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ROAD IS NOT A SAFE HAVEN

Despite the increased traffic density on our roads, driving a car is still be a pleasant and rewarding experience, it also remains a convenient means of transport.

With the increasing volume of traffic in every city, roads been developed also and its very common to find multi-track roads with a lot of inter-sections, tunnels, bridges, and winding inter-changes, however, these modern conditions make it more important for us as a driver to question the actions of other road users and to make safety our prime responsibility.

WHAT IS THE SAFE DRIVING?

Safe driving is all about developing the right attitude and approach combined with a sound knowledge of defensive driving techniques, it means not only driving with courtesy and consideration for every one else but being prepared to make allowances for the mistakes of others, there for I suggest 10 tactical points for defensive driving and wishes that every driver on the road would follow this type of driving attitude to be out of troubles on the road.

TEN TACTICAL RULES FOR DEFENSIVE DRIVING

1. BE FIT FOR DRIVING; It doesn’t mean a person had to be a bodybuilder or a weight lifter to be fit for driving, it just requires your mental attention and alert physical action to prove that if you are really in position to take your car on public roads. When you just awoke from a deep sleep give your self enough time to be fully active, if you are under influence of alcohol or had taken any type of tranquilizer this will impaired your ability to sense and your reaction toward any problem will be slower than normal. If you been driving for long time on the highway you will feel tired it also effect on your reaction toward any problem on the road, you should not continue driving better stop and have some rest.

2. MAINTAIN DISTANCE; Tailgating is a very common and dangerous habit in most of the drivers on the roads today, they are often traveling with a very little distance in between. When driving inside the city with less distance, of course it is not safe and in case of accident driver might face a big damage to his or other vehicle but its more serious when someone drives on highways with same and this is the main cause of fatal accidents on the fast moving roads.

Always leave enough room in front of you to stop your vehicle, mind you, if a vehicle in front brakes in emergency you should be in position to stop your vehicle without locking your wheels, if you can maintain this gap in city and on highway driving you will have more chances to be out of troubles.

3. DRIVE CLEARLY; it means let other road users to understand your intended driving action by the position of your vehicle, position your vehicle properly and use all the source of information to inform the other road users about your intended direction , for example: if you decided to take a right turn, position your vehicle early enough give directional indicator to inform the other road users.

4. TAKE SURPRISES IN ACCOUNT; it means to expect the unexpected from others and be ready to slowdown or stop if necessary even if you have right-of-way. If your anticipation is more than a normal driver you will be in sound position and might save an accident which a normal driver wouldn’t.

What is the anticipation ? It is all about your prediction. For example: you are driving in built-up area on a simple straight road and you are also having safe distance from the vehicle ahead you, in this situation, a good driver always will anticipate that the driver of front vehicle might jam on brakes and stop at once !!! But this is not enough “its only a good anticipation but not surprise”.

As a safe driver you must expect that after jamming on the brakes the driver ahead might immediately use the reverse gear to enter in the parking or junction which he just missed. Remember ! Never expect from others to do every thing correct.

5. DRIVE CORRECTLY; traffic departments all over the world working day and night to make rules and regulations to provide maximum safety for road users, they spend money, time and effort to control the traffic, they put road markings, traffic signs and traffic lights to guide and control the traffic, even a lot of road patrol vehicles are always on the road to make sure the smooth run of traffic. But all this will be useless if you fail to obey these rules and regulations.

Drive correctly means follow all the rules and regulation issued by the department of traffic, deal cautiously and fully obey the road markings , traffic signs and traffic lights for yours and other road users safety.

6. BE-CLEARLY VISIBLE. Your safety on the road also depends how clearly and in time other road users notice your presence, because the driver (road user) who seen you, can react much better than the driver who doesn’t know that you are there. For example, if you are driving behind a truck which has obstructed your speed and vision (trucks are mostly slower in speed and wider than a car), you had to go for overtaking.

Before you start overtaking, make sure the driver of the truck is aware of your intended maneuver, to do so, bring your car closer to the line on your left side, stay a while there until truck driver notice that you wanted to cross him, otherwise he might had to pull towards left at the same time to avoid any obstruction in front of him.

7. TOLERATE MISTAKES OF OTHERS. We all experience waiting in the long traffic queues, where every one is rushing to reach their destination as soon as possible, drivers trying to change from one lane to another while cutting the right of way of others, which makes the situation more worse, of-course its very frustrating to get late but still it is far batter than getting stuck-up in accident.

When you see a driver making mistake, pulling up in-front of you suddenly or taking your right of way, at this moment be generous not to lose your temper or get hot, yelling and shouting on others doesn’t get the mistake corrected, it only divides your attention which could cause trouble for you.

8. MANEUVER CONSIDERABLY. One quality a good driver must have is the consideration for others, always try that you are not troubling any body on the road. For example, you are coming from the branch road to join the main road, if you force the driver at main road to apply brakes for you, you did not consider him, or you wants to change the lane from one to another and driver of the other lane had to apply the brakes to give you space, it also shows that you did not considered him. All the driving actions must be done considerably that you are not hindering the other road users by your maneuver.

9. ADMIT YOUR LIMITS; With the years of driving a person is getting experience and drives with more easiness. But this experience sometime built up a false confidence in the driver and he feels that he is able to control anything or he may stop his vehicle in any type of situations, but it is not true, because when you increase your speed it increase the momentum, in high speed if driver faces an emergency and had to stop the vehicle, he can’t do much, what he can do is to just apply brakes to stop the wheels but he can not stop the vehicle until momentum is dropped, resulting , vehicle starts sliding on the road!

The Driver will be lucky if vehicle skids in a straight direction, change in a direction with high momentum could turn the vehicle up-side-down.

The long skid marks on the highways are the live evidence of this phenomena. Always be realistic to admit the limits of your capabilities to control a vehicle as a driver and beware of the limitations of your vehicle to response on your steering or braking actions.

10. CREATE RESERVES If only the fifty percent of drivers on the road would practice this point, there will be a big cut-down in the accidents, it requires just a little bit extra care to know what is around you, if once you are able to find-out about surroundings, you will be able to create reserves around your vehicle.

Creating reserves means always keep a space cousin around your vehicle. The spec you should keep around the vehicle it varies with vehicle speed, as you increase the speed you should increase the space. The distance or space you need, can be defined as front, rear and side distance, to keep the front distance follow the tactical point number two.

The rear distance of your vehicle must be kept that, if you need to stop your vehicle in emergency, the rear driver should have space to stop his vehicle without locking his wheels, if you are able to keep this space behind your vehicle you will be away from tail-end collusion.

For the side reserves, keep your both blind spot clear, any vehicle in this area can cause you a trouble in emergencies.