"RoseGarden" - - - - - - - from - nscave

Over the past week or so there has been a number of fatal accidents where innocent drivers minding their own business and supposedly doing everything right, have had other vehicles cross the centreline to their side of the road and hit them.

How do you avoid that. If another driver crosses the line to your side of the road, will they get you? Will you be the next item on the six o'clock news? How can you prevent or lessen the chances of another driver taking you out?

As a retired driver trainer I have several suggestions that may help you avoid a collision, or if there is to be a collision, to lessen the impact in your favour. There are no guarantees of course, but your chances of survival amongst the stupid things other drivers do will be vastly increased.

- First, don’t get too relaxed. Today drivers get on the cell phone, listen to the stereo or do other non essential driving activities. Your attention needs to be on everything that is going on around you and up ahead as far as you can see, taking in the whole picture which includes both sides of the road.

- See and absorb what you are looking at. Too many drivers see something going up ahead but do not react to it. They look but they don’t see. Concentrate. If something is going on in traffic up ahead, will it affect you? What do you need to do for your protection? Reduce speed is likely one.

- This one is important for our topic at hand. Don’t just watch what is going on-on your side of the road. Watch the oncoming traffic, constantly. What are they doing, what are they contending with?

- While you are checking things up ahead, what is behind you? Sure if you get rear-ended it will be the other driver’s fault, but does that help with the whiplash? What if the vehicle behind shoves you into the one in front? Reducing speed increases space/time for you and the driver behind. Plus if necessary, your brake lights will get their attention.

- What is going on around you? What is on both sides? Where are you going to go if someone from that opposite side comes at you? Is there a parking lot beside you, an open field or a concrete wall? You need to know that before anything goes wrong. And it is constantly changing. If an oncoming vehicle comes toward you, you likely can avoid a crash by steering out of the way in a high percentage of cases. Don’t just sit there and let them get you, get out of there. Steering, along with a braking or accelerating combination can be a life saver if you are ready and have planned for it.

- Especially important all the time, but more so on a two lane road, as the oncoming vehicle approaches, keep an eye on it. Keep your eyes moving taking in everything around you as mentioned. But don’t lose track of that oncoming vehicle. Many drivers tend to watch an oncoming vehicle until it gets reasonably close and then they look beyond it. Never take the quick flicks of your eyes off it until it is past you. Watch its front wheels in case they angle or turn suddenly towards you. If you have been paying attention to what is going on around you, how much space you have and so on, if something goes wrong, you can change course almost as quickly.

- If you find that a collision is going to happen anyway, remember these things. A head on is going to be the hardest on you. If you can change course resulting in a glancing collision it will be bad, but not as bad as head on.

- Remember also you will go where you are looking, so don’t look at the poles or trees or you will drive right into them.

- Finally, the most important thing of all is Drive! Don’t give up and just sit there and let another driver do you in. Think NASCAR, drive until your vehicle is completely stopped.

In summary, avoiding that collision with the oncoming traffic that comes over to your side of the road to visit depends on you concentrating 100% of the time on your position and what is going on around you. And it depends on you driving – until the vehicle is completely stopped. Don’t do like a lot of drivers and just lock up the brakes and hang on for dear life, or not see it coming in time, for life may be terminated quickly.

Important: All of the above takes place in a few milliseconds – a lot less time than it took you to read this article.

--=One Day At A Time=-

This work by NSCAVE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License