Neal Curtis Duguay Contributing Writer
Imagine this: there’s an intersection with a streetlight, and two cars facing each other. A school bus full of children signals left as it moves forward, and a truck lacks its proper signal as it makes a left turn. Through gross miscommunication, the chances of a collision increased tenfold, though are miraculously avoided.
Fortunately, incidents like this can easily be avoided with a few driving safety tips, which should be incredibly basic and pure habit by everyone who finished the test as agonizingly processed by the DMV, which included hours and weeks of drivers education.
One of the most basic abilities every driver should possess is signaling turns and lane changes. Often called “blinkers,” they are the yellow or red lights on a car that blink on and off to alert other drivers. Their purpose is to alert other drivers to what direction the car is going. This keeps everyone on the road aware of each other, and prevents accidents. Turn signals aren’t for you, they’re for others.
Speed is essential, otherwise cars wouldn’t move, but where there is speed, there are speed limits. These are important because the faster a car goes, the less time a driver has to react to changing events.
Speed limits are chosen individually for each road, and how careful drivers need to be. Roadway engineers test roads and turns carefully to determine the safest speed at which they can be driven. Highways have high speed limits because there are virtually no people or traffic lights, while urban roads have lower speed limits because there is a greater density of people, children, and animals.
Quite a few drivers thinks it’s okay to drive twenty miles over the speed limit in urban areas where the limit never goes above thirty-five. Children, joggers, and other pedestrians do not have enough time to react at these speeds. Joggers, unfortunately, rarely wait for walk signs and combining that with a speeding car is an accident waiting to happen. There are no excuses, go the speed limit.
Last, but not least, drivers do not seem to understand the point of stop bars at stop signs. There’s a white line painted on the road by each and every stop sign. This are not suggestions, they are the safe place to stop. They are intended to be the stopping point, even if something blocks the view.
There are a few reasons why: not stopping, and not seeing what’s ahead, means there could be a collision. This has and will happen at stop signs and red lights. Drivers make this bad behavior a habit, and surprise pedestrians or oncoming traffic. Nighttime is even worse, due to poor visibility and the difficulty in seeing pedestrians. People, when they see someone stop arrive at a stop sign, expect them to stop. If they don’t, the oncoming traffic have no way of knowing if the car is going to stop at all. Like signaling, the stop bar is for everyone else.
Defensive driving is being aware of one’s surroundings and ensuring everyone knows what, when, and how they’re doing anything. Driving is about avoiding accidents, and yielding to the laws. Traffic and the law do not yield to the driver.
