by Rachel NaborsI had to drive my smart car home on interstate 540 yesterday, and the winds kicked up quite a bit. I don’t know their speeds, but they certainly weren’t extreme. Enough to make the trees wave, but I don’t imagine they were anything as bad as what we used to get in the mountains during storms.
I was surprised by my smart car’s handling, and not in a good way. The ride was so quiet that when she jerked to one side I initially thought something had gone wrong with the steering. But I realized that I was going 75 mph across an open strip with the tree branches to either side of the road waving to and fro. Had to be the wind, I thought, and I started paying close attention to corrective steering.
I’ll be honest, in the wind, you have to fight a bit to keep a smart car on track. It’s not like when a car goes past and you just vaguely notice a little tug to one side. No, you have to stay on top of the vehicle because she’s so lightweight and so tall that she behaves like a little sail. That said, once you get the hang of it, it’s not so bad. She’s so small that even the occasional jerk to one side won’t take you out of your lane.
What you need to beware of is over-correction. If you yank your smart car to one side in anticipation of being jerked in the opposite direction by the wind but no wind kicks up, you will plow into the other lane. I did not do this, fortunately, but I could it happening to a less experienced driver who hasn’t tussled with mountain winds before.
Also, I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if I’d slowed down and moved to the right-most lane instead of staying in the left-most going 75. Going slower seemed to make the wind less of a problem, but I preferred to take my chances staying where I was at the speed I was going than try to lane-travel when I still wasn’t sure what to expect from the wind.
It should be noted that although this is the only negative thing I have to report thus far about my smart car experience, all small cars experience handling difficulties in the wind. But I can say that I’ve driven my smart car in a thunder storm, too, and she did an incredible job of steering and braking in the wet. My old Ford Escort would have had trouble with some of the situations we’ve encountered, but she does well in the water.
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