1998 CHEVROLET TRACKER engine

Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine b NOTES
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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 lunds of roads and in varying weather conditions. We’ve also
included many other useful tips on driving.
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4-29 Defensive Driving
Drunken Driving
Control of a Vehicle
Braking
Steering
Off-Road Recovery
Passing
Loss of Control
Driving Guidelines
Off-Road Driving with Your Chevrolet
Four-Wheel-Drive Vehicle
Driving
at Night 4-3 1
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4-48 Driving in Rain and on
Wet Roads
City Driving
Freeway Driving
Before Leaving on a Long Trip Highway Hypnosis
Hill and Mountain Roads
Winter Driving
Recreational Vehicle Towing Loading Your Vehicle
Towing a Trailer
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Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine 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.
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.
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.)
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Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine 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
0 Muscular Coordination
0 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 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
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 (120
ml) glasses
of wine or three mixed drinks if each had
1 - 112 ounces
(45 ml) of a liquor like whiskey, gin or vodka.
consume the alcohol.
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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!
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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
amounl
of alcohol. You can have a serious 9- or even
fatal
-9 collision if you drive after drinking.
Please don’t drink and drive or ride with a drivel
who has been drinking. Ride home in
a cab; or if
you’re with a group, designate a driver who will
not drink.
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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
1 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 kmk) 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.

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 (Option)
Your vehicle may have anti-lock brakes (ABS). ABS is
an advanced electronic braking system that will help
prevent a braking skid.
ABS
If your vehicle has anti-lock
brakes, this warning light on
the instrument panel will
come on briefly when you
start your vehicle.
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 or pulses a little. This is normal.
If there’s
a problem with the anti-lock brake system, the
anti-lock brake system warning light will stay on or
flash. See “Anti-Lock Brake System Warning Light” in
the Index.
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