South Carolina driving lesson · Basic Driving Skills
Steering techniques
A 3-minute lesson from the South Carolina course. Read the rules and examples, follow the handbook page references, and check your understanding before you move on.
A steering wheel turns the vehicle in the direction you turn it, forward or in reverse. How you hold it matters for control, and for safety if the driver's air bag goes off.
Proper grip:
Both hands on the outside of the wheel, on opposite sides
Firm but gentle, using your fingers, not your palms
Thumbs up along the face of the wheel
Never turn the wheel while gripping it from inside the rim
Push/pull is the preferred method: less muscle stress and weaving, and uncrossed arms mean less injury risk from a driver's air bag in a frontal crash.
Hand-over-hand: use the right top third of the wheel to turn right and the left top third to turn left, repeating as needed. Reverse the process to straighten.
You're turning right at a quiet intersection at low speed. Use hand-over-hand steering, starting from 8–9 and 3–4 o'clock and turning with the right top third of the wheel. Straighten by reversing the motion as you finish the turn.
Check your understanding
Read the question, decide on an answer, then open it to check the explanation. These are Roadwise study questions based on the source handbook.
When gripping the steering wheel, you should use:
Your palms, thumbs hooked inside the rim
A tight fist around the rim
Your fingers, not the palms of your hands
Your palms pressed flat on the rim
Answer: Your fingers, not the palms of your hands
Use your fingers to grip the steering wheel instead of the palms of your hands, with thumbs up along the face of the wheel.