Leave Your Car's Traction Control On

[Judge]

Another example of why it's best to leave your new car's traction control alone, which defaults to the "on" position for good reason. That you never know what road surface conditions might cause your vehicle's wheels to partially lose traction sufficient to cause an accident. And it doesn't have to be just rain or snow. In this case it appeared as dry, but uneven pavement on an improvised race course (Grand Prix of Detroit).

In all the years I've watched Indy Car racing, I've never seen anyone driving the pace car end up in an accident before the race even begins. How embarrassing! But yeah, General Motors' own corporate vice-president chose to turn off the traction control in a 2019 Corvette. Something some of us are bound to do when we seek the most aggressive performance from the most recent cars being manufactured. Oops.

GM VP Mark Reuss crashes Chevy Corvette ZR1 pace car ahead of Indy race

 

[FreeDiver]

As an experienced ice driver myself. I always turn TC off when I'm driving on icy roads. Any other time, I just leave it on. I find it way harder to drive on an icy road with TC on because I'm always fighting it.

 

[Judge]

As an experienced ice driver myself. I always turn TC off when I'm driving on icy roads. Any other time, I just leave it on. I find it way harder to drive on an icy road with TC on because I'm always fighting it.

Actually that makes a certain amount of sense in the event the road surface you are driving on is completely and evenly coated with a layer of ice. After all, IMO traction control is really dependent on optimally negotiating uneven road surfaces and transferring traction from one wheel or wheels to others.

 

[Rayner]

Unless I have a reason to need to turn it off like if I'm driving on Ice witch I very rarely do living in texas and all, I leave it on.

Actually that makes a certain amount of sense in the event the road surface you are driving on is completely and evenly coated with a layer of ice. After all, IMO traction control is really dependent on optimally negotiating uneven road surfaces and transferring traction from one wheel or wheels to others.

 

[Judge]

Ironically if you watched the Indianapolis 500 only a few days ago, you witnessed no less than three or more experienced drivers (Castroneves, Patrick and Jones) encounter traction issues in the same spot in the same turn. Probably involving the same left front tire as well. Causing their racing car to spin counterclockwise into the wall and demolish their cars. Luckily no one was injured. Weird too to notice how bewildered these experienced drivers seemed at the time of their crash. Unable to immediately understand just what actually happened.

Of course these particular cars would not have any traction control given the need to maximize acceleration and torque rather than constrain them only for the sake of safety. How their suspensions may have been tweaked in accordance with the most recent rules and specifications might have had some role in these occurrences as well. And then consider the tire surfaces involved versus the track's surface temperatures. For a few it may have served to be a "perfect storm" of failure, in just one tiny spot on a very large racetrack.

Unfortunately for the rest of us simply operating our cars on a daily basis there are many more things to consider in terms of whether we end up reaching our destination of winding up against a wall or off the road somewhere.