What lets you maintain a constant speed without keeping your foot on the accelerator?

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Learn how to control your speed when learning to drive.

HOW TO CONTROL THE GAS PEDAL AND SPEED

https://youtu.be/I19WKgoQqxY

Closed Caption

Introduction

Hi there Smart Drivers.

Rick with Smart Drive Test, talking to you today about: Speed control.

I had a comment from Big$MoneyBoss, and he was having some difficulty, down there in Colorado, to maintain his speed at exactly 30 miles per hour, which is 50 kilometers an hour here in Canada.

Now, for those of you driving around in the city, it's unlikely that you're going to maintain a speed limit of 30 miles an hour for very long.

It's more important to maintain the buffer space around your vehicle that gives you room in which to maneuver, and keeps your defensive posturing at a high level, as opposed to having high risk, and being close to other vehicles and other fixed objects.

It's more important to maintain your buffer of space, than it is to maintain a constant speed, but we do want to maintain a constant speed, and have good throttle control.

So, today we're show you how to do good throttle control, and go out on the road and maintain a speed.

And, one of the other things that we are going to show you: Is how to do a scanning pattern that will help you to maintain and monitor your speed, so that you can keep it at a constant level.

You will be fluctuating, somewhat, to maintain that buffer space, and as I said, that's more important than maintaining a constant speed.

And in cities, it's very unlikely that you're going to be maintaining a constant speed.

So, today I'm going to give you some exercises, we're going to go back to the parking lot, we're going to do some work with the throttle, we're also going to do some work with the brake.

And, we're going to show you how to improve throttle control, and improve your ability to maintain a constant speed while you're driving down the roadway.

So stick around, we'll be right back with that information.

What We're Doing in a Rainy Parking Lot

Hi there Smart Drivers.

Welcome back.

Rick with Smart Drive Test, talking to you today about: Speed control.

So, we're back in the parking lot.

We're going to teach you some exercises to do speed control.

So, the first thing we're going to do: Is we're just going to work the throttle with the tachometer, and we're going to try and get the engine revs to a certain Revolutions Per Minute (RPM).

Working the Throttle and Revving Up the Engine

And most vehicles in this day and age are going to have a tachometer.

If you don't have a tachometer, well then you can't do this exercise.

But, if you can get into a vehicle that has a tachometer, and do this exercise, this will really help you with your throttle control.

So, the first thing we're going to do, is we're going to look down at our tachometer, and you can see that our tachometer is running at about 800 RPM.

That's the most common idle for a gasoline engine or a petrol engine is, it's going to idle around 800 RPMs in an electronic fuel injection engine.

Most of the engines, in this day and age, are all going to be electronic fuel injection, so they're going to idle at that level (800 RPM).

So, basically all we're going to do, is we're going to take the throttle, and we're going to try and bring it up to 1,000 rpm, and you just work that, until you get it right to 1,000.

And, you can see even I have a little bit of difficulty, but once I get it there, once I get to a thousand RPM, right there, then I can just hold it there, and it is exactly what you want to do on the throttle.

Now, the other thing you want to do, is play with the throttle a little bit.

Just *rev* *rev* *rev* *rev* Rev it up!

Feel what it feels like, feel the physical response in the motor, when the motor responds when you kick the throttle down.

So, what does it feel like when I kick it down- *rev* *rev*.

And, you can feel that there's a bit of a lag, especially the smaller the motors, if you got like a 1.8 liter or two liter, they're not going to respond right away.

So just *rev* get a feel of what that feels like when you punch it down.

Now, the next thing you can do, is you brought it up to a thousand (RPM) & tried to hold it, so now: Bring it up to 1,500 (RPM), and try and hold it at 1,500.

So, just pick different numbers on the tachometer, and try to get the engine RPMs up to that point, and then try and hold it there.

This is one of the ways that you can improve your throttle control, is by simply trying to get the engine to rev up to a certain RPM, on the tachometer.

And you can see it's a bit trickier, than when you would initially think.

It's a lot easier to control the revolutions of the motor, when it's under load.

And you can see that I can get the RPMs to a certain point, and I can hold them there, it's very easy for me to hold them there, because the throttle doesn't really move around a whole lot.

What is more difficult for me, is to get an exact number on the tachometer.

So I've got it at 1,500 (RPM) now, so now I'm able to hold it at 1,500.

Now I want to bring it up to 2,000 (RPM), and then I just hold it at 2,000.

Throttle Up the Engine Hard

So that's what I would suggest to you: bring it up to a thousand (RPM), hold it a thousand, bring it up to 1,500, hold it at 1,500, bring it up to 2,000.

