CHEVROLET CAMARO 1998 4.G Owners Manual

Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine 0 Section 4 Your Driving and the Road
Here you’ll find information about driving on different kinds of roads and in varying weather conditions. We’ve also
included many other useful tips on driving.
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4-15 Defensive Driving
Drunken
Driving
Control of a Vehicle
Braking
Steering Off-Road Recovery
Passing
Loss of Control
Driving at Night 4-
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4-22 4-23
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4-30 Driving
in Rain and on Wet Roads
City Driving
Freeway Driving
Before Leaving on a Long Trip
Highway Hypnosis Hill and Mountain Roads
Winter Driving
Loading
Your Vehicle
Towing
a Trailer
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Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine Defensive Driving
The best advice anyone can give about driving is:
Drive defensively.
Please start with a very important safety device in your
Chevrolet: Buckle up. (See “Safety Belts” in the Index.)\

Defensive driving really means “be ready for anything.” On city streets, rural roads or freeways, it means
“always expect the unexpected.” Assume that pedestrians
or other drivers
are going to be
careless and make mistakes. Anticipate what they might
do. Be ready for their mistakes.
Rear-end collisions are about the most preventable of
accidents. Yet they
are common. Allow enough
following distance. It’s the best defensive driving
maneuver,
in both city and rural driving. You never
know when the vehicle in front of you is going to brake
or turn suddenly.
Drunken Driving
Death and injury associated with drinking and driving is
a national tragedy. It’s the number one contributor to the
highway death toll, claiming thousands of victims
every year.
Alcohol affects four things that anyone needs to drive
a vehicle:
Judgment
a Muscular Coordination
0 Vision
Attentiveness.
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Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine Police records show that almost half of all motor vehicle-related deaths involve alcohol. In most cases,
these deaths
are the result of someone who was drinking
and driving. In recent years, over
17,000 annual motor
vehicle-related deaths have been associated with the use
of alcohol, with more than 300,000 people injured.
Many adults
-- by some estimates, nearly half the adult
population
-- choose never to drink alcohol, so they
never drive after drinking. For persons under
21, it’s
against the law in every
U.S. state to drink alcohol,
There are good medical, psychological and
developmental reasons for these laws.
The obvious way to solve this highway safety problem
is for people never to drink alcohol and then drive. But
what
if people do? How much is “too much’’ if the
driver plans to drive? It’s a lot less than many might
think. Although it depends on each person and situation,
here is some general information on
the problem.
The length of time it has taken the drinker to
consume the alcohol.
According to the American Medical Association, a 180-lb.
(82 kg) person who drinks three 12-ounce
(355 ml) bottles of beer in an hour will end up with a
BAC of about 0.06 percent. The person would reach the
same BAC by drinking three 4-ounce
(120 ml) glasses
of wine
or three mixed drinks if each had 1 - 1/2 ounces
(45 ml) of a liquor like whiskey, gin or vodka.
The Blood Alcohol Concentration
(BAC) of someone
who is drinking depends upon four things:
0 The amount of alcohol consumed
0 The drinker’s body weight
The amount of food that is consumed before and
during drinking
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Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine It’s the amount of alcohol that counts. For example, if
the same person drank three double martinis (3 ounces
or
90 ml of liquor each) within an hour, the person’s
BAC would be close to
0.12 percent. A person who
consumes food just before or during drinking will have a
somewhat lower BAC level.
There is a gender difference, too. Women generally have
a lower relative percentage of body water than men.
Since alcohol is carried in body water, this means that a
woman generally will reach a higher BAC level than a
man of her same body weight when each has the same
number
of drinks.
The law in many
U.S. states sets the legal limit at a BAC
of 0.10 percent. In a growing number of U.S. states, and
throughout Canada, the limit is
0.08 percent. In some
other countries, it’s even lower. The BAC limit for all
commercial drivers in the United States
is 0.04 percent.
The BAC will be over
0.10 percent after three to six
drinks (in one hour).
Of course, as we’ve seen, it
depends on how much alcohol is in the drinks, and how
quickly the person drinks them.
