Fact or fiction?

I was recently teaching a group of novice drivers when we discussed the actions from other drivers. One of my students was quite upset that the driver behind her and her friend was tailgating as much as they were. She wondered why drivers do things like this. I often wonder that as well. Why are drivers risking their life, their vehicle and their bank account to drive so close to the driver in front of them? Maybe they aren’t aware of their actions or perhaps aren’t aware of the proper actions.

When I’m asked about whether drivers should be re-tested every few years the people I’m speaking to are often surprised when I say yes, but they should also be educated. There are too many drivers out there who would not pass a written test at the Ministry of Transportation without studying for it. Isn’t that a problem? If they are already driving, shouldn’t they know the rules?

One of the common errors that I hear from licensed driver is the proper following distance at city speeds. They will often tell me the distance in car lengths. If you’re looking at the car lengths in front of you, you’ll miss seeing the problems in front of the vehicle directly ahead of you. This may cause you to slam on your brakes and ultimately rear end the vehicle in front of you.

Education tells us what we can and can’t do and what we should and should not do. We get so wrapped up with where we want to go, that we forget about the safety part of our driving. We end up building bad driving habits and don’t think about our actions. What if we always thought “what if?” when we drove? What if we tailgated? What if we drove too fast in poor weather? What if we were looking at things other than the driving environment? If we did, maybe we would be better prepared to drive safely.

Ultimately, driving is a skill and should never be taken lightly. Putting other people at risk is a very selfish act. How would you live with yourself if you injured another motorist because you were in a hurry, or were in a bad mood? A logical and responsible thought really needs to happen before an action does.

There’s an old saying; “you don’t know what you don’t know”. This essentially means that there may be a lot of information that we may not know about when it comes to driving. We tend to do what we know and nothing more. What if we learned something new every now and then? Would you be open minded enough to learn new things? Where would you go to learn these things? Learning from your family and friends isn’t always the best way. They may teach you their bad habits and they may teach you incorrect techniques. Learn from reputable professionals. They may help save your life!