Pontiac 1993 Grand Am Owner's Manual page 139

Your Driving and the Road
Off-Road Recovery
You may find sometime that your right
wheels have dropped off the edge of a
road onto the shoulder while you're
driving.
If the level of the shoulder is only
slightly below the pavement, recovery
should be fairly easy. Ease off the
accelerator and then, if there is nothing
in the way, steer so that your vehicle
straddles the edge of the pavement. You
can turn the steering wheel up
to 9 4 turn
until the right front tire contacts the
pavement edge. Then turn your steering
wheel to go straight down the roadway.
If the shoulder appears to be about four
inches (100
mm)
or more below the
pavement, this difference can cause
problems. If there is not enough room to
pull entirely onto the shoulder and stop,
then follow the same procedures. But if
the right front tire scrubs against the
side of the pavement, do not steer more
sharply. With too much steering angle,
the vehicle may jump back onto the road
with so much steering input that it
crosses over into the oncoming traffic
before you can bring it back under
control. Instead, ease off again on the
accelerator and steering input, straddle
the pavement once more, then try again.
Passing
The driver of a vehicle about to pass
another on a two-lane highway waits for
just the right moment, accelerates,
moves around the vehicle ahead, then
goes back into the right lane again. A
simple maneuver?
Not necessarily! Passing another vehicle
on a two-lane highway is a potentially
dangerous move, since the passing
vehicle occupies the same lane as
oncoming traffic for several seconds. A
miscalculation, an error in judgment, or
a brief surrender to frustration or anger
can suddenly put the passing driver face
to face with the worst of all traffic
accidents-the head-on collision.
I . . 138