How Slow, Smooth driving Lead to Faster and Safer Driving

How Slow, Smooth driving Lead to Faster and Safer Driving

Do you think driving a car slowly takes a long time to reach the destination?
Thinking? Tough, right!
Let’s find the answer.

If slow is smooth and smooth is fast, does that mean slow is fast?

 

smooth driving

 

I have to introduce you to some psychology: the competency triangle. You can see there is an element of slow, smooth, and fast that relates to your inputs. If you have slower inputs, you can be faster around the corner. But I think at an even deeper level it’s about the theory of learning and how you can learn to be faster at something by first being slow.

 

Four Stages of Competence

 

The first level of competency is being unconsciously incompetent. You don’t even know what you’re doing wrong. If you have ever seen somebody hogging the middle lane on the motorway, this is the stage that they’re in. They’re not even aware that they’re doing the wrong thing.

The good news is that if you are reading this article, you’re probably not at this stage because you had the initiative to improve. So you may be at the second stage of the competency triangle: consciously incompetent. Now, that sounds really bad, and I don’t mean to call anybody incompetent, but this is the second stage of learning.

You’re now aware that you don’t know or don’t understand something. So this may be the case if you’re trying to be a faster, safer road driver and enjoy your car more. You have to start learning about the things that you’re doing wrong. Then you have to start implementing practice in order to improve at those things that you’re doing wrong.

Once you start implementing practice, you arrive at the third stage: you are now consciously competent. That means when you think about something, you can do it well. Now, in the final stage, the cream of the crop of the competency pyramid is unconsciously competent.

This is where you don’t even have to think about something in order to be good at it. A great example of being unconsciously competent is learning to drive a manual gearbox.

As you go through the stages, you’ll get to a stage where if you think through putting the clutch down, changing the gear, lifting up the clutch, and getting back on the gas, then you are consciously competent. But every driver gets to a stage where they don’t think about that stuff anymore. They’ve practiced it so much it has become second nature; it becomes a reflex. You don’t even think about changing gear and operating the manual transmission.

This is when you have become unconsciously competent at the very top of the pyramid.

Now, how does this all relate to slow being fast? Every aspect of driving fast or spirited can be broken down into small sections, like driving a manual gearbox.

If we take throttle control as an example, you can go out for a drive with the sole intention to improve your throttle control.

How do you do this?
Well, you go through the competency triangle and figure out where you are.

Maybe you’re pretty good with throttle control, and you know how to ease into the throttle coming out of a corner. But you’ve got to think about it. To get to the stage of being unconsciously competent, all you have to do is practice; it will become something you can feel. The same is true for every input of the car: the brakes, the steering, the weight transfer—every aspect of it can be broken down, and you can focus on it. But in order to focus on it, you have to do it slowly.

Let’s talk a little bit about smooth inputs to negotiate roads. You have to have smooth inputs. You can’t wait until the last moment and jerk the steering wheel in. Be smooth on the gears and smooth on the steering; feed the throttle in. You can suddenly go way faster than you thought you could. Same again: turn in gently, build up that steering, build up the throttle, unwind the steering. Smooth inputs make faster drivers.

Slow inputs are very important because the slower you can make your inputs, the more time your suspension has to settle, and the more grip you ultimately have. Any harsh inputs or sudden braking upset the balance of the car. So the smoother you can make your inputs—brake gradually and squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze—I always try this to be safer.

When you accelerate, be in the right gear, and don’t just hammer the throttle; roll into it. Same with the steering: don’t just wait for the corner and then whack it in. Position your car on the road to have the smoothest line through the corner. I’m hugging this white line so that when I turn in, I need less steering input, and it’s a smoother turn around the corner.

Being smooth will make you fast, but to be smooth, you have to first be slow.

In order to get faster, you have to get better at a whole load of different things, but you can’t do that all at the same time. So pick one thing. Maybe today you’re going to get better at steering. You’re going to think about how you’re going to approach this corner. You’re going to hug the side, you’re going to cut in, or you’re going to focus on unraveling the steering wheel nicely and smoothly.

I have an example of smooth acceleration. Let’s know.

We get into the right gear, keep in third gear, and then rather than just hammering the throttle, we’re going to ease into the throttle, and ultimately we can go very, very fast. But it’s a much smoother experience by rolling into the throttle and being smooth with those inputs.

Maybe one day you want to practice braking. So in order to practice braking smoothly and slowly, you’ve got to get yourself into some corners. There is a particularly sharp corner coming up. Here we’re going to give it a bit of speed, and to practice braking, I’m already touching the pads, and now I’m squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, and I’m smoothing through. If you can do that smoothly at 30 mph and get it to the stage where you’re at the top of the pyramid—you’re unconsciously competent at doing that at 30 mph.

When you do it at 50 mph, you will be so much smoother, and it will come so much more naturally. You’ll be so much better at it, and you will be faster.

I had an experience where I hit that corner at 60 mph the first time I’d ever seen it. I didn’t even know what was coming up, but I’m linking the top right corner.

If you’ve got a car with a manual transmission, this is all the more important because not only do you have to be smooth with the steering, with the brake, and with the throttle, you also have to be smooth with the clutch. Things like heel and toe are genuinely useful because you can increase just how smooth you are with those inputs. Downshift, turn smoothly, and feed the power through. You do that enough times at that speed, and you can do it at 100 miles an hour—not that you should.

That’s why slow becomes fast, logically.

You learn smoothness by being slow, which in turn will make you fast.