I wouldn't bring it much above 2,000 (RPM), when you're just sitting here idling.

So, that's the first exercise that you can do, just bring it up to a certain RPM, on the tachometer.

And you know, punch it down a little bit as well, just you know, just rev the motor!

And you're not going to hurt the motor, just revving it up, and feeling what the throttle feels like.

LEARN THE SECRETS THAT DRIVING SCHOOLS DON'T TELL YOU!

Now, the other thing we're going to do, now that we've got it going, most of you are going to be in an automatic, in North America.

And other parts of the world are going to be in a standard transmission.

I'm in a standard transmission.

And for this, even though we're in a parking lot, do put your seatbelt on.

Driving Forward and Accelerating and Braking Hard...Harder Than That

Put the vehicle into a forward gear.

Actually, what I would suggest in an automatic, is put it down into a first gear.

Put it right down into first gear, because what we're going to do here, and I'm going to turn my windshield on, because it is raining here in Vernon, is we're just going to get the vehicle going.

And just drive in a straight line, and be aggressive on the throttle.

Same thing in reverse, and this is going to improve.

So look behind you, there's nobody behind you in the parking lot.

It's an empty parking lot, let the clutch out, and throttle up.

And then hit the brake.

This is going to teach you control of both the brake, and the clutch.

So, back into a forward gear.

If you're in an automatic, put it down into a low gear, that way it's not going to go, you're not going to get as much speed, but you're going to be able to work the throttle a little bit.

Now, just get it going.

Push it right on the floor.

Let it off.

And you can see my cameras banging around, because I'm hammering down on the throttle, in a first gear.

And this is one of the things you need to do, you need to feel how the vehicle is going to respond when you hammer down on the throttle.

Don't wait until you get out to an intersection, or some other place in traffic, where you're going to get pressured, and then you're going to hammer down on the throttle, and something's going to happen.

Actually go to a parking lot, and actually be aggressive on the primary controls, because that is going to teach you proper response to the primary controls.

So we get going here.

And you can see, in first gear, revved it right up to 4000 RPM, and that's what you need to do, basically.

Then you back up, same thing with backing up.

And you just do that in a straight line, backwards and forwards in a parking lot.

And that will teach you both throttle control and brake control.

Because the other thing that you do, when you drive forward: Drive forward, and be hard on the brake.

My camera went forward.

You need to feel, what it's going to feel like, when you're pushing hard on these pedals, on the brake, and the throttle pedal, right.

And just do this in a parking lot, somewhere where it's controlled, and there isn't other people around, right.

Because, you don't want to have to worry about other pedestrians, and cars, and traffic and stuff.

And, at that point, the ABS engaged, and I'll leave a card up for you, here in the corner, on ABS.

How to use the ABS, and go out and try the ABS, and actually see if you can get it to engage.

Because, that's how you can maintain throttle control in your vehicle, and have better throttle control.

Alright, so that's one of the ways that you can learn the throttle control.

And, have some fun with it!

Go to the parking lot, goof around, be aggressive on it.

I mean, if you got a tachometer, most of your tachometers will have a red line on it.

You can see, this one is about 6,200 (RPM) is the red line.

Don't redline it, just bring it up to the red line, you're going to have lots of throttle if you are bringing it up to 4000-5000 RPM, in a small engine, that is going to really take off in a first gear.

And, like I said, if you're in an automatic put it down into a low gear, that way you're not going to get as much speed.

You're still going to get a lot of speed, but you're not going to get as much as if you were in drive, because in drive is going to start shifting gears, and it'll move ahead really quickly.

And, if you're in a standard transmission, the manual transmission, just leave it in first gear, for this exercise of: Learning how to do speed control.

Once you've done those exercises, then we're going to go up for a drive, and I'll show you how to do speed control, out on the roadway.

Speed Control Out on the Road

Okay, we're just going to work on speed control.

We're out on the roadway here, and it's 50 kilometers an hour, and we're just going to work on speed control.

The first thing you need to do for speed control is, you need a scanning pattern.

So we're looking far down the road, as far as we can, we're checking our center mirror, we're checking our instrument panel, because we want to check, and make sure that we're on our speed control.

If we're not on the speed that we're aiming for, then you need to make an adjustment on the throttle.

Then you're going to check your wing mirrors, and then back to the front.

That's the scanning pattern that you need.

Your Scanning Pattern That Repeats Every 8-12 seconds

Once you put the scanning pattern in place, and you're checking, and you should be.

