CHEVROLET SUBURBAN 2000 9.G Owners Manual

3-37 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 cowl.

4-
4-1
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.
4
-2 Defensive Driving
4
-3 Drunken Driving
4
-6 Control of a Vehicle
4
-6 Braking
4
-9 Traction Assist System (Option)
4
-11 Steering
4
-13 Off-Road Recovery
4
-14 Passing
4
-15 Loss of Control
4
-16 Off-Road Driving with Your
Four
-Wheel-Drive Vehicle4
-31 Driving at Night
4
-32 Driving in Rain and on Wet Roads
4
-35 City Driving
4
-36 Freeway Driving
4
-37 Before Leaving on a Long Trip
4
-38 Highway Hypnosis
4
-38 Hill and Mountain Roads
4
-40 Winter Driving
4
-44 Recreational Vehicle Towing
4
-46 Loading Your Vehicle
4
-51 Towing a Trailer

4-2
Defensive Driving
The best advice anyone can give about driving is:
Drive defensively.
Please start with a very important safety device in your
vehicle: Buckle up. (See ªSafety Beltsº in the Index.)Defensive driving really means ªbe ready for anything.º
On city streets, rural roads or freeways, it means
ªalways expect the unexpected.º
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.

4-3
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

Muscular Coordination

Vision

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 U.S. state to drink alcohol.
There are good medical, psychological and
developmental reasons for these laws.The obvious way to solve the leading highway safety
problem is for people never to drink alcohol and then
drive. But what if people do? How much is ªtoo muchº
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:

The amount of alcohol consumed

The drinker's body weight

The amount of food that is consumed before and
during drinking

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.

4-4
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!

4-5
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. ªI'll be carefulº 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.
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.

4-6
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. (Also see ªTraction Assist Systemº in the Index.)
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.

4-7
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 (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 and 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. This is normal.
If there's a problem with
the anti
-lock brake system,
this warning light will stay
on. See ªAnti
-Lock Brake
System Warning Lightº in
the Index.

4-8
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.

4-9
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
the brakes vibrate, or you may notice some noise, but
this is normal. On vehicles with four
-wheel drive, your
anti
-lock brakes work at all times -- whether you are
in two
-wheel drive or four-wheel drive.
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.
Traction Assist System (Option)
Your vehicle may have a Traction Assist System (TAS)
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 reduces engine power to limit wheel spin.
This light will come
on when the TAS is
limiting wheel spin.
See ªLow Traction Lightº
in the Index.
You may hear or feel the system working or notice a
lack of accelerator response, but this is normal.
The Traction Assist System may operate on dry roads
under some conditions. When this happens, you may
notice a reduction in acceleration. 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, an abrupt upshift or downshift of the
transmission or driving on rough roads.