One of the most important techniques of learning to control a motor vehicle is the use of the steering wheel.

In order to turn left and right correctly and not cut corners or go too wide, the good old pull push to feed the wheel became the rule of the day.

Everyone thinks they have good steering skills mainly in a going forward position.

It is also important how you hold the wheel and must also be how you turn the wheel.

We all know it is easy to become sloppy when steering, such as holding a cigarette, eating a sandwich and holding the gear lever. Again it must be said to take a grip on the wheel when taking one hand off the wheel to change gear.

It takes 2 to 3 seconds to recover from any problem occurred by sloppy use of the wheel. With so many sudden surprises which occur now while driving a sloppy control of the steering wheel could result in major problems.

A driver is high risk by having a sloppy approach to driving, using the hand for instance at the bottom of the wheel in the six o’clock position. With all drivers taught to use 10 to 2 position on the wheel and both hands being used, many trainers now favour a quarter to three lower stage on the wheel, being lower can be less tiring on long journeys and more balanced within the centre of the wheel, while giving an ideal grip.

With power steering on modern vehicles steering becomes much lighter to use and no brute force is needed to turn the car, it is easy to bring in palming, underhand sweep.

The choice of methods in steering depends on the size of the steering wheel, the turning circle of the vehicle and the number of turns from lock to lock on the wheel.

So it is important to sit firmly in the seat with your back firm which gives you a good anchor point. When you see drivers sitting so forward mainly because they are more nervous (of course a hazard if the airbag deploys) allow themselves too sacrifice any stage of control for the vehicle.

And yes it is a major problem if the hands pass over the twelve o’clock position, even though holding the wheel at twelve o’clock whilst reversing can be most comfortable.

To cross over the hands, in my opinion, is very bad practice, as we must be aware of any airbag deployment, which can result in your hands being thrown back into your face causing major injury.

Also keep our thumbs up on the wheel rim. If you grip the wheel with fingers and thumbs around the wheel rim, it will result in fingers and thumbs being broken in the event of an accident. By keeping the thumbs up on the outside of the steering wheel rim, your hands can be pushed off the wheel by the airbag, preventing any added injury to your fingers.

So using a number of steering methods is a very bad practice.

We must keep to the pull push method of feeding the wheel.

There is much more and better car control by pull push in steering movements.

Much has been said recently in relaxing the pull push method, but experience has shown me the old methods are best, and this will reduced the work load with our hospital specialists.

No holding the gear level – eating – drinking and most important no holding a mobile phone and talking to friends or texting.

Driving safely – is not multi-tasking.