I'll just back up here a bit.

Every time you're doing that scanning pattern, you should be going through that scanning pattern every 8 to 10 seconds.

So your eyes should be constantly moving: Forward, center mirror, instrument panel, forward, wing mirrors, forward, instrument panel, back to the center mirror.

So, set up that scanning pattern, that you're checking those different places all the time, and your eyes are constantly moving.

That way, you're going to be checking the instrument panel every eight to ten seconds.

And that way, you're going to be able to monitor your speed control, you're going to have more speed control.

And, as I said in the introduction, it's more important to have a buffer of space, than it is to maintain speed.

So, at this juncture here, we're just following that vehicle in front of us.

It is trying to avoid all the potholes, and we want to maintain a buffer of space.

Now, that vehicle is gone, now we want to maintain our constant speed of 50 kilometers an hour, 30 miles an hour.

And, we're looking forward, we're checking our mirrors, looking forward, checking our instrument panel, looking forward, wing mirrors, forward.

So, we're always alternating, looking forward.

So, it's looking forward, checking something different, looking forward, checking something different.

Your Scanning Pattern is Directly Linked to Your Ability to Control the Vehicle's Speed

And, I'm always coming back to my speedometer, my instrument panel, and checking my gauges.

So, see, I'm too high there.

So, I'm checking forward, checking my mirror, checking forward, checking my instrument panel.

Checking forward, checking my wing mirrors.

Checking forward, checking that.

Nobody in the pedestrian crosswalk.

And I can feel, I can start to feel my foot going down a little bit, and my speed starts to pick up.

So, checking there, checking forward, checking my instrument panel, looking forward, checking my wing mirrors, looking forward.

Checking my speed.

As you can see, my speed is always climbing a little bit, and I'm always adjusting it.

So, I'm always having a look down at my instrument panel, and I'm always adjusting that speed back to 50 kilometers an hour.

So, if your two or three kilometers an hour, or your one or two miles an hour, that's okay, that's perfectly acceptable.

And, you're going to get better as you practice this.

And again, it's better if you get it out onto a straight stretch here, where you can try to maintain one constant speed.

Quick review of throttle control:

Go back to the parking lot, work on the exercises that I showed you here in the video.

So, just try and get the tachometer to a certain level, and try and hold it there at that level.

It's fairly easy to hold it, it's more difficult to actually get it to 1000 RPM, or 1500 RPM or 2,000 RPM.

Now, when the motor is just sitting there, idling, I wouldn't try and hold it at idle much higher than 2,000 rpm.

And you know, play with the throttle a little bit, spike it up, see how it feels, and then put the vehicle into a gear, if you're driving an automatic, put it down to one of the low gears.

And then, you know, be fairly aggressive on the throttle, try and figure out how it works, figure out what the response is of the vehicle, as you're mashing down on the throttle.

And, of course, you know, do this in a parking lot where there aren't any of the vehicles, or any of the pedestrians or people walking around, and those types of things.

And just go in a straight line, that way you're not going to have to work the steering wheel, you're just working the throttle.

And this way, it will also help you with the brake a little bit, you can be aggressive on the brake, and whatnot.

After you do those exercises in the parking lot, then go out on the roadway.

And try and pick a fairly long straight stretch, and try and just maintain the posted speed limit, and just try and keep it at that.

And of course, your scanning pattern is going to help you maintain your speed, because you can work on that.

And just take one lesson, isolate that, that's the one thing that you're working on, and that will help you to improve your throttle control overall.

Question for my Smart Drivers: Do you have any exercises for new drivers, learning how to control the throttle? Leave a comment, down in the comment section there.

All of that helps out the new drivers, working towards getting their license.

I'm Rick with Smart Drive Test.

Thanks very much for watching.

If you like what you see here: Share, subscribe, leave a comment, down in the comment section.

As well, hit that thumbs up button.

Check out all the videos here on the channel if you're working towards a license, or starting a career as a truck or bus driver, lots of great information here.

As well, head over to our website, great information over there, and awesome online courses that you can purchase.

Stick around to the end of the video, funny bits, and links to the other videos, and to my website.

Thanks again for watching.

Good luck on your road test, and remember: Pick the best answer, not necessarily the right answer.

Have a great day, bye now.

OUTRO, MUSIC, & BLOOPER

Pouring down rain, here in Vernon! There's some guy walking around with his umbrella.

Obviously he's going for his morning walk, but he just walked right behind my vehicle, in a completely empty parking lot, which is a bit strange! But anyway, we will persevere, and carry on here!