Hi guys, i’ve noticed in racing games and in real life that the faster you go the less you are able to turn the steering wheel, why is this?
In: Physics
You *can* turn the steering wheel far, it’s just a really bad idea. Note: not counting fancy stuff like speed-adaptive steering.
Your tires have a finite amount of grip. If they exceed that, they skid. The amount of force the steering tires need to apply depends on two things: how fast you’re going and how tight you’re turning. If you’re going slow, you can turn the wheels all the way and they’ve still got plenty of grip and it’s all fine. As you go faster and faster, the wheels will start to skid at smaller and smaller steering angles. If you try to turn them farther than that, they’ll skid (and possibly roll the car if you keep going). So you automatically limit how far you turn the wheel at high speed because you’re generating uncomfortably high accelerations on you, the driver, and your tires start to squeal.
Mechanically, there’s nothing preventing you from going hardover on the steering wheel at 90 mph. DO NOT DO THIS! It will take a lot of force, because the counterforce on the wheels is a lot higher, but you can do it. The wheels will skid, the car will probably spin, it might roll, etc. But the wheels will turn all the way.
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