The Avto.ru online publication, together with the driving school, decided to help drivers remember the basic rules of driving a car, even on slippery roads in winter.
Let us remember that the Internet portal previously carried out the Great Examination of Traffic Rules, but as of this year it was divided into two parts. The “Spring Traffic Rules Test” was aimed at knowledge of traffic rules involving personal mobility equipment. And in the “Winter Traffic Rules Test”, which can now be completed until December 15, the emphasis is on the rules of driving on winter roads. A useful thing: the more people pass by, the safer the road will be and, as a result, the accident rate will decrease. The test consists of three parts, and for those who make mistakes, they will be able to see the correct answers with explanations of why they should do so.
The RG correspondent was one of those who remembered the rules of winter driving not only on the computer, but also at a special training camp in Yakhroma. Our tour is something like visual answers to these questions.
Snowball on the bumper
As we drive, it starts to snow lightly and at the entrance to Yakhroma there is even a blizzard. The view from the car window is impressive: slightly snow-covered slopes with elevators that are not yet working, several children with sleds. The imagination immediately draws beautiful images of a skidding car from the movie “Fast and Furious”: steep drops, curves… And behind a series of ski slopes, a flat space the size of three football fields is the ski field. training. There are no emergency services nearby. As the main instructor of the driving school, Anton Emelyanov, explains, the intensive course lasts five hours and its main objective is to improve safety when driving on winter roads.
“Many of those who take the course begin to drive slower on the highway. After all, you can clearly see what happens to a car on ice at a speed of 60 km per hour, and how it will look at a speed double or three times more,” says the instructor.
All the participants in the training, and there are five of us, are sitting. But not in cars, but in the public. The instructor bombards the audience with questions and answers: how all-wheel drive cars differ from rear-wheel drive cars, how they behave, why the car can skid when turning, where to turn the steering wheel. How the car adheres to the surface. And he concludes: “Physics is the basis of everything, and all driver errors on the road are due to the fact that a person does not know this science.”
And, to correct it, he proposes sitting on iron horses. Four Audi Quattros wait in the school yard. I have a snow-white beauty with number 1.
But before jumping inside, the instructor talks about the rules again, this time about the correct position of the driver. “It is necessary to feel the car with your back, so do not tilt the seat back too far back. Do not block your view with the steering wheel, raise the seat. Do not hang on the steering wheel – this is not an attraction. The legs should not be straight, the seat should resemble a chair and the heels should touch the floor,” he warns and hands out walkie-talkies. It is through this means of communication that the instructor will tell you what and where you did well and what the student did wrong, practicing, so to speak, physics. They threaten to give yellow cards for serious errors and red cards for dangerous maneuvers.
trick snakes
How do they start teaching driving at a driving school? That’s right, riding like a snake. And here you will also have to drive a snake from one end of the training ground to the other. To guide you where to go, dozens of markers (orange and blue cones) are placed. We followed the instructor for a test lap. But the first one left. He pressed the accelerator pedal to the floor. The car starts. I fly to the first series of milestones, enter the curve, accelerate again, turn again. “Give me the dynamics,” the instructor shouts over the radio. “It went well, but we have to go faster. Feel the car.” Following me at a safe distance, a black Audi runs by, with snow and some poles flying under its wheels. One of the cars turns around. The instructor is shouting something into the radio. Let’s start again. On the fifth lap I realized I was going faster, looked at the speedometer and entered a corner at 50 km per hour. I would never in my right mind make maneuvers at that speed on any road. “Number one, slow down!” – Emelyanov instructs. But it’s too late. The car began to dance, rocking from side to side and pulling to one side. “Press the accelerator, don’t turn the steering wheel, turn it in the direction of the skid, straighten the wheels,” Emelyanov continues, pulling my car out of the skid by radio.
I just held my breath. New task: acceleration, deceleration and sharp turns. Gas to the ground, a white swallow with a slip rushes towards the poles! Two seconds and the cones behind fall scattered. Having somehow managed to control the car, I rush towards the next cones… “More dynamically, don’t let off the accelerator,” Emelyanov orders.
Photo: Sergey Mikheev/RG
Each exercise is repeated eight to nine times.
It’s interesting to see how my colleagues’ driving habits change. Some have become faster than at the beginning, others, on the contrary, are slowing down. “It happens that calm people at the end of the lesson go faster than others, but safely,” explains Emelyanov. “We go from a simple exercise to a complex one, your experience grows before your eyes. You won’t see but after a couple of weeks you will feel that the five-hour experience has not been in vain.” I wonder if they’re predicting freezing rain? “You look at the car differently, you feel it, your car will feel different,” he says.
After the next variation of the snake, the last exercise begins: it is necessary to draw a circle so that part of the way the car is dragged by the sliding force in the desired direction. In a couple of seconds the device accelerates and ahead is the edge of the training field, the car is attracted there like a magnet and not in the right direction. The turn remained in the distance along with the milestones.
Here is the second attempt, here the snow from under the wheels already covers the windows and the hood of the car. I don’t see anything, but on the radio I’m driving towards the curve and not into the ditch. The instructor tells you what was done wrong. A new circle and now the car is moving in the right direction. I scream with happiness and snow splashes out from under the wheels. Beauty!
After five hours of training, the taste for fast driving appears, you begin to feel the car, its agility on the frozen asphalt. I feel like I’ve become an ace. At least now on real ice! I can do tricks on four wheels better than a figure skater. Other students share this opinion. “I feel a heroic strength,” says Olga Belova, getting out of the black Audi. “It’s a pity, the lesson ended quickly.”
In conclusion, the instructor asks to place the cars at a safe distance. He then puts all the participants in his car. And then, like in the best races, all hell breaks loose: the car, under the strict direction of a professional, begins to take monstrous turns. It spins like a top or flies with its rear bumper towards parked cars. One meter away, he manages to change course and takes a new curve, then turns 360 degrees and, kicking up a wave of snow about three meters, the car rolls off the surface of the training field. “This is a spectacular end to the lesson,” concludes the instructor. “This driving is beautiful and safe only on the training ground, don’t repeat it. But such recklessness is useless for studying.”
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