Emergencies · hard
The rear of your vehicle slides out to the right while you are braking through a wet curve. What is the correct correction?
- A Brake harder and steer sharply away from the slide
- B Accelerate hard to straighten the vehicle out
- C Shift into neutral and hold the wheel without steering
- D Ease off the brake and accelerator, then steer gently in the direction the rear is sliding Correct
Why D is correct
A skid means the tyres have run out of grip, and grip cannot be recovered while you keep asking them for something else. Braking asks them to slow the car, steering hard asks them to change its direction, and accelerating asks them to drive it forward. Removing all three demands at once — lifting off both pedals — is what lets the tyres roll again and begin gripping. Steering with the slide keeps the nose pointing where the car is actually travelling, which prevents the rotation from developing into a spin. Skid recoveries are won with small inputs; violent corrections restart the slide from a worse angle.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. Brake harder and steer sharply away from the slide
- Braking harder deepens the slide, because a wheel approaching lockup has almost no lateral grip left. Every extra demand takes those tyres further from recovering.
- B. Accelerate hard to straighten the vehicle out
- Acceleration shifts weight rearward and unloads the front axle, which on many vehicles lengthens the skid rather than ending it. Throttle belongs after grip has returned.
- C. Shift into neutral and hold the wheel without steering
- Holding the wheel without steering lets the rotation continue, and neutral discards the engine braking that helps settle the car. Doing nothing is not a correction.
On the road
One driver feels the tail step out on a wet curve, lifts off and steers gently with the slide, and is straight again two seconds later. The driver beside them brakes harder at the same instant and meets the guardrail backwards.
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Sources
- Section referenced: Colorado Driver Handbook — Emergency Situations; Skid Control
- Colorado Driver Handbook, January 2025 (DR 2337) — English PDF · Spanish PDF
- Retrieved 2026-10-17 from Colorado Division of Motor Vehicles
Every question on this page is written in our own words and is not copied from the handbook. Reviewed by Ethan Wen on 2026-10-18.