1996 CHEVROLET MONTE CARLO Owners Manual

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.
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.

Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine Drunken Drivi Y
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
0 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, some 18,000 annual motor
vehicle-related deaths have been associated with the use
of alcohol, with more than
300,000 people injured.
lvlany adults
-- by some estimates, nearly half the
adult population
-- choose never to drink alcohol, so
they never drive after drinking. For persons under 2 I,
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 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
0 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
(1 20 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.
4-2 1

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!
4-3

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.
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.
4-4 =

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; and the condition of your brakes.

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
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, 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
a little. This is normal.
ANTI -
LOCK
If there’s a problem with the
anti-lock brake system, this
warning light will stay on
or flash. See “Anti-Lock
Brake System Warning
Light”
in the Index.

Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine The anti-lock system can change the brake pressure faster
than any driver could. The computer
is programned to
make the most
of available tire and road conditions.
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 the
rear wheels.
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.

Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine 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
and
let anti-lock work for you. You may feel the
system working, or you may notice some noise, but
this is normal.
LOW
TRAC
When your anti-lock system
is adjusting brake pressure
to help avoid a braking skid,
this light will come on. See
“Anti-Lock Brake System
Active Light”
in the Index.
Braking in Emergencies
Use your anti-lock braking system when you need to.
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.
Steering
Power Steering
If you lose power steering assist because the engine
stops or
the system is not functioning, you can steer but
it will take much more effort.
Steering Tips
Driving an Curves
It’s important to take curves at
a reasonable speed.
A lot of the “driver lost control” accidents mentioned on
the news happen on curves. Here’s why:
Experienced driver or beginner, each of
us is subject to
the same laws of physics when driving on curves. The
traction of the tires against the road surface makes it
possible for the vehicle to change its path when you turn
the front wheels. If there’s no traction, inertia will keep
the vehicle
going in the same direction. If you’ve ever
tried to steer
a vehicle on wet ice, you’ll understand this.
4-8