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General Knowledge · Skid Control and Recovery

What is the most common type of skid, and how does it happen?

1.A drive-wheel skid, from the rear wheels losing traction through over-acceleration or from locking up during hard brakingCorrect answer
2.A front-wheel skid, which is more common than a rear-wheel skid in every type of vehicle on the road, whether loaded or empty
3.A drive-wheel skid that only ever happens while accelerating, and never once while the brakes are being applied hard at all
4.A jackknife, which can only ever happen at highway speed and never at a lower speed on a slippery road surface of some kind

Explanation

The most common skid involves the rear, drive, wheels losing traction, either from over-acceleration (common on ice or snow) or from locking up under hard braking, and in a combination vehicle, losing rear-wheel traction under braking can let the trailer shove the tractor sideways into a jackknife. 49 CFR 383.111(a)(15) names the major types of skids without describing them, so this is standard driver-training content, attributed to the manual. The wrong options each overstate or narrow the real picture: front-wheel skids are not the more common type, a drive-wheel skid can happen from braking as well as acceleration, and a jackknife is not limited to highway speed, it can happen at low speed on a slippery surface too.

Source: 49 CFR 383.111(a)(15)

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