Seen many videos of fast cars (mustangs especially lol) accelerating in a straight line and then losing control and going into the curb/crowd. What would cause it to do that when the wheels are just pointed straight ahead?
How does one prevent or control this?
In: Engineering
If you accelerate, the acceleration force must be transfered by the wheels to the road.
This is done through the friction of the tire with the road.
If you try to accelerate more than you have friction available, the tires start to spin and you lose all friction on the spinning wheel(s).
Loss of friction means the wheel is also free to slide sideways.
As the car is a rear-wheel drive, the loss of friction will be on the rear wheels, meaning the backside of the car is free to slide sideways.
Because there is still friction on the front wheels, any slight inbalance in force during this acceleration will make the rear of the car go sideways in one direction.
This motion has a possitive feedback loop, so it gets worse quickly up to a point the car can no longer be controlled by the driver.
For rear-wheel driven cars, preventing it is done by keeping accelerating under control by the driver, or by electronic or mechanical aids that keep the spinning limited per wheel.
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