I was on the highway last night going about 85mph when a deer came out of the right shoulder into the path of my car at an extremely close proximity. It is a 5-lane highway and I was in the second lane to the right. I turned the wheel left, slammed the brakes, and began an uncontrollable spin.

I miraculously avoided the barriers on either side, and when I stopped I was actually facing the right direction again, and the engine was off. Fortunately, no other cars were around until a few seconds after the car came to rest, and I hit the hazard lights as a car approached in the distance.

I was surprised that the car was off, since it is an automatic, and the only reason I can think of is that going from accelerating to slamming the brakes extremely rapidly, the transmission did not actually have time to downshift before the engine stalled. The engine started right up and I continued on my way in shock because of what happened and that I was so close to totaling my car (I could have hit the deer, smashed the barriers, or been walloped by another vehicle).

It was by far the most frightening driving situation I have ever experienced. Thinking about the incident now, I am wondering if the horrible spin had to do with the new tires (not being broken-in yet, so lacking in grip), and the ABS not working IF the car stalled as I began spinning (I don’t know for sure at what point it died). I did not feel any pulsating, like I have on other cars when ABS kicked in so I am thinking the car had already stalled.

I just took delivery a couple weeks ago, and the car has 200 miles on it now. So much for avoiding unnecessary hard stops during the break-in period.

If anyone has some insight as to why I spun so much or why the car stalled, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

CN, glad to hear youre ok!! Wow, whatta story!

 

I am very glad you are ok. :D

The problem you had though was not the ABS or the tires.

If you ever get the chance to take a race car driving course it will explain in more detail what happened to you.

You say you where going 85 saw the deer and turned hard left and hit the brakes.

Tires will only do one thing at a time for you. They will never do two things at once.

They will accelerate, break, or turn. They won't turn and accelerate well at the same time. Depending on the car set up that can result in either under or over steer, and in either case can result in a spin out. They will not turn and break at the same time.

When you turned at 85MPH then braked hard you went into over-steer and spun the car. That is exactly what happens to racers on the track when they go to hard into the corner holding the breaks. They go to a lot of trouble in race car driving school to teach us not to brake and turn at the same time, or accelerate and turn at the same time. In turning I mean hard turns, although some gentle turns can cause a challenge if you go beyond the grip point of the tires. But a hard turn at 85 MPH with the breaks locked will spin the best of cars.

ABS works when you brake in a straight line, nothing will help when you do a high speed turn with your brakes locked

So you learned a little about high performance driving the hard way. So there is absolutely nothing wrong with your car.

One thing you did prove. In the roll over tests, they found that RX8s are almost impossible to roll.

Now that you made it through the hair razing challenge of the 360 spin, maybe you might enjoy performance driving school to learn more about how to handle any car in a situation like the one you experienced.

Again, I am very glad that you and your car are ok. :D

 

LOL - If anyone asks, I think you can safely say it was necessary...

Glad you're ok.

 

what you should have done is give it gas and steering input. Why gas you ask? When you give it gas you plant the rear end, the rear end is where your grip is, what happens is you turned the wheels and lost all grip in the rear from braking too hard.

Good little experiment, it's definitely weird. Like dragonrider said, head to the track or a driving school, it's soo much fun to learn what makes a car do what it does.

 

^^^ good advice but when you travelling at 85+ and a deer shows up.. the last thing on your mind is to punch the gas... if it was a stationary object.. your advice might work.. but...when heading towards an animal.. who might make erratic moves...i dont think speeding up would help in that situation... braking as hard as you can with minimal turn in.. would be best.. to minimize impact speed..

 

As someone who has hit a deer, you were very lucky. I was only going 60, and the deer literally lept from the median and landed on the hood of my car. There was absolutely no time to react at all.

When you first see them, the absolute last thing on your mind is speeding up. Its stopping.

 

car stalled because you were in Drive and when you spun, tires rotate the wrong direction

 

Umm ... let's see.

1) You were going WAY to fast for conditions (in the dark, on a 2 lane through deer country - honestly, you deserve to be dead. That you didn't kill yourself, the deer or your car is pure blind luck.)

2) You're in an unfamiliar car and don't know how to drive it yet

3) You either don't own DSC or were a fool and had it shut off

4) You badly overreacted to the deer (which honestly is easy to do) and you lost it.

Other than that, I have no idea why you spun.

The car stalled because when you spun backwards it put reverse pressure on the drive train. No real surprise there - autos will stall just as quickly as manuals in a spin.

Suggestion: Take stock of your situation and drive at appropriate speeds for conditions - you were clearly overdriving the situation which is why you lost it.

 

wrong, they can do 2 of those 3 at once. either brake and turn, or accelerate and turn. but the effectiveness of doing 2 at once will always be reduced as compared to doing just one thing. you are limited by how much grip the vehicle has. if you are going to be driving hard, you do need to know the limits of your car under various conditions. i am not condoning experimenting on public roads, but just driving around will give you an idea how your car will handle under various cornering situation.

 

Also remember that when you slam on the brakes, the weight of the car shifts forward, unloading the rear, causing it to have reduced traction (which is why most brakes are front-biased, since rear-biased brakes would break away the rear traction even faster).

So as you hit the brakes AND turned hard left, the rear tires couldn't hold the road and went sliding (going from rolling traction into the much less effective sliding "traction" mode). Meanwhile, due to the extra front weight from braking, your fronts had better traction, causing your car to pivot around the front. The result is the spin.

Normally, you'd be ok with this maneuver at slower speeds, but at 85mph, a hard left is much much harder on the tires. So I am not really sure what the technology could have do to prevent the spin out (maybe lock the front tires, so that you went into a 4-wheel drift, but that could've led to much worse things).

