Handbrake turns are frequently used in rally driving to negotiate tight, lower speed corners and can be useful in a variety of low speed maneuvers and stunts. This method of turning tight corners relies on the fact that handbrake usually operate on the rear wheels, which lock when it's pulled on hard. This allows a slide to be induced and a tighter radius or corner will be completed.




The handbrake turn is a driving technique used to deliberately slide a car sideways, either for the purpose of negotiating a very tight bend quickly, or for turning around well within the vehicle's own turning circle.
The driver starts by using steering input to transfer weight to the outside tires; the handbrake is then used to lock the rear wheels, thus upsetting the adhesion between the tires and the road surface. With practice, the car can be placed accurately by releasing the handbrake and accelerating the vehicle. The technique is used in some forms of motorsport, for example rallying, autotesting, and motorkhana.
Many sports cars, especially English makes such as MG and Triumph, as late as the early 1970s were offered with a fly-off handbrake option for competition purposes—the button on the end of the lever has to be pressed before the brake will lock on, which is the reverse of the normal arrangement—allowing for faster and more controlled application in a handbrake turn, and was less liable to be accidentally locked on while doing such a maneuver.
In a rear-wheel drive manual transmission vehicle, it is also necessary to operate the clutch to prevent the handbrake from stalling the engine.



Handbrake turns are primarily a technique used to negotiate tight turns in motorsport but can also be used in certain other applications such as stunt or pursuit driving.
For stunt purposes, parallel parking can be completed in a single motion using the handbrake. This technique is often demonstrated at car shows, demonstrating the vehicle's agility and the driver's control.
In pursuit driving, the technique can be used for turning the car around in the width of two lanes without using a three-point maneuver, for example to bewilder a pursuer. It can also be used to quickly negotiate tight corners.