GaryB

Headed off to work this morning at daft o'clock. Pitch black outside but not frosty on the windscreen.

Took the Grand Espace while the S stayed at home waiting for the man from Event Tyres to turn up with new rubber.

So I'm driving down country lanes and notice that some bits of the road are lighter than others."Oooh, dry patches" I think to myself.

Turns out it wasn't dry patches, it was frost.

I spent the next few seconds wondering why the steering wheel wasn't working before realising it was understeer and promptly lifted off the gas (oops).

Back came round and then starts the pendulum effect as I struggle to get it in a straight line. 3 or 4 flick left/right/left/rights later and the Espace is back in a straight line.

Excellent driver control? NO! Pure luck.

Take care chaps. It's frosty out.

Driving too fast for the conditions and not paying attention nearly claimed another victim (albeit only £500's worth and no one else around at that time in the morning).

Sliding an Espace isn't entertaining.

MB

The way some people drive those things you would think they are in an S2000! Winds me up.

Dembo

It'll be the LSD that made it do that. Not your fault.

Gaspode

No. It'll be those crazy French and their penchant for oval wheels.

GaryB

I was busy looking round to see if there was anything soft-ish to hit.

(Not that I had a lot of choice in where I was going)

I felt like a right dullard!! Thankfully there was no one around to see my stupidity.

The more I think about it now though, you're right. Must have been black ice/oil/diesel/LSD/oval wheels/sudden earth tremor that caused it. Can't have been my fault, I'm a driving god...

GaryB

In my head I was busy composing a text on how to break the news to my Mrs...

"Good news honey, the airbags in your car are fully functional"

Nick Graves

At least you can have a good look round for something to hit; in those days, being able to see out was the fashion.

Is it one of the proper MATRA Plastique Espaces? You used to find all the plastic panels would pop out again and no-one would be any the wiser. Usually only the recessed headlights gave it away. Interestingly, customisers used to call that 'frenching' the lights, when they did it...

m1bjr

Like it Dave.

To OP - 'Promptly lifting off the gas' is only going to make things go one way.

GaryB

Yep, it's the plastic one.

Complete with many parking scrapes where the wife uses the power of sound to judge distances from walls/bollards etc...

Scraaaaaaaaaape......"ooh, I'm a bit close to that wall"

GaryB

Not strictly true.

Lifting off the gas made it go many ways, repeatedly....

It was one of those "Why on earth did I do that?" moments.