Driving tips and other life stuff

Improving your cornering: avoiding auto-pilot

When we're busy (which let's face it, is all the time) bad habits can creep in behind the wheel. One of the big ones, is what I call lazy cornering. No, not moving incredibly slow, the opposite in fact. Cornering too quickly because you're in too high of a gear or leaving your turn to the last second because you weren't properly concentrating.

But sometimes you might not be aware that you are cornering too harshly, and that's when the bad feedback messages from ingenie can start to show up, leaving you a bit confused.

If this sounds like you, here's what might be happening and how you can sort it.

Familiar routes

College. Home. Work. Home. College. Home. You know this route like you know the theme tune to F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Cornering too late or too sharply is the kind of driving that can happen when you're over familiar with your route. Sure, confidence while driving is great, but there's a fine line between knowing the roads well and letting your driving standards slip.

And usually you'll know when it's happened. Your passenger will be forced to hold on to the inside door handle, and you'll hear that half empty bottle of water in the back roll across the seats.

Think about how you'd take the corner with a precious new baby in your car, or a birthday cake on the front seat. Whichever is more precious to you, that's how you want to be driving all the time.

If you think it’s safe to corner harsher than normal because you know that road, remember there could always be another driver who doesn’t and may make a big error. You can’t control how other road users drive but you can control how you do and how you react.

Joanna
ingenie's Driving Feedback Team

How to corner perfectly

Watch ingenie's Driver Training video for the 3-point plan to perfect cornering.

 

• Make sure you're at the right speed before you get to the corner and while your wheels are straight
• During the corner, avoid braking to reduce the risk of skidding
• Accelerate gradually out of the corner only when your front wheels are straight again

Doughnutting

I mean. Come on. If you're someone who enjoys making shapes with your car in a Burger King car park at 2am (and yes - we see that) please stop.

This will 100% leave you with bad cornering feedback (duh) and may even put your insurance at risk of cancellation.

Your car isn't a toy. Car parks are not fun hang out places. So get your burger and leave the doughnuts.