Hills and narrow places

The rest of the road geometry: how steeply it climbs or falls, and where it stops being wide enough for two vehicles. Each is a reason to be at a lower speed before you reach it, not while you are in it.

Where the road climbs, falls, or stops being wide enough for two vehicles.

Descents are the ones that need a plan

A red-bordered triangle showing a black vehicle on a slope running downhill.

A vehicle on a slope running downhill warns of a steep descent; running uphill, a steep ascent. The climb largely looks after itself — the descent does not.

Select a low gear before you start down and let the engine hold the vehicle. Brakes used continuously on a long hill overheat and fade, and they fade at the bottom, where you are fastest and the corner is usually sharpest.

Work it through

A steep descent sign, and you are driving a loaded vehicle.

Change down before the descent begins.

Changing gear part-way down a hill is difficult and sometimes impossible, and the load is extra mass the brakes would have to turn into heat.

Where people lose the markRiding the brakes down a long hill instead of using engine braking.

The rest of this lesson

Four ways a road narrows
Which side is narrowing changes where you look
Two-way traffic