Glad to hear you're OK!

So, as another poster said, it was about the balance of "braking" and "steering" duties of the tire. If you steered less hard (just enough to "change lanes"), then you could've probably maintained full braking force. Otherwise, perhaps if you reduced the braking to change the lanes (with the hard left) and then got back on the brakes, maybe you would've avoided the spin.

If you were in an SUV, you'd roll off the highway into the trees.

 

Why were you going 85 during the break-in period???

 

Some of us have the gray hair and wisdom to understand when it's OK to go fast, and when it is not. Some of us have been to a number of professional driving schools and understand that the time to go fast is on the track, not on public roads where you can endanger not only your life but that of others as well. Some of us want to make sure that all angles of the issue are understood.

And here's what I understand:

1) I am convinced that he was not on a remote expressway, but instead on some backcountry 2 lane.

2) Said backcountry 2 lane in the bright light of day would likely be OK for 85 mph provided there is not other traffic around.

3) He clearly learned the effects of weight transfer in a rear drive car - jump on the binders hard in a panic stop and twist the wheel. WhEE!

4) He is probably driving a base car or was not bright enough to keep the DSC turned on.

Bottom line is, deer or no deer, this is pilot error. I stand by my comment. He is damn ******* lucky he is not dead and that he didn't kill anyone else. Too fast for conditions means not being able to stay in control if an emergency happens. And he obviously didn't stay in control in an emergency.

Glad he's OK.

Dad.

 

Do you think that the DSC could've helped? Weight transferred to the front, hard left and bam, the rear goes. What wheel would you brake to retain stability? I think he had DSC on and it still didn't help him.

 

If you re-read the initial post, he did say it was a 5 lane highway, not a 2 lane backcountry road. 85mph on a well lit 5 lane with concrete dividers on both sides is not a ridiculous speed, its not like he was going 125mph. And, in my opinion, contrary to what most people claim, "race car driving" courses will most likely not help in an emergency situation like a deer jumping out at you. I'm not even sure how you can call it pilot error, he freaked out in an emergency situation like almost anybody would. Any car of any configuration (front drive, rear drive, all wheel, dsc, esp, anti-lock, whatever) would have done the same thing if you mash the brakes and turn hard at 85mph. Its possible that his actions actually saved him from a serious crash, if he had turned hard and mashed the gas to get more rear traction he most likely would have just turned hard to the left and crashed into the divider. Just hitting the brakes would most likely have caused him to hit the deer and then enter into an uncontrollable spin. A calm lane change around the deer would probably have been the best, but honestly, how many people would have the cool head to do that when they suddenly see a deer pop out in front of them...

 

Are you sure this is true? I'm pretty sure ABS works when braking in a corner as well... Although I do agree that really no electronics or tires could have stopped the spin in this situation.

 

85 mph at night is over-driving the headlights. If it's well lit, it's an urban area and that's too fast for that. And if it's not lit, 85 mph is a speed where your distance to react and stop is outside the range of your headlights.

And I totally disagree with your statement about driving school. They DO teach you how to handle emergencies - and track time teaches you even more. At the Bob Bondurant school, they even have a lane on the course with pop up "instant" obstacles - meant to simulate deer, small children, idiots, etc. And the training does help. You learn to react appropriately.

At 85 mph, he was going too fast for conditions. I stand by that statement.

 

We don't even know what the conditions were, seems kind of premature to state he was going too fast for conditions... I'm sure the training does help, but in a surprise emergency off of a track things are much different.

 

After reading his story a few times and reading about abbid, is Mazda going to void his warrenty? Abbid's story has me scared into not really talking about this kind of stuff on line...

Glad you are okay, but next time, only turn as much as needed. Don't throw the wheel as far to the left or right as possible. I know it is sad, but if there were other cars on the road, then you have to hit it. If you swerve to avoid then you can cause a massive pile-up. I was driving in a rental car a few years ago on the freeway with my dad when a bird was in our lane. We couldn't move because there were cars on both sides of us. It is sad, but nothing else we could have done....

 

It was a 5-lane highway in a suburban area. Speed limit was 70. Weather was clear and dry. Highway was empty. I had never seen deer in that area before, so I did not consider the possibility of one darting out. Thank you all for your responses.

 

I think some people are over analyzing this. In this situation you have 2 choices - hit the deer, or spin out. If you make a large steering correction at hi speed, you WILL spin out. Under the conditions described, I think he made the right choice.

 

Wow, pretty scary situation there! Glad you and your car are ok though. I don't want to join the advice rumble here, so I'm going to give you an unorthodox one:

JOIN THE LOCAL DEER HUNTING CLUB IN YOUR AREA


... that is all.

 

I think it may not have completely caught him, but it sure would have helped. I've intentioinally tried to spin my car out with DSC on in a weight-transferring, lift-throttle, stab and steer situation, and it's caught the car every time This on wet, seal-coated asphalt (closest thing to ice you can get).

 

i think the reason for his spin out is his lack of experience which we can never have enough of. sure more track driving and race school will gain us more experience and teach us how to react when a car breaks too hard in front of you or passes you dangerously, but this man obviously doesnt autocross or track his car.

if he did have dsc on or had a car with it it might've resulted in a spin into the wall because most inexperience drivers will try to countersteer. the best thing he could've done... we'll never know because we werent in the car with him. just be glad he's still alive and his car is in one piece.

honestly i dont know what i wouldve have done if something popped right infront of my car. (knock on wood) i wouldve probably braked as hard as i could... turn the wheel with my foot off the break and then try to accelerate through.

glad your safe be careful out there!

 

I know what the problem is:

The curse of the Silver.


Mu ha ha......