All that winter weather is making us skid

Learn how to slip and slide properly on a skid control experience

There’s nothing quite like sliding in the car sideways down the hill from your house when trying to get to work on a snowy day and this winter we’ve found ourselves in this situation on more than one occasion. So we’ll be putting skid control experience at the top of our birthday list this year (it’s the 25th July by the way!). With any luck, the Big Boss at Into the Blue HQ will read this and send me off to one of eight skid control schools we’ve got on the books nationwide.

I’m the first to admit I thought our skid control experiences were really just about slipping and sliding your way in a car around a good old greasy skid pan, but in fact there’s a lot more to it than that and (judging on recent winter weather driving ‘episodes’) it could actually be a lifesaver, or at the very least stop you from totalling your Mum’s Fiesta on the way home from work!

The instructors are all fully qualified experts and a dab hand at handling cars in skid situations. Rumour has it the first thing you learn, as you head off in the specially adapted ski car, is that you pretty much have to do the opposite to what you instinctively want to do behind the wheel. The best thing is, you will loose control of the car, but in a completely safe environment that’s still pretty exhilarating and you’ll learn a lot. Prices for our skid control experiences start at just £81 for 40 minutes behind the wheel at the off road driving centre in Essex.