Need to know

In order to truly comprehend and correctly utilise your vehicle’s four-wheel drive systems out on the trail, one needs a basic understanding of certain generic ‘offroad’ concepts. So, prior to continuing on driving skills per se, this column deals with some terminology. I have endeavoured to limit the number of terms to those considered absolutely indispensable, and to distil this terminology to the simplest explanations possible particularly for our newbies (that said, you’re never too experienced to discover something new).

For the more technically minded, or those wishing to pursue the subject in greater depth, there are numerous alternative resources that go into great detail. This list has been created in such a way that a grasp of each term is necessary to understand the terms that follow.

Where applicable, additional colloquial terms are provided in brackets. Please