Jan

26

Ford Malaysia recently organized a defensive driving course called Ford Driving Skills For Life for its customers. I’ve always wanted to attend such courses to learn more advanced driving knowledge so I registered for it immediately. More official reports can be viewed from the links below but as usual, my article is an expressions from a participant’s point of view.

Ford Malaysia – Ford Driving Skills For Life
Paultan – Ford’s Driving Skills For Life kicks off in Malaysia
Motor Trader – Ford contributes to road safety

The reason I’m writing this article is to share the lessons learned throughout the course. If you are not interested on the practical part of the course and is only interested on the theory, or if you would like to start downloading the theory files while reading the article, please skip to the bottom of this article and continue reading after starting the download.

Ford Driving Skills For Life (17th Dec 2011)

Registration was RM50 as a way to filter in only owners who are both really interested and able to attend the event. There were 2 sessions (morning and afternoon) for that particular Saturday (17th Dec 2011) and I chose the afternoon session. I must say that the directions given to the venue (MAEPS, MARDI, Serdang) was pretty bad. Many went lost before reaching MAEPS and also within the MAEPS compound including myself. A point to take note by the organizer.

We (the afternoon batch) started off with lunch. While lunching, the morning batch was receiving their certificate of completion and also having the group photo session. After lunch we started off with theory in the briefing room by Harvinder Singh (Driven 8TV co-host). Besides being a funny guy, his resume is really impressive! (refer to the Ford DSFL Level 1 Basic Skills Slides PDF).

Theory

I know that you can read so I will not repeat the information from the Ford DSFL Level 1 Slides. The theory touches on topics such as seating position, steering method, understeed and oversteer, safety features on your Ford, taking care of your tyres and also a description of the practical exercises that we will perform after the theory.

What I learned that was not in the slides was the seat belt height recommendation. I can’t remember if I can adjust the seat belt height in my previous Proton Satria but I am able to in my current Focus. He mentioned that from his experience most accident victims who survive suffer cuts on their neck as a result from having their seat belts too high. It makes sense why we never thought of it because we won’t find anything wrong with the seat belt height until we met an accident, when our body lunges forward. So if your car has the seat belt height adjustment feature, set it so that the seat belt land on your shoulder comfortably. Too high will result in cut on your neck and too low will result in your arms being locked, or in worse case, dislocated.

The second tip that was not in the slides was on the use of the left foot rest (on automatic cars only). Our instructor tought us to use the left foot rest to reduce the body swaying sideways during curvy roads, like when we’re going up a hilly road like Genting Hill. To do this, press harder on the left foot rest to push your body against the seat. Since our cars are not equipped with a full bucket seat, this will really help. When the body sways, we will give less accurate input in controlling the car. This tip became really handy when we proceed to our first exercise, the Slalom Drills.

Practical Exercise 1 – Slalom Drills

After the theory presentation we were separated into 3 groups, each with their own instructors, we ended up having Ching Eu Earn, a very cool guy. The reason for this is to save time, with 3 practical exercises and 3 groups, we all can start simultaneously and switch with other group once we’re done. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve never attended such courses, so everything that I did that day was new to me. My group started off with the slalom drills.

In more advanced driving technique, the weight distribution of your car and understanding them is very important. From there you will understand the behaviour of your car and how you adapt to it. As with understeer and oversteer where the weight is being thrown to the back or front. Slalom drills will throw the weight to the sides, left and right. From this exercise I have a higher appreciation on how the Focus handles such situation with relative ease without losing much control.

Practical Exercise 2 – Skid Control

While we were performing slalom we couldn’t stop noticing the group who is performing the skid control exercise. From our distance it was like those cars in the movies that screeches like mad which resulted in tyre smoke and skid marks. It was very generous of Ford Malaysia to supply us with 2 Fiestas for this exercise, 1 without ESP and 1 with ESP. We were told that the black patch at the skidding area was poured with oil, to induce skidding.

We did the first try with the manual Fiesta, I haven’t driven any manual car for almost 2 years, so it was quite awkward. We did 2 runs for the first try with the instructor sitting on the front passenger seat. For the first run we traveled at 60kph and we did an abrupt left turn to induce understeer, you will feel that even when the steering was turned left the car is still going forward. To rectify this situation you will need to lift your foot from the accelerator pedal and the car will slowly turn to the left. For the second run we traveled at 60kph and make a slow left turn, the instructor will then suddenly pull the handbrake to induce oversteer. To rectify this you will need to turn to the opposite direction, right in this case and floor the accelerator pedal.

For the 2nd try we did it in a dual clutch (PowerShift) Fiesta with ESP. We did the same 2 runs as in the 1st try and I can instantly feel the difference. The ESP is able to brake a single tyre to rectify understeering or oversteering which is not possible for a driver (unless we have 4 brake pedals!). You can really feel the ESP struggles to keep you alive. Like what Mr Lee, Head of Sales, Sime Darby Auto ConneXion said “It takes out all the fun, but keep you alive”.

Practical Exercise 3 – Braking Technique

This exercise was something that I always wanted to do myself, to test the ABS/ESP while driving in the rain, but didn’t because it will be really stupid if I ended up having an accident. Like in the slalom, we drove our own car in this braking exercise, so we can really know how the ABS/ESP feels like during hard braking. We did multiple runs of straight braking and also maneuvering while braking. Really nice.