But the ability to drive
is affected well below a BAC of
0.10 percent. Research shows that the driving skills of
many people are impaired at a BAC approaching
0.05 percent, and that the effects are worse at night. All
drivers are impaired at BAC levels above
0.05 percent.
Statistics show that the chance
of being in a collision
increases sharply for drivers who have a BAC of
0.05 percent or above. A driver with a BAC level of
0.06 percent has doubled his or her chance of having a
collision. At a BAC level of
0.10 percent, the chance of
this driver having a collision is 12 times greater; at a
level of 0.15 percent, the chance is
25 times greater!
The body takes about an hour to rid itself of the alcohol
in one drink.
No amount of coffee or number of cold
showers will speed that up. “I’ll
be careful” isn’t the
right answer. What
if there’s an emergency, a need to
take sudden action, as when a child darts into the street?
A person with even a moderate BAC might not be able
to react quickly enough to avoid the collision.
There’s something else about drinking and driving that
many people don’t know. Medical research shows that
alcohol in a person’s system can make crash injuries
worse, especially injuries to the brain, spinal cord or
heart. This means that when anyone who has been
drinking
-- driver or passenger -- is in a crash, that
person’s chance
of being killed or permanently disabled
is higher than if the person had not been drinking.
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Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine Drinking and then driving is very dangerous.
Your reflexes, perceptions, attentiveness and
judgment can be affected by even
a small amount
of alcohol. You can have a serious
-- or even
fatal
-- collision if you drive after drinking.
Please don’t drink and drive or ride with
a driver
who has been drinking. Ride home in a cab; or
if
you’re with a group, designate a driver who will
not drink.
Control of a Vehicle
You have three systems that make your vehicle go where
you want it to
go. They are the brakes, the steering and
the accelerator. All three systems have to do their work
at the places where the tires meet the road. Sometimes,
as when you’re driving on snow or ice, it’s
easy
to ask more of those control systems than the tires
and road can provide. That means you can lose control
of your vehicle.
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Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine Braking
Braking action involves perception time and
reaction time.
First, you have to decide to push on the brake pedal.
That’s
perception time. Then you have to bring up your
foot and do it. That’s
reaction time.
Average reaction time is about 314 of a second. But
that’s only an average. It might be less with one driver
and as long as two or three seconds or more with
another. Age, physical condition, alertness, coordination
and eyesight all play a part.
So do alcohol, drugs and
frustration. But even in
3/4 of a second, a vehicle
moving at
60 mph (100 km/h) travels 66 feet (20 m).
That could be a lot of distance in an emergency, so
keeping enough space between your vehicle and others
is important.
And, of course, actual stopping distances vary greatly
with the surface
of the road (whether it’s pavement or
gravel);
the condition of the road (wet, dry, icy); tire
tread; the condition of your brakes; the weight
of the
vehicle and the amount
of brake force applied. Avoid needless heavy braking.
Some people drive in
spurts
-- heavy acceleration followed by heavy
braking
-- rather than keeping pace with traffic. This is a
mistake. Your brakes may not have time to cool between
hard stops. Your brakes will wear out much faster if you
do a lot
of heavy braking. If you keep pace with the
traffic and allow realistic following distances, you will
eliminate a
lot of unnecessary braking. That means
better braking and longer brake life.
If your engine ever stops while you’re driving, brake
normally but don’t pump your brakes.
If you do, the
pedal may get harder
to push down. If your engine
stops, you will still have some power brake assist. But
you will use
it when you brake. Once the power assist is
used up, it may take longer to stop and the brake pedal
will be harder to push.
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Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine Anti-Lock Brakes (ABS)
Your vehicle has anti-lock brakes (ABS). ABS is an
advanced electronic braking system that will help
prevent
a braking skid.
When you start your engine, or when
you begin to drive
away, your anti-lock brake system will check itself. You
may hear a momentary motor or clicking noise while
this test is going on, and you may even notice that your
brake pedal moves or pulses
a little. This is normal.
ABS
INOP
If there’s a problem with the
anti-lock brake system, this
warning light will stay on.
See “Anti-Lock Brake
System Warning Light” in
the Index.
Here’s how anti-lock works. Let’s say the road
is wet.
You’re driving safely. Suddenly an animal jumps out in
front
of you.
