CHAPTER 1 - Introduction
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NOTE: This started out as a collection of simple notes when I was teaching someone I care a lot about to drive, many years after I stopped teaching driving professionally. As usual, I got carried away, and this is what happened. I even got crazy enough to put it on the web.
I tried to take out most of the references to Daren personally, but I'm sure you'll find a few vestiges of the original text. I hope you find some of this information useful, and I wish you a safe and happy driving career.
- Barry
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When you’re driving, it’s important to assume that everyone else on the road is (or could suddenly become) the stupidest, worst driver on the road.
THE POINT? "TRUST NO ONE ELSE ON THE ROAD!"
POSTURE:
Your Mom was RIGHT! Posture IS important. For the same reason you need to stand a certain way to bat a ball or to wait for it in the outfield, you need to sit correctly when you’re driving so when that cute deer runs out in front of you at 50 MPH, you can react immediately.
First, you need to have the seat adjusted so that your knees are comfortably bent with your gas pedal slightly depressed. (And if YOU’RE "depressed," DON’T DRIVE!) Then, make sure the middle of the headrest hits the middle "boney" part of the back of your skull. Next adjust the seatback as forward as possible that is still comfortable, but NOT relaxing. (If you want to be in a lounge chair, sit in the back yard.) Finally, seat belts, like anything else, are only uncomfortable until you get used to them. I think you’d have to agree that they must be a lot less uncomfortable than a wheel chair....
GET IN THE HABIT of holding the steering wheel with two hands. That doesn't mean you have to be rigid and tense all the time you're driving... find a position where you can rest your arm on the armrest or something. But you NEED to get in the habit of using both hands. In an emergency situation, you will NEVER keep control of the car if you're steering with one hand.
You'll hear (and read) that the best position for your hands is at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock, but most experts agree that nowadays the 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock positions are the best. That's because if your hands are at "10 and 2", your arms may interfere with the deployment of the airbag. Even if the car you are driving now doesn't have airbags, eventually, your car will have them. Get in the best habit NOW!
HABITS:
When you are first learning something, you need to concentrate totally on what you are doing, and then after awhile, you can add it to the five or six things that you can do at once. That's because it becomes automatic.
THE POINT? "When you’re distracted, HABITS take over!"
I bet there have been occasions when you laughed at your Mom or Dad for putting on a directional signal coming out of their driveway or something. That’s the sign of a GOOD driver, because it’s a HABIT! If you deliberately make a decision NOT to signal a turn out of your driveway then that’s okay, but FIRST it HAS to be a habit.
ATTITUDE:
Attitude IS a problem with most drivers, especially new, younger drivers...
...assuming that we will NEVER "trust" anyone else on the road, what are you going to feel like when someone DELIBERATELY cuts you off, or goes through a red light, and you have to go nuts to avoid a collision?
First of all, you’ll never really know whether or not it was, in fact, "deliberate." Sometimes people screw up. All of us - BRACE YOURSELF - have missed a red light or cut someone off accidentally. Unless someone you KNOW cuts you off on the road, how would you know whether or not it was "deliberate?" You could ask THEM later, but you can’t ask a stranger. And, you can bet if you were bleeding to death, and I was driving you to the hospital, that I might "cut a few people off" myself. A LOT of accidents happen because someone gets so pissed off at another driver for something, that they lose their concentration, and CAUSE another one. The POINT is to just chill.
DEFINITIONS:
Peripheral Vision - The sight that you have to the left and right - and up and down. Someone without ANY peripheral vision has "tunnel vision." To see what that’s like, take two empty paper towel cores and put them up against your eyes. You only see what is straight ahead. That’s why horses wear blinders, so they don’t get distracted.
- A "reaction" that has become a habit turns into a "reflex," and you do it without even thinking. THAT’S what you want things like "checking your blindspot" to become.
- It would NOT take you three or four seconds to react if someone threw you a punch - not EVER. The "reaction" that first time you got surprised became a "habit," and then a "reflex," and eventually, it’s just "instinct."
Blind Spot - These are the areas around your car where you simply can not see. That’s the reason school buses have those gates making you walk three feet in front of the bus. If you drop your books, the driver could very easily run over you when you stop to pick them up. He simply can’t see you that close to the bus.
Defensive Driving - YOUR driving affects every other driver around you. WHAT you do, HOW you do it, and WHEN you do it, affects every other driver on the road with you. There are enough scary statistics to make you want to never drive again, but if you have enough knowledge, YOU can be the one "in control" on the road. Nearly ALL accidents are preventable, if you know what to look for.
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THINK ABOUT THIS:
1) Your goal should NOT be to pass a road test... it should be to become a safe driver.
2) You should train, and take the road test in, the same vehicle that you’ll wind up driving. You should go out a few times in different cars just for the experience, but your primary training vehicle should be the one that you will be driving.
3) EVERYONE worries about "parallel parking!" DON’T! In the order that you do this, it’s easy. Trust me.