Conclusion

For something that I would pay RM500 for, this was definitely a great experience and value for money. We learned something that we will never learn unless we attend a similar course. Mr Lee also hinted that there will be a Level 2 course in 2012. Let’s hope that it works out as well as this one.

FORD. Drive Safe.

Course Materials

Ford DSFL Level 1 Basic Skills Slides
Ford DFSL Video – 9-3 Hand Position
Ford DFSL Video – Cross Steer
Ford DFSL Video – ABS
Ford DFSL Video – ESP

Picture Gallery

Ford Driving Skills For Life – 17th Dec 2011

 

Apr

2

Since a boy, I’m always curious about everything. Some stupid things I did was to cut my finger with a knife as a result of watching suicide movies, you know those cut wrist type? Also there was a time where I poked a 3-pin wall socket with a metal piece, and I can honestly tell you that I learned the word ”electric shock” from experience. I slept with my grandmother when I was young, most probably before kindergarten. I remembered always peeking out the room windows to watch what my relatives are watching. I found out much later that those were porn.

Besides all those useless experiences, but experience nontheless, I was also into discovering deeper truths. When I started schooling, I was very interested in star constellations, the bermuda triangle, time travel, among others. There was a time when I have a theory that time travel is not possible. The reason is that if it is possible, people in the future already did that. I’m so proud because I read the same theory somewhere (newspapers, magazine? I can’t remember), but not published by me of course! Another theory is that even if time travelling is possible, there might be existing policies in the future that prevented them from using it.

That was a very long time ago. Now, I see the concept of time as a different thing altogether. I no longer see it as a linear concept, like how our life and community based them upon. I now see time as a static concept, and everything that happens, happening and will happen is a branch from this static time concept. This concept is very complicated to explain, but most people call this “The Power Of Now”.

The Real Buddhism

As a kid, I am very curious into why different people have different kinds of belief, and hence, different Gods. To know them better, I need to know more about my own religion to start with, which is Buddhism. Buddhism was founded by Siddharta Gautama, who was born a prince, shielded away from sickness, aging people and suffering by his king father. Siddharta Gautama at the age of 29, having seen the first old man, was explained by his charioteer that all people grew old, he decided to embark on a journey far beyond the palace. Having experienced an ascetic life, a life of begging for alms (money and food) and also a period of food depravation that almost lead him to die of starvation, he finally achieved enlightenment at the age of 35. He was then known as Buddha, or the Enlightened One. Buddhism is a teaching and not of worship, it is one of the few religions that does not have a god. Buddha once said “Do not worship me, for the god is within you”.

This finding strucked me hard. This meant that what I’ve been doing, the worshipping of those idols at the altar at home is wrong and I’ve been doing that for 20 years! At that moment, I felt like I’m the biggest fool in the world! From that point onwards, I’m a true Buddhist, refusing to worship anything else but myself.

The Benefits Of Religion

It is true that I felt like an idiot when I found out that Buddhism is not a worshipping religion but of a teaching one, still it gave me a good structure to grow at a young age. Starting from the first day we are born, the environment or the community is shaping us towards a certain direction. With a religion, we have a guide on how we can live our lives and how we can lead a happier life. This is true until religion is not capable of improving us anymore, in other words, until we outgrows our religion. This is not a surprise because most religios materials are made out of writings from a thousand years ago, and to make things worse, those first written books or scripts are from words passed down orally after hundreds of years. This is like giving future Microsoft Windows 5000 user our Windows XP manual. It surely are not 100% relevant but still provides a good history background. Same goes to religion, one day, you will need to start finding your own truths, because religions can only offer that much.

The Effect Of Religions

After finding out the truth about Buddhism, I went further to understand more religions and the impact they have on the community and the world at large. The findings too, are not good. As a Malaysian, living in a country of multi-etnics, multicultural and multilingual society, I have a better view of what religions can do to a community. It’s really cool when people takes religion as guides, but things can turn really ugly when they are obsessed with it. They are the reason why communities of different race and religion doesn’t mix with each other, they create a transparent barrier between them.

Exorcism

Let me use exorcism as an example to explain why religion is man made. Recently I watched the movie The Rite, it’s an exorcism movie where those priests perform exorcism on patients suspected of being possessed. Imagine this, Father Lucas tried to coerce the name out of the of the demon as part of the exorcism process :

Father Lucas : Demon! Speak your name! Speak your name!
Demon : Argh… *$^)**@
Father Lucas : Speak you demon! Tell me your name!
Demon : Giong Siiiii….. (Vampire in Cantonese)

Father Lucas (calling Master Wong) : Hi Master Wong, this demon is a Chinese demon! Crap, not my department! Can you follow up?
Master Wong : Sure Father Lucas, let me know the details, I’ll be right there.

This was made up with some humour, but still the point remains. According to Wikipedia and Religious Tolerance there are around 40 religions in the world. So in the worst case scenario we need to forward that poor soul being possessed by demon 40 times around the world?!! Is that even logical?

You tell me…

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