What is oversteer?
How will oversteer affect you in Alaska?
Tips for dealing with oversteer
Final Word
What is oversteer?
Oversteer is a specific type of loss of control while you are turning when you are driving. It is when your back tires lose their grip on the road as you turn, and then the rear of the car starts sliding sideways as a result. You might be able to correct this mid-turn, but you need to have more advanced driving skills in order to accomplish that. Plus, there is no guarantee that you can rely on being able to correct it. Your best option is to do whatever you can to avoid oversteering in the first place.
How will oversteer affect you in Alaska?
You are at a particularly high risk of this occurring in Alaska over the winter due to the snow and the ice making it much more slippery and easier to slide out of a turn. Your tires will have a much harder time maintaining their grip in these conditions.
When you oversteer, especially on the snow and ice, you immediately become an extremely high risk for going off the road, rolling over or getting into an accident. If you do get into an accident and you are in a more remote area of Alaska, you could be stranded for hours before help arrives. That is exactly why you want to avoid oversteering while you are on the road in Alaska.
Tips for dealing with oversteer
You should always do whatever you can to avoid oversteering. However, it is particularly dangerous on snowy and icy roads. You should use the following tips to avoid the danger of oversteering in Alaska:
- Take those turns nice and slow – Turning at too high of a rate of speed is the most common cause for oversteering. Always take a turn slow and safely, especially in inclement winter weather in Alaska.
- Get winter tires or winterize your current tires – The true underlying cause of oversteering is the loss of the tires grip on the road. If you have winter tires or tire chains on, this will be much less likely to occur.
- If worse comes to worse, turn into the skid – When you start sliding, be sure you turn into the direction the slide is occurring while simultaneously taking your foot off of the acceleration.
Final Word
Oversteering in your car is an ever-present danger in Alaska, especially during the winter when roads are full of snow and ice. If you oversteer, you are at a high risk of getting into an accident which is especially dangerous in the remote areas of Alaska where help potentially could take hours to arrive.
