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Hi there smart driver. Rick with Smart Drive
Test talking to you today about steering
wheel hand positions for the purposes of
a road test.
I had a comment from Saprina, she wanted me
to go over hand-over-hand for left and
right turns. And I'm just in a parking
lot here, and I'm just gonna do that. I'm
just gonna drive around - I'm going to
demonstrate how to do hand-over-hand. Now
for those of you in the U.K. (United Kingdom) and Australia,
and Europe - parts of Europe, they want you
to do hand-to-hand because they never
want your hands off the steering wheel.
And I'll demonstrate that as well. But
for the first part - hand-over-hand. If you're
driving a manual transmission you're
going to have to take your hands off the
steering wheel to shift the gear. If you're
driving an automatic, you can leave your
hands on the steering wheel for the
duration of the road test.
Now when you turn a corner you get the
steering wheel turned, and hold with
whichever hand--in my case it's going to
be the left hand--and then you're going
to shift with your right hand. So as long
as the steering wheels is in a static
position, you can take one hand off the
steering wheel for the purposes of
shifting. But other than that, you cannot
take your hands off the steering wheel.
You have to keep those bolted to the
steering wheel for the entire test. And
it's gonna be hand-over-hand for people
in North America and it's going to be
hand-to-hand in Europe and other places.
Now if you have particular questions
about any of the nuances about the
license test that you're going to take,
as I say time and time again - go and
hire a local driving school and get a
driving instructor to take you out.
Because these people teach people how to
drive and how to pass road tests every
day. So they'll be able to answer your
very specific questions about the place
where you're going to be taking your
driver's license test. So what we're going to
do - we're gonna fire up the cameras here
and we're going to go in the parking lot and I'm
going to show you how to do hand-over-
hand and hand-to-hand. Now in the dashcam
you'll be able to see a white piece of
paper. The piece paper on the hood is the
center of the hood and it will help you
to locate the vehicle in the lane. It's
not going to matter too much here in the
parking lot, but when we get out on the road and
start doing turns it will
give you some indication of where the
vehicle is in the lane.
So stick around, we'll be
right back with that information.
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So turning left,
shoulder checking.
We're just gonna do a figure eight - we drive
up to the other corner here.
We feed the hand and
reach over, and
drive to the corner. Just release the
steering wheel - you may have to help it
back a little bit. And you can do hand-to-hand to
help it back. So reach over the steering
wheel and bring the steering wheel back.
And you can just practice this in a
parking lot as I'm doing here. I'm just doing a
figure-eight and that will give you some
familiarity with working the primary
controls of the vehicle: the steering
wheel, the brake and the throttle. This is
one of the things that you want to do, is
you want to go out to the parking lot
and you want to do this exercise.
And then we just reach over--shoulder
check, and see me reaching over and
getting the steering wheel. And this is
much more efficient, I feel, then
hand-to-hand; and actually I believe that a lot
of people don't do hand-to-hand. It's
beginning to wane in terms of popularity.
But I have seen videos on YouTube where
they're still doing this in the UK. So
that's hand-over-hand. This is
hand-to-hand, and actually I'mhaving trouble doing
it because I've never taught hand-to-hand
except when I was in Australia for a
short period of time.
And you simply just slide the steering
wheel through your hands
and it's sometimes called the shuffle.
And again, this is a good thing to do is
just go out to the parking lot and do a
figure '8' like this, and when you get
comfortable doing figure '8s', like
this then you can start doing straight
line backing, backing around corners, and
those types of things. And when you get
really proficient at your slow speed
maneuvers in a parking lot,
do reverse figure eights and those will
really really help you to improve your
overall driving and get you super
familiar with space management of the
vehicle. Because if you can do slow-speed
maneuvers, driving out on the highway is
going to be much easier because those
slow speed maneuvers are going to
transition... those skills are going to
transition into all of your driving and
improve your overall driving. So those
are the two different ways of
manipulating the steering wheel - hand-to-
hand and hand-over-hand. And a lot of
times, some driving instructors, different
places will want you to use hand-to-hand
to bring the steering wheel back.
Personally when I teach students, you
don't have to - you simply open your fingers
let the steering wheel slide through
your hands and just close your
fingers after the steering wheel comes back.
Now we're going to head out onto the
road here and I'll demonstrate both of
these on the roadway as we're driving
around.
