CHEVROLET PRIZM 1998 3.G Owners Manual

Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine Care of Your Compact Discs
Handle discs carefully. Store them in their original cases
or other protective cases and away from direct sunlight
and dust. If the surface of a disc is soiled, dampen a
clean, soft cloth in a mild, neutral detergent solution and
clean it, wiping from the center to
the edge.
Be sure never to touch the signal surface when handling
discs.
Pick up discs by grasping the outer edges or the
edge of the hole and the outer edge.
Care of Your Compact Disc Player
The use of CD lens cleaner discs is not advised, due to
the
risk of contaminating the lens of the CD optics with
lubricants internal to the CD mechanism.
Fixed Mast Antenna
The fixed mast antenna can withstand most car washes
without being damaged.
If the mast should ever become
slightly bent, you can straighten
it out by hand. If the
mast is badly bent, as it might be by vandals,
you should
replace it.
Check every once in a while to be sure the mast is still
tightened to the rear quarter panel.
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Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine b NOTES
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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
a Night 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.
Defensive driving requires that
a driver concentrate
on the driving task. Anything that distracts from the
driving task
-- such as concentrating on a cellular
telephone call, reading, or reaching for something on
the floor
-- makes proper defensive driving more
difficult and can even cause a collision, with resulting
injury.
Ask a passenger to help do things like this, or
pull off the road in
a safe place to do them yourself.
These simple defensive driving techniques could save
your life.
4-2

Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine 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:
0 Judgment
0 Muscular Coordination
Vision
0 Attentiveness.
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
US. 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 Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC)
of someone
who is drinking depends upon four things:
0 The amount of alcohol consumed
The drinker’s body weight
0 The amount of food that is consumed before and
during drinking
consume the alcohol.
0 The length of time it has taken the drinker to
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 F skey, gin or vodka.
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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!
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Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine 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.
I CAUTION:
-- -
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.
4-5

Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine 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.
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 3/4 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.

Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine 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.
Anti-Lock Brakes (Option)
Your vehicle may have anti-lock brakes (ABS). ABS is
an advanced electronic braking system that will help
prevent a braking slud.
ABS
If your vehicle has anti-lock
brakes, this warning light
on
the instrument panel will
come on briefly when you
start your vehicle.
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.
If there’s a problem with
the anti-lock brake system, the
anti-lock brake system warning light will stay
on or
flash. See “Anti-Lock Brake System Warning Light” in
the Index.
4-7

Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine 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. 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.
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.
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