If your vehicle begins to skid, you should:
- Overcorrect.
- Turn your steering wheel into traffic.
- Turn your steering wheel in the direction of the skid. ✓
- Release the steering wheel.
Answer: C. Turn your steering wheel in the direction of the skid.
When your vehicle starts to skid, steer the front tires in the direction you want the vehicle to go, which means turning the wheel in the direction of the skid.
Why this is the answer
The Florida handbook's emergency section tells you to take your foot off the gas and, if possible, avoid using the brakes, then turn the vehicle's front tires toward the direction you want to travel. In plain terms, that is steering in the direction of the skid. Pointing the wheels where you actually want the car to end up lets the front tires regain grip and brings the vehicle back under your control instead of letting the slide continue.
Why the other answers are wrong
- A. Overcorrect. — Overcorrecting means swinging the wheel too far, and the handbook's guidance is to aim the front tires where you want to go, not to jerk the wheel past that point.
- B. Turn your steering wheel into traffic. — Steering into traffic puts you toward oncoming vehicles, and the handbook says it is better to swerve off the road than into oncoming traffic.
- D. Release the steering wheel. — Letting go of the wheel leaves nobody aiming the front tires in the direction you want to travel, so the skid is not corrected.
Remember it
Look and aim where you want the car to end up, and turn the wheel that same way.