Triumphant Return

Yes. I know, I know. It has been forever since I have updated my blog. I could get into all of the reasons for this, but ultimately they are boring and not work reading; so I will just jump back into blogging with both feet.

Now, since I last posted, there has been much talk of Toyota and its many large-scale recalls. Everyone has gotten quite worked up, and rightly so, about the sheer number of unintended accelerating cars and the disturbingly long time it took Toyota to deal with the problem. Obviously cars behaving unexpectedly and costing people their lives is no laughing manner, but a more recent Toyota recall seemed to deal with a problem that many younger drivers would call a feature.


Apparently, the 2010 Lexus GX470 has a tendency to exhibit what is called "lift-off oversteer". This means that when the car is cornering near its limit of grip and the driver lifts off the throttle, the rear tires will lose grip before the front. This is called 'skidding', 'sliding', or 'fishtailing' when a soccer mom in her monster truck SUV. A video of this behavior can be seen below.

Interestingly enough, in racing or other high performance driving situations, this behavior is simply called 'oversteer'. In fact, most race cars are set up deliberately to exhibit mild lift-off oversteer, as this can allow them to accelerate through corners more effectively.

If you are a teenager this is called 'a sweet drift'. In fact, many drift cars are set up deliberately to exhibit oversteer in all situations.

Now obviously some people may not want this 'feature' in their cars, which is why most cars nowadays have electronic stability control (ESC) systems to use a combination of throttle, individually applied brakes, and torque vectoring(I'll hide my nerdy-ness by not explaining what that is) to keep the cars from performing an Unintentional Sweet Drift or USD. The lexus in question does, in fact, have one of these systems, but it seems that it intervenes too little or too late to control the truck. From what I understand, the recall is a simple software fix and all will be right with the world once again soon.


The fix for the Citroen Nemo may be a little more difficult however. This minivan (or people carrier if you are British…or obnoxious) lacks ESC entirely and while some people like driving on two wheels, the vast majority prefer to keep all four safely on the ground. While ESC might provide a band-aid fix for this people-carrier's tendency to perform an Unintentional Barrel Roll, it does not address the inherent design flaw of a vehicle that can tip over on flat pavement.

Even the tallest, heaviest SUV's like the Lexus above are designed to keep the wheels planted even when engaging in an USD. Yes, USD can lead to an UBR if the outside wheels find themselves on something like grass or a curb, any reasonably well designed car should be able to survive any combination of steering and throttle input and still keep its tires on ground on flat pavement.
In any case, be careful out there, especially in your SUV's and people-carriers, because I don't think having a wake with you displayed in your cherished Nemo would have the same effect as your dead body riding your motorcycle.