877-366-
Three steps to safety on the road
When people are sixteen, spending their first car cash and just learning how to drive, they are told a number of important driving rules - which they quickly forget. They stop keeping their hands at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock. They turn on the radio. They talk on their cell-phone in the car, put on makeup, talk with passengers, text message, read magazine articles, eat breakfast, change shoes, and any number of things which are common distractions. People also forget the basics about leaving a 7 second count between each car on the road, and instead, follow closely, and break suddenly, accelerate quickly, take turns sharply, and assume that everything around them will maintain its safe distance. These are, needless to say, not safe habits.
But this article is not a drivers-ed lecture. This is an attempt to distill the safety advice that you were supposed to incorporate from the beginning into a set of practical tips that busy, real people can use. Here goes:
-
Rule #1: Never take your eyes off the road. This is the simplest piece of advice, but it's easy to forget. The reason this is not just an old standby, is that even if you are doing any number of distracting activities with a sandwich or a radio, as long as you can keep the cars around you in your field of vision, you should be okay. It's much better to talk on a cell phone with a hands free device than it is to try and pick up a dropped pencil from underneath the gas pedal.
-
Rule #2: Leave room for disaster. The typical advice is to never bother another driver by coming up behind them, or box someone in on a two-lane road. This is all good advice, but not for politeness reasons. When you drive, imagine that any car around you could suddenly, without any warning, stop immediately in its tracks. Could you avoid running into it? What if it swerved right or left... would you be in its path. Leaving room is not about manners--although that's a good reason, too--it's about making sure that no matter what happens, you'll be out of the debris field.
-
Rule #3: Beware slow moving cars. The majority of accidents happen not on highways but in parking lots. When you enter a congested shopping center, be doubly aware. Look for cars backing out suddenly and people ignoring traffic rules by turning randomly or making u-turns; parking lots make people drive like they're in go-carts. Also, leave room for drivers on both sides when you park. If the space is too tight, move on to another one. There's no benefit from gaining a spot along with a nasty dent or scrape along your door.
