather driving. Though it may be true for dry and humid summer nights, in actually they impair visibility even more during heavy rains.

The bright beams are aimed higher and more perpendicular to the car compared to the low beams. Combining this with the fact that the car’s reflectors are designed to throw the brights further onwards than the normal beams result in a blind fest. This is because the light from the bright beams would easily reflect on upcoming raindrops and the light reflected would actually trigger headlight glare onto the driver causing a degree of driving imparity.

The hazard should never be used during a heavy downpour. Despite what your best friend tells you, the hazard is not meant to be used as a beacon—that’s the job of your headlights and brake lights. Remember that once the hazard is turned on, other drivers wouldn’t be aware if you’re trying to signal left or right. This could lead to some serious accidents especially on crowded intersections.

Iceberg Dead Ahead—So Steer Clear!

Unless you’re driving the ill-fated Titanic, there’s a proper way to grip the steering wheel—whether a two-spoke, three-spoke or a four-spoke to ensure an ergonomically pleasing position as well as improved response time during duress.

Remember to grab the wheel with both hands. The older generation suggests the 10-2 position, meaning the left hand grips the wheel on the ten ‘o clock position, while the right does the same on the two ‘o clock position. With the advent of airbags, this isn’t the case any longer. Newer driving gurus say that the best position would be the 9-3. This means that the left grips the wheel on the nine ‘o clock position and the right on the three ‘o clock position. Besides the fact that it gives a racier feel, it more importantly reduces the risk to injury to your hands and arms in the unlike case when the airbag detonates from an accident.

In addition to the 9-3 position, the correct way to grip the wheel would be in a relaxed but firm manner with the thumbs sticking out, gripping the front surface of the steering wheel. The extended thumbs actually strengthen the grip, especially for women drivers and those with sweaty palms and those who use too much Original Gloss Armour-All.

Operating the steering wheel is certainly not the time to relax. As the captain of your ship, it is important that you keep aware of possible icebergs that you may encounter. For ships with slower reaction times such as a truck, make sure that you never put any part of your appendage through the steering wheel. Tempting as it maybe, never do a Steve McQueen. Let’s face it, whatever you do, you won’t look as dashing. Kidding aside, sudden and jerky movement of the steering wheel may cause a heavy sprain to parts of your arm trapped through the wheel or worse fracture it.

The same is true when turning the wheel. For tight maneuvers, never grab the wheel from the inside. You run the risk of twisting your wrist when you have to move the steering wheel. With power-assisted steering now as standard on everything sans the owner-types, it is best to move the hands and wheels together as though they were one unit. As you exit a turn, simply rotate the steering wheel back to its center position, maintaining a firm grip on the wheel.

Dog Fighting with G-Liners Along Highway 54

Highway 54 or known more for its modern name of EDSA is home to sudden braking and lane darting buses. These green-and-yellow five ton menaces prove very much the king of the road. No matter how loud or how many horn you have, the best way to lessen possible emergency maneuvers with these beasts is to learn proper distances.

During heavy downpour, it is imperative that you follow the proper speed limit (60 km/h minimum and 100 km/h maximum for cars cruising on the highway). Funny enough, some people find a fetish of driving faster in the wet than in the dry (seeing the rain dispersal pattern on their tires could be a reason), but Michael Schumacher they aren’t.

A good practice during cruising on any road is to maintain at least a four to five-second distance from the car in front of you. To check, try marking a stationary landmark with your mind, such as an electric post or a pretty lady on the street. Without getting distracted, count the number of seconds it takes you to cross that mark after the car ahead zoomed past. If you count less than four seconds, better lift the gas and increase the gap. If keeping an eye on the time isn’t your style, just try maintaining a two-meter gap for every kilometer traveled. This means that if you’re running at 60 km/h, you should have a distance of around 120 meters from the car in front of you. Generally, there’s no harm if you increase your distance some more just to be safe.

In anyway, this should give you ample time to apply your brakes or lift the throttle in case something awry happens directly in front of you.

If you do need to apply the brakes, make sure you do it with ample warning for the car behind you. Though you may have four-wheel disc and ABS, the guy at the back maybe driving something with four-wheel drums as standard—so don’t do sudden braking especially for potholes and patches of water. Road imperfections aren’t a good excuse for sudden swerving for that matter, especially when traveling along the South Superhighway. Please note that you may have blind spots, and an 18-wheeler may be waiting to smash into your pretty fender if a sudden lane change goes wrong. If you’re not careful enough to spot a pothole, try coasting by braking lightly or lifting the throttle. If you’re really too late, just go through it rather than risking a collision with another vehicle to either side.

Wishing for a Transforming Esprit

As much as we’d like to own a James Bond The Spy Who Loved Me transforming Lotus Esprit, we’ll have to be content with our everyday Fords or Hondas. If there’s no choice but to run your car through a flood, then do so—but make sure that your car could do it first!

Cars with high ground clearance such as an F150 may skip this section, but for the lesser mortals read on.

The key here is to keep engine revs high enough to prevent water from entering the exhaust pipe. Engines need to breathe, so think of the exhaust as the car’s nose rather than its ass. For manual transmission, the trick is to hang the car’s clutch putting in as much revs as your redline would allow while keeping the overall speed and pace slow. Going through floodwaters too fast isn’t beneficial to the car as doing so may cause a bigger ripple to open up and this may sometimes cause water to reach vital engine systems such as the belts and electrical causing the car to stall at the worse possible moment—I should know, it happened to me once.

Cars with autoboxes have no choice but to engage the low position and try to see the flood through. Although the best for autoboxes would be to avoid flood wading at all costs.

Keep your speed to a walking rate and you should see the flood through. In case you have to turn back because the water levels are higher than you thought—forget it. Reversing or doing tight maneuvers are not advisable in these conditions. You’d run a bigger risk stalling on the maneuver than you stalling by going straight. Better plow through rather than chicken out. As brutal as it seems, this is the only way. Remember, you got yourself into this sticky situation in the first place.

Driving tips mentioned here are just the simple basics. Even for the most learned of drivers, it doesn’t do harm to read new material about the subject of proper driving techniques. Remember that car technology changes and sometimes the way to drive them could change. Refresher courses are beneficial as it could give new tips or improve on old diehard driving habits.

Though the value of our daily drivers isn’t even enough to pay for Michael Schumacher’s custom made Bridgestone rubber, the fact that you appear to be as every bit as informed and prepared as the great World Championship himself when it comes to proper wet weather driving could prevent you from getting pushed to the sidelines of the race called life. In the end, we all deserve to be Schumachers, not Yoongs.

By Ulysses Ang | Photos By Ulysses Ang