Ok so I was driving to work today and I made a bit of a mistake, well not so much of a mistake as "one of those things" that would have resulted in an accident and would have been 100% my fault.
Anyway I was driving down a stretch of 50mph dual carriage way on the limit or a couple of mph over and I start slowly catching the van infront. I was nearing the nsl stretch but as I edged closer I decided to maintain my speed and overtake. Checked my mirror, checked my blindspot looked forward to start overtake as alls clear and the van is very close, its brake lights are on and I'm closing fast... ****
Braking wasn't an option as our speed difference was greater than the tiny bit of gap we had left so I braked moderately hard, done a quick right - left on the wheel to swerve into the outside lane, a screech from the tyres and the backend went light and the back started oversteer out so I done a quick jink right again with the steering to bring it back straight... all within about a second
Now heres the point of this thread (yes there was one), how in gods name did I do that? I'm not a particularly skilled driver in terms of car control, I don't push my car in corners, despite driving too fast a lot of the time I would consider myself a defensive driver. So was it instinct taking over? Have all my years of sitting infront of Gran Turismo and the like not been a waste after all or was today just my lucky day?
As a side point- I had pretty much decided this already but after today not only will I NEVER buy cheap tyre (already decided this) but if I ever buy a car with cheap tyres I'm not going to wait for them to wear down before replacing them- they will come straight off.
Anyway I was driving down a stretch of 50mph dual carriage way on the limit or a couple of mph over and I start slowly catching the van infront. I was nearing the nsl stretch but as I edged closer I decided to maintain my speed and overtake. Checked my mirror, checked my blindspot looked forward to start overtake as alls clear and the van is very close, its brake lights are on and I'm closing fast... ****
Braking wasn't an option as our speed difference was greater than the tiny bit of gap we had left so I braked moderately hard, done a quick right - left on the wheel to swerve into the outside lane, a screech from the tyres and the backend went light and the back started oversteer out so I done a quick jink right again with the steering to bring it back straight... all within about a second
Now heres the point of this thread (yes there was one), how in gods name did I do that? I'm not a particularly skilled driver in terms of car control, I don't push my car in corners, despite driving too fast a lot of the time I would consider myself a defensive driver. So was it instinct taking over? Have all my years of sitting infront of Gran Turismo and the like not been a waste after all or was today just my lucky day?
As a side point- I had pretty much decided this already but after today not only will I NEVER buy cheap tyre (already decided this) but if I ever buy a car with cheap tyres I'm not going to wait for them to wear down before replacing them- they will come straight off.
I kind of want more, not on the roads though next time and under slighty better circumstances 
) younger I got into a bit of trouble in my dads astra estate and my instinct was to let go of the wheel to let it straighten up and then steer away from the wall I was sliding towards, I got away with it as doing nothing at all would have resulted in an accident, but in hindsight I'm pretty sure that wasn't the correct thing to do