2002 BUICK CENTURY Owner's Manual

3-33
If you choose to add a cellular telephone to your vehicle,
and the antenna needs to be attached to the glass, be sure
that you do not damage the grid lines for the AM
-FM
antenna. There is enough space between the lines to
attach a cellular telephone antenna without interfering
with radio reception.
Do not apply aftermarket glass tinting to the back glass.
The metallic film in some tinting materials will interfere
with or distort the incoming radio reception. Care must
be taken when cleaning the rear window because it
breaks in the resistive material heating element and will
adversely affect radio and defogger performance. See
your dealer for details.
Diversity Antenna System (If Equipped)
Your AM-FM antennas are located in the front
windshield and rear window. Be sure that the inside
surfaces of the front windshield and rear window are
not scratched and that the lines on the glass are not
damaged. If the inside surfaces are damaged, they
could interfere with radio reception. Also, for proper
radio reception, the antenna connectors at the top
-center
of the front and rear windows need to be properly
attached to the posts on the glass.Do not apply aftermarket glass tinting. The metallic film
in some tinting materials will interfere with or distort the
incoming radio reception.
NOTICE:
Do not try to clear frost or other material from
the inside of the rear window with a razor blade
or anything else that is sharp. This may damage
the rear defogger grid and affect your radio's
ability to pick up stations clearly. The repairs
wouldn't be covered by your warranty.
If, when you turn on your rear window defogger, you
hear static on your radio station, it could mean that a
defogger grid line has been damaged. If this is true,
the grid line must be repaired.
If you choose to add an aftermarket cellular telephone to
your vehicle, and the antenna needs to be attached to the
glass, be sure that you do not damage the grid lines for
the AM
-FM antennas or place the cellular telephone
antenna over the grid lines.

4-
4-1
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.
4
-2 Defensive Driving
4
-3 Drunken Driving
4
-6 Control of a Vehicle
4
-6 Braking
4
-9 Enhanced Traction System (ETS)
4
-11 Steering
4
-13 Off-Road Recovery
4
-13 Passing
4
-15 Loss of Control
4
-16 Driving at Night4
-17 Driving in Rain and on Wet Roads
4
-20 City Driving
4
-21 Freeway Driving
4
-22 Before Leaving on a Long Trip
4
-23 Highway Hypnosis
4
-24 Hill and Mountain Roads
4
-26 Winter Driving
4
-30 Recreational Vehicle Towing
4
-31 Loading Your Vehicle
4
-33 Towing a Trailer

4-2
Defensive Driving
The best advice anyone can give about driving is:
Drive defensively.
Please start with a very important safety device in your
vehicle: Buckle up. See ªSafety Beltsº in the Index.Defensive driving really means ªbe ready for anything.º
On city streets, rural roads or freeways, it means
ªalways expect the unexpected.º
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.

4-3
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

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, about 16,000 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 the leading highway safety
problem is for people never to drink alcohol and then
drive. But what if people do? How much is ªtoo muchº
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:

The amount of alcohol consumed

The drinker's body weight

The amount of food that is consumed before and
during drinking

The length of time it has taken the drinker to
consume the alcohol.

4-4
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
-1/2 ounces
(45 ml) of a liquor like whiskey, gin or vodka.
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 an increasing number of U.S. states, and
throughout Canada, sets the legal limit at 0.08 percent.
In some other countries, the limit is even lower.
For example, it is 0.05 percent in both France and
Germany. 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.

4-5
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!
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. ªI'll be carefulº 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.
CAUTION:
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.

4-6
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. Also see ªEnhanced Traction Systemº in the Index.
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; the condition of your brakes; the weight of the
vehicle and the amount of brake force applied.

4-7
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 Brake System (ABS)
Your vehicle has anti-lock brakes. 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 or pulses a little.
This is normal.
United States Canada
If there's a problem with the anti
-lock brake system, this
warning light will stay on. See ªAnti
-Lock Brake
System Warning Lightº in the Index.