By Tessa R. Salazar
Philippine Daily Inquirer
CITY drivers who are used to driving in slow speeds eventually become unable to handle faster country driving.
Austrian Herbert Grunsteidl, BMW AG certified product trainer who recently visited the Philippines for the “Torque: A BMW Xpo Driving Experience,” told Inquirer Motoring that all over the world, this has been a problem with drivers constantly being stuck in slow-moving traffic jams, and who suddenly feel at a loss with which speed to go in the next corner where there is less traffic.
Grunsteidl explained that country driving uses a different driving mindset from city driving.
“It takes time to become sensitive enough with all your senses to know what speed (to take) on the next corner. Some are inexperienced with faster speeds, and they get into trouble before they know it.” Grunsteidl added that these kinds of drivers either get rear-ended or do the rear-ending themselves.
Grunsteidl was former national rally cross champion who lost his daughter in 1983 in a driving accident. She was a passenger with four other people when the car she was in went into a “death roll.”
“It was a point when I stopped racing, I stopped my career. I put up a driving school in Austria from 1983 to 1989, using my experience. Then I joined BMW in 1989,” he recalled.
He said youth and driving fast are two inseparable and inevitable outcomes. “You can just tell them to be careful and, hopefully, they will listen to you,” he mused. “You cannot prohibit young drivers from driving fast until they have experienced it themselves.”
But in Austria, at least, young drivers have to undergo the gauntlet of strict and disciplined training before they could get a license and drive alone. Grunsteidl said that before new drivers can earn their licenses, they have to rack up at least 3,000 km with an experienced driver supervising them, and then undergo extensive training from a professional driver in a driving school. For the next three years, the applicant risks losing his or her license over a single speeding ticket. New drivers in Austria keep a logbook of the distance they have driven.
It was Grunsteidl’s first visit to the Philippines, but he assured Inquirer Motoring that he was “very experienced” in Asian traffic, having been in and out of Asia for the past 10 years training in Singapore, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. In Thailand, he said he drove thousands of kilometers on his own in right-hand traffic.
Grunsteidl stayed in the Philippines for just a few days, but he was surprised at how jeepney drivers could manage to weave in and out of lanes with the heavy steering and hard clutches and all, and at the same time manage to reach over and get the fares and/or give change to passengers.
“It’s surprising how these jeepney drivers work. And I didn’t see one accident. This is impressive. I used to be fascinated with motorcyclists, but I saw jeepneys and these many things they put on them, now that’s really nice,” he said with a laugh. According to him, the only downside to these gaudy vehicles would be their heavy emissions.
During the BMW test-drive sessions with Grunsteidl, this writer was asked to drive two identical BMW 3 Series cars through a slalom to figure out which of them was on run-flat tires, and which was on regular inflated tires. After the series of sharp turns and abrupt braking in high speeds, there was hardly any difference felt between run-flat tires and regular tires. What gave the run-flat tire away was its screeching sound during sharp turns.
During the training sessions, Grunsteidl also said 90 percent of drivers were unable to apply the brakes on maximum pressure during emergency situations.
He based this observation on a braking exercise data gathered from people who drove a specially equipped car that measured reaction times and pressures applied on the brake pedal during braking situations.
He then cited how the TDC system in BMW cars boosted power in the braking system, ensuring proper braking distances, and decreasing the likelihood of high-speed accidents.
That system would have certainly given a boost to the tireless jeepney drivers who, Grunsteidl would have most likely observed, often had to pump their vehicle’s brakes at least twice before the brake pads kicked in.