I'm in a parking line here and be very
careful when you're in parking lots. So
this is hand-over-hand and we're
releasing, just keeping our palms in
contact with the steering wheel and then
helping it a little bit when
it's done.
Shoulder checking -
I couldn't see because of that large
bus there. I have a bit of an
acceleration lane here, but it's not enough to
get in front of this gaggle of traffic.
There's a lot of traffic coming from the
left side here as you may be able to see
in the camera.
We have a gap - shoulder check immediately
before going.
You can see that we've had some snow
here
which makes driving fun. It's only our
second snow of the year and people are
still not used to
driving in the snow.
As well, communicating with other traffic
your intentions on the road. And I have my
signal on. Now when you're making a
left-hand turn, you'll be able to see
in the dashcam that what I'm going to do
is I'm going to meet the gap. I can see
the gap coming, so I've moved straight
forward and I shifted one gear in
preparation for the left-hand turn
before I started turning the wheels.
And again when you're driving in the
snow like this it's a bit difficult to
determine where the lane markings are.
Once in a while you just kind of get a
little glimps of them. I can see the lane
marking over to the right there - I'm
actually not in the lane right now. I've got
construction workers on the right. Mirror, signal,
shoulder check. I've got a vehicle coming but
I can make it - there's a good gap there.
We go around for the left-hand turn.
You saw on that left-hand turn that it was a
big wide sweeping left-hand turn that I
didn't have to use
hand-over-hand. I didn't have to turn the
steering wheel very sharp.
Okay so this one here
i just opened my fingers
and let the steering wheel slide through my
palmsm but I keep my palms in contact
with the steering wheel. I will do a
right-hand turn up here and I'll do hand-to-hand.
Mirror, signal, shoulder check and get my gear
before I start turning. So I slowed down
to second gear. And again, for those of
you driving...
See that hand-to-hand is not as quick as
hand-over-hand.
You're not moving as much of the steering wheel
through your hands.
Hand-over-hand is much quicker
than hand-to-hand because with hand-to-
hand you're not moving as much of the
steering wheel through your hands.
I get my gear before I turn the corner - hand-
to-hand.
Hand-over-hand - open my fingers and let the
steering wheel slide through my palms.
I've got a flagger up here with a stop sign.
And I stopped before the intersection,
otherwise I'm blocking the intersection.
Scanning the intersection before proceeding.
And we're going to turn right at the
intersection.
Hand-over-hand and open my fingers to allow the
steering wheel to come back through my
palms.
I'm going slow with the pedestrian and the
other person standing next to the dump
truck - the tip truck.
And again, you can
see here that I don't need to take my
hands off the steering wheel. I only move
the steering wheel less than half a turn
to get it to go around the curve here.
I'm driving slowly in the snow. You can see I'm
driving less than 40 kilometers an hour.
And I'm going to slow down early.
Quick review of steering wheel hand
positions - hand-to-hand and hand-over-hand
are the two techniques that you use for
manipulating the steering wheel. When
you're driving for the purposes of a
road test, it will depend on where you
are in the world, which one you're going
to use. In North America, for the most
part, we use hand-over-hand because it is
more efficient and you can manipulate
the steering wheel more quickly. Now when
you around the corner
you don't have to manipulate the
steering wheel back, simply open your
fingers and allow the steering wheel to move
through your palms because you're
keeping your palms in contact with the
steering wheel and you may have to bring
the steering wheel back a little bit - help it out a
little bit. But for the most part, simply
open your fingers and let it slide
through your palms and then close your
fingers after the turn is completed.
Hand-to-hand in the UK and Europe - they
want you to use hand-to-hand. some places
in Australia as well want you to use hand-to-
hand. And the reason for that is so that
you have both hands and contact with the
steering wheel at all times. Lots of
driving instructors, myself included,
don't find it as efficient as hand-over-
hand and you can't move the steering
wheel as quickly. As I said, a lot of
turns you're going to require less than
half and turn on the steering wheel, and
you won't even have to move your hands
off the steering wheel in order to turn
the vehicle left or right. Question for
smart drivers: do you have to use
hand-to-hand or hand-over-hand for your
road test? Leave a comment down in the
comment section there and tell us what
you think of the technique that you have
to use for the purposes of your road
test.
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 your career as a truck or bus
driver. Head over to our website - lots of
great information over there.
Stick around to the end of the video -
funny bits. As well as 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.
we're not putting this in the video
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