Thoughts In Steerage

by Joe Jackson, May 19th, 2008

Learning how to steer an RC vehicle probably comes easier to someone who doesn’t drive yet. 

Why?

After you drive for a while your steering reflexes become automatic. When you want your vehicle to go left, you turn the wheel left. To go right, you turn the wheel right. It’s the same with backing up. To turn the rear of the vehicle toward the right or left, you turn the steering wheel to the same direction as the turn.

You’ll find steering techniques the same with radio control cars, trucks, and boats too…as long as the front of the vehicle is facing away from you.

But if you’re driving the vehicle back in your direction, and the front is facing you, steering is different. You have to learn to work the RC controller in opposite directions than when it faces away. And, after driving for a while and the subconscious takes control of your reflexes, your first experiences with steering remote control vehicles get kinda wild when you drive them back to you.

That subconscious mind of yours has a way of making decisions for you that aren’t always what you really want. It says turn the wheel right, and your automatic response is: turn the wheel right. But if you’re steering the vehicle toward yourself and turn the wheel right, the vehicle goes to your left.

Maybe you didn’t want that. And sometimes those miss turns put your car, truck, or RC motorcycle right into the wall, or slams your boat into the bank. Then you have repairs to make.

I still experience this after a break away from playing with radio control toys. Before you start driving the vehicle back to you, you need to think about your techniques and overrule your subconscious (tell it to take a short break itself), to steer the way you want to steer. It’s hard to master without practice.

But our young people, before they start driving, don’t have those “big car” steering techniques burned into their subconscious. When the first driving experience is RC, learning to drive a radio control car, boat, truck, or motorcycle doesn’t involve deprogramming when they pick up the transmitter.

Since they steer the vehicle away from them, then bring it back, their first RC driving lessons start stimulating the subconscious to adjust the steering reflex to the direction that the vehicle faces.

And once they get a few practice runs in, they’ll most likely crash that RC a whole lot fewer times than you.

Keep that in mind when you’re training your kids, or grandkids, I bet they’ll get a big thrill from thinking they’re better drivers than you.