Traction Control Explained

At their best, regulatory devices work seamlessly, without any input from the driver, to enhance driving safety. Safety and regulatory devices work in concert to help the driver avoid accidents and protect occupants if an accident does occur. However, traction control and other devices are no substitute for driving safely. Rather, they work best when a safe driver encounters an extreme situation.

Traction control is a system that's becoming more common on modern cars. As its name implies, traction control manages the car's traction. Traction, as you probably know, is the friction the car uses to get going, stop and stay on the road. Think about traction like this: We've all worn sneakers with rubber soles, right? It's pretty hard to slip in sneakers, because the rubber soles give good traction. However, just because slipping in sneakers is rare, that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. If you wear sneakers on ice, wet leaves or if you're running fast while making a turn, you can still slip. Your car's tires are like its sneakers. Most of the time, the tires provide plenty of traction. But in certain situations, they can lose traction -- and that's where traction control steps in.

This might surprise you, but the system in your car that traction control has the most in common with is the anti-lock braking system (ABS). When you brake hard in a car, there's a risk that the tires will lock up; that is, instead of rolling to a stop, the tires will freeze, and start skidding. When a tire skids instead of rolls, the odds of the driver losing control are pretty high. ABS lowers the risk of a wheel freezing up by monitoring the speed at which all the wheels are rolling. If one stops rolling, or rolls at a different speed than the others (a recipe for a skid), ABS steps in, corrects the braking pressure and gets everything moving at the same speed.

Traction control is basically an anti-lock braking system in reverse. Anti-lock brakes prevent the wheels from locking up when the car is decelerating. Traction control keeps the wheels from locking up or skidding when the car is accelerating. When you step on the gas, a lot of power gets routed to the car's wheels, and that can sometimes cause a skid. Think about trying to go from a standstill to an all-out sprint while wearing sneakers -- it's easy to slip, especially if you're accelerating on a slick road.

Click over to the next page to see how all the parts of traction control work together to keep you in control when your car is accelerating.