Are cars designed to drift to the right when you let go of the steering wheel on a flat road at moderate speed?
No.
Cars typically drift to the right because the road is not flat, it’s crowned to help drain the rain water.
If you’re on a truly flat road and your car drifts in any direction it needs the alignment checked.
On a truely flat road cars should track straight…mine does…but many roads have a slight crown.
No. Cars are not designed to drift to one side or the other. On a flat, straight road a car should track straight ahead. The problem is, most roads are “crowned,” or higher in the center, to promote drainage of rain water, and GRAVITY will pull the car toward the shoulder of the road.
Whew! I hoped a properly aligned car would drive straight on a flat road. I was told that
the “reasoning” behind this “design” is supposedly to help avoid head on collisions in the event the driver falls asleep. A to-the-right drift would land the car in the ditch instead of into oncoming traffic. None of this sounded correct to me.
Thanks for the truth.
It sounds absurd to me. Design a car that way to avoid an accident…but ONLY when the driver falls asleep on a straight one lane road. It’s void if the road has curves…or there’s more then one lane. Someone just came up with this without putting the least of bit of thought into it.