Skid Control and Recovery: Preventing and Correcting Skids
A skid in a heavy vehicle escalates fast, and a trailer skid can become a jackknife. Understanding why skids happen and how to recover is a skill best learned before you need it.
QUICK ANSWER
Skids happen when tires lose traction from braking too hard, driving too fast for conditions, or oversteering. A drive-wheel skid can spin the tractor, and a trailer skid can lead to a jackknife. Recovery means stopping the action that caused it, easing off the brake or accelerator, and steering in the intended direction. Prevention through speed and smooth inputs is far better than recovery.
Why Skids Happen
A tire skids when the demand for traction exceeds what the road can give: braking too hard, taking a curve too fast, or accelerating on a slick surface. In a combination vehicle, a trailer skid is especially dangerous because the trailer can swing around into a jackknife.
The Recovery
- Stop the cause: release the brake or ease off the throttle.
- Steer where you want to go: then countersteer as it recovers.
- Do not overcorrect: a second skid follows an overcorrection.
- Prevent first: reduce speed for conditions before the curve.
Prevention beats recovery
The best skid recovery is the skid you never start. Speed management and smooth inputs prevent far more skids than any recovery technique corrects.
Skid control connects to adverse weather driving and mountain driving.
WE BUILD THIS IN VR — THE PRIME VR
We build skid control into VR, so drivers experience drive-wheel and trailer skids safely, practice recovery inputs, and learn the speed management that prevents them, with the system modeling traction loss. Immersive skid practice builds a reflex that is otherwise dangerous and expensive to train.
Book a discovery callFrequently Asked Questions
What causes a truck to skid? +
Skids happen when tires lose traction, usually from braking too hard, driving too fast for conditions, or oversteering. Slick surfaces from rain, snow, or ice lower the available traction and make skids more likely.
What is a jackknife? +
A jackknife is when the trailer skids and swings out of line with the tractor, folding like a pocket knife. It often follows a trailer-wheel skid and can result in loss of control.
How do you recover from a skid? +
Stop the action that caused it by releasing the brake or easing off the accelerator, steer in the direction you want to go, and avoid overcorrecting. Preventing the skid with speed control is far more reliable.
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Train skid recovery in VR
We build skid control into immersive, scored practice.