Why You Need Experienced Driving Skills

If you have driven for any real length of time, you probably consider yourself a good driver. You probably cannot visualize a time when you couldn’t drive and you probably drive now without much thinking involved. This tends to include a number of bad habits which you may not be conscious of until it is too late. Furthermore, the fact that so many of us drive “unconsciously” is quite unsafe in itself. It’s understandable to zone out some, but you need to be paying attention at all times ready for something bad to happen. The biggest risk on the road is other people! You’ve probably arrived somewhere before and realized you have absolutely no recollection of doing the driving. It really is important that you develop superior driving proficiency so that you can be in control of your driving at all times. Take charge of the road!

A vital skill is knowing how to drive when conditions suddenly worsen. Most of these conditions will vary because of the weather and the type of road you are driving on. When the weather turns bad on you, like snow or thick fog, it can become very stressful for you if you are not used to it. An illustration of this an highly developed driving skill would be your ability to carry out the right thing if your car suddenly went into a skid. If you’ve been driving unconsciously, would you know which way to steer the car? This can be something you can be trained in and could save your life and the lives of your loved ones. Here’s a helpful tip, if you’re faced with thick fog and can’t see, do NOT use your headlight to try to cut through it. They will only cause more reflection off of the fog and make it far harder for you to see, while also blinding those coming towards you.

One of the issues in working with a skid or some other unexpected event on the road is how you react to it at an instant. Another aspect is the panic that takes hold if you are taken by surprise so learning how to deal with icy roads is important. If you learn these skills effectively, you will be able to act in response correctly to these situations without thinking too much. While you can read about exactly what you have to do, it is better to find someone to actually teach you how to do it. You can often find “defensive driving” courses that will teach and test you on these very skills. They’re definitely worth the time and money investment, you’ll be thanking yourself when you use your skills and come out unscathed!

Defensive driving is yet another class of advanced skills driving. Whenever driving defensively, you are keeping an eye on the other drivers around you so that you can anticipate any mistakes on their part. Again, the most dangerous part of the road are the other people on it. People will cross the road when they shouldn’t and other motorists will drive too fast for the conditions or overtake in the wrong place. Defensive driving entails understanding where you are on the road, knowing your blind spots and having your mirrors properly positioned. Think of it more as cautious driving, being aware of your surroundings, and keeping yourself and everyone around you safe.

It is easy to think that having advanced driving skills is about showing off and learning how to drive fast. However, highly developed driving skills are about driving safely and driving confidently.

Safe Defensive Driving Tips

Automobile accidents cause thousands of deaths and millions of injuries every year. The best way to ensure the safety of yourself, your passengers, and other drivers on the road is by learning a popular defensive driving technique.

There are a large number of successful defensive driving techniques to help ensure the safety of all individuals on the road. Being alert while driving is the important defensive driving technique and is connected with all of the others. This means being fully aware of what is going on around you. All too often, drivers concentrate on other objects besides the road. Some of the  common distractions are:

• cell phones
• car radios
• applying makeup
• other passengers

Defensive driving is not just for those people who have had a court order to attend a course after receiving a traffic offence. Defensive driving will benefit almost anyone who operates a motor vehicle.

Quickly Scan Your Vehicle

Even before getting into the driver’s seat, a quick scan of your vehicle may reveal problems such as a deflated tire, or external mirrors knocked out of alignment. Such issues may compromise your ability to implement defensive driving techniques once you’re underway. From inside your vehicle you can again check your external mirrors and adjust them if necessary. If someone else has driven the vehicle before you, you may also have to re-adjust the rear view mirror to suit you.

Pay Attention

Keep you eyes up and look ahead, not just at the road or vehicle immediately in front of you, but further down the road so you can anticipate. You should be looking about 15-20 seconds ahead of your vehicle, farther if you can. This gives you the time to recognize and avoid most potential hazards before they become a problem.

Use Your Peripheral Vision

In addition to scanning conditions directly, use you peripheral vision to become aware of situations that may require your direct attention. Your peripheral vision picks up movement quickly, but doesn’t provide a clear view. It is your “early warning” vision for defensive driving techniques.

Check Your Mirrors Frequently

Your external and rear view mirrors serve a most useful purpose in employing defensive driving techniques. It is important to check your mirrors every 5 to 8 seconds while driving, but you also need to know the blind spots on your vehicle, which are large often enough to hide other vehicles. Mirrors also will not reveal a vehicle that is changing lanes behind you, so it is very important to turn your head and quickly look before making a lane change.

Mind Your Eyes

It is vitally important that you recognize and become immediately aware of what you see while driving. By “connecting your mind to your eyes” you can realize the possibility the ball rolling across the road may be chased by a child, that a vehicle approaching on an adjacent roadway may not stop at a cross street, and recognize other potentially hazardous situations. Use your eyes to see, and your mind to analyze what you see for potential dangers.