You slam on the brakes. Here’s what happens with ABS.
A computer senses that wheels are slowing down. If one
of the wheels is about to stop rolling, the computer will
separately work the brakes at each front wheel and at
both rear wheels.
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Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine The anti-lock system can change the brake pressure
faster than any driver could. The computer is
programmed to make the most
of available tire and
road conditions.
J
You can steer around the obstacle while braking hard.
As you brake, your computer keeps receiving updates on
wheel speed and controls braking pressure accordingly. Remember: Anti-lock
doesn’t change the time you need
to get your foot up to the brake pedal or always decrease
stopping distance. If you get too close to the vehicle in
front of you, you won’t have time to apply your brakes
if that vehicle suddenly slows or stops. Always leave
enough room up ahead to stop, even though you have
anti-lock brakes.
Using Anti-Lock
Don’t pump the brakes. Just hold the brake pedal down
firmly and let anti-lock work for you. You may feel a
slight brake pedal pulsation or notice some noise, but
this is normal.
LOW TRAC
’ When your anti-lock system
is adjusting brake pressure
to help avoid
a braking skid,
this light will come on. See
“Low Traction Light” in
the Index.
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Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine ASR (Acceleration Slip Regulation) System
(Option:
V8 Engine)
Your vehicle may have a traction control system called
ASR that limits wheel spin. This is especially useful in
slippery road conditions. The system operates only if it
senses that one or both of the rear wheels are spinning or
beginning to lose traction. When this happens, the
system works the rear brakes and reduces engine power
(by closing the throttle and managing engine spark) to
limit wheel spin.
This light will come on
when your ASR system is
limiting wheel spin. See
“Low Traction Light”
in the
Index.
You may feel or hear
the system working, but this
is normal.
The ASR system may operate on
dry roads under some
conditions, and you may notice a reduction in
acceleration when this happens. This is normal and
doesn’t mean there’s a problem with your vehicle.
Examples
of these conditions include a hard acceleration
in a turn, or an abrupt upshift or downshift.
If your vehicle is in cruise control when the ASR system
begins to limit wheel spin, the cruise control will
automatically disengage. When road conditions allow
you to safely use it again, you may re-engage the cruise
control. (See “Cruise Control”
in the Index.)
ASR
OFF
When the system is on, this
warning light will come on
to let you know
if there’s a
problem with your
ASR
system. See “ASR System
Warning Light” in
the Index.
When this warning light is on, the system will not limit
wheel spin. Adjust your driving accordingly.
The ASR system automatically comes on whenever you
start your vehicle. To
limit wheel spin, especially in
slippery road conditions, you should always leave the
system on. But you can turn the ASR system off
if you
ever need to.
(You should turn the system off if your
vehicle ever gets stuck in sand, mud, ice or snow. See
“Rocking Your Vehicle’’ in the Index.)
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Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine 1
To turn the system off,
press the ASR switch
The
ASR system warning light in the cluster will come
on and stay
on. The light on the switch will go out. If the
ASR system is limiting wheel spin when you press the
switch, the warning light will come on
-- but the system
won’t turn off right away. It will wait until there’s no
longer a current need to limit wheel spin.
You can turn the system back on at any time by pressing
the switch again. The
ASR system warning light should
go off.
Braking in Emergencies
With anti-lock, you can steer and brake at the same
time. In many emergencies, steering can help you more
than even the very best braking.
Steering
Power Steering
If you lose power steering assist because the engine
stops or the system is not functioning, you can steer but
it will take much more effort.
Steering Tips
Driving on Curves
It’s important to take curves at a reasonable speed.
A lot of the “driver lost control” accidents mentioned on
the news happen on curves. Here’s why:
Experienced driver or beginner, each of us is subject to
the same laws of physics when driving on curves. The
traction of the tires against the road surface makes it
possible for the vehicle to change its path when you turn
the front wheels. If there’s no traction, inertia will keep
the vehicle going in the same direction. If
you’ve ever
tried to steer a vehicle on wet ice, you’ll understand this.
The traction you can get in a curve depends on the
condition
of your tires and the road surface, the angle at
which the curve is banked, and your speed. While
you’re in a curve, speed is the one factor you
can control.
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