Top 10 Ways to Not Suck at Driving
There are a lot of shitty drivers out there. Actually, most people are shitty drivers. They don't really know anything about cars, about driving, about limits of adhesion, how to react when things go badly, or what snow does to your ability to drive. In fact, most people think that driving slowly, regardless of what lane you are in, whether you are merging onto a highway or holding up 50 cars behind you, means "being a good driver." Just because you have spent many years driving in the left lane at 65mph does not make you a good driver, in fact, just the opposite. A good driver means you know how to drive, not that you have gotten lucky or simply average for the past 10 years.
Personally, I would love to see a class in high school devoted to driving. I think it could be fun and informative while greatly reducing the number of accidents (especially fatal ones) on the roads every year. Right now, the driving exam is basically a joke, it means that you know what the pedals do and that you can read signs. It would be like saying that you are capable of using a gun because you figured out what the trigger did.
So here, according to me, are the top 10 most important things you can do to make yourself something other than the incredibly shitty drivers which populate our roads like rats
1) The left lane is the passing lane. Move right unless you are passing someone. Move right if there is someone moving faster than you behind you. If you are on a single lane road and there is a huge chain of cars behind you, pull over and let them pass. If someone tries to pass you on a single lane road, pull a little to the left and let them pass. Going slow DOES NOT mean you are being a safe driver. You 'might' be safe, but you are causing road rage and crazy driving behind you, with good cause, and that leads to accidents. You are at fault in those accidents.
2) Pay attention. Changing lanes is not something to be done on a whim. LOOK, signal first, and make sure you KNOW there is no one in the spot you are trying to move into. Every decision should actually be considered, evaluated, and then made. Not simply made.
3) Be consistent. Random driving causes huge problems. Speeding up and slowing down especially. If you are doing 85mph when there is no one around, but slow down to 70mph when there is another car around, you suck and I hate your guts, and you cause traffic jams and accidents. Along with this, if you are doing 68 in the left lane and you are getting undertaken because you are slow and should move over, you are an unsafe raging asshole if you accelerate to not let the other guy in. Along with this, if you are going very slow as you pass a group of cars and are holding up a much faster moving car behind you, and then when you finally move over, you accelerate - you are also an asshole. You were in the way, it's your fault, deal with it. Being undertaken in almost any situation is a sign that you are in the wrong lane, with a few notable exceptions (see #7). Stop being arbitrary. Basically, try an make the same decisions the same way, all the time. If there is a big gap in traffic, and then a smaller gap in traffic, if you don't pull out in the big one, no one will expect you to pull out in the little one. Same goes for turns and lots of other decisions.
4) On the highway, use your brakes as little as possible. Braking hard just because you see red lights in front of you IS NOT SAFE. Again - you might be safe, but you just caused a traffic jam and possibly a pile up behind you. This is made worse by following closely behind the car in front of you...
5) Do not follow closely behind the car in front of you, unless they need to get the hell out of the way. Ok - there are a lot of people out there violating rule #1, and they need to be told that they are violating rule #1. Even still, try not to get too close. In dry conditions, this means not only are you going to brake-accelerate-brake-accelerate and cause waves of traffic behind you (yes - you are starting traffic jams) while you are burning more fuel than necessary, you are also more likely to start and be part of an accident. This is especially true in snowy conditions. For some reason, the idiots around me in Boston seem to think that winter driving involves going slow and staying right behind the car in front, hitting your brakes all the time, this is idiotic.
6) Know your car. Your car is very important to you. When you are driving, it is an extension of you. You should know your car well, be aware of it, listen to it and understand its capabilities and limitations. The most basic feature here is know how big your car is: this is critical for driving in traffic. Also, know your blind spots, know how good your brakes are, how your car handles rain and snow, how well your car handles on corners or at high speed, know what your engine sound like when it is running well and know how fast your car can accelerate when it is needed. None of these require any technical knowledge: you don't need to be a mechanic, you just need to pay attention. Your car is a complex, impressive, and capable machine. Pay it a little attention and you will be a lot better off.
7) Pay attention to traffic patterns and adjust your driving accordingly. There are different types of traffic, especially on highways (I plan on writing a whole piece about this some time). Pay attention to them, and change your driving accordingly. There are times when traffic is spotty, and big blocks are formed because there is some idiot sitting in the left lane (fuck you lady in the silver Pontiac Gran Prix who made me sit in traffic for 30minutes yesterday), in those conditions, making that driver wake up and breaking up the clot are good things. In continuous heavy traffic, where as far as the eye can see there are minimal gaps and everyone is going the same speed, if you are weaving through traffic you are just being a dangerous asshole - unless your wife's (or your own I suppose) water just broke, and then you are being a dangerous asshole with cause.
8) Learn what to do when shit goes wrong. Driving well is not about being able to go down a highway at 70mph without hitting anything. A 1st grader could be taught to do that - and do all the time in computer games. Skidding, snow and ice, mechanical failure, tire blowouts, aquaplaning: these are all relatively common issues, and you should know what to do. As a general rule, the best thing you can do is not freak the fuck out. Many accidents, especially single-car accidents, or single-car accidents which then lead to multi-car accidents, are caused because something goes wrong and then someone flips out and does something crazy. Often, if you simply held the wheel straight and either avoided braking or gently applied the brakes (or sometimes the accelerator), everything would be fine. Case in point: the Firestone "rollovers" were caused by people, not tires. At 75mph, if your tire completely blows out (which is worse than the tread coming off - what happened in these cases) if you just hold the wheel, put on your hazards, and get off the side of the road, everything should be fine. It is often a bad reaction which causes a bad accident.
9) Practice what to do when shit goes wrong. Yes - practice. Seems crazy, but if the first time that you go into a skid is on a highway, thats probably not a good thing. But if your first time is a snowy parking lot - that's a lot better. If your first time is on a skid pad in a driving class - even better. Yeah, you can't practice everything. But you can get used to car control in conditions other than ideal, and that goes a long way.
10) Monitor those around you. If you want to be safe, make sure you know what others are doing around you. There are two good ways of doing this. The first, and general way, is one that my Dad (someone who pays close attention to his driving) taught me to do: figure out driving patterns for specific cars. While you can't always tell a book by its cover, you often can, and it often helps. Dodge Caravans are some of the most aggressively driven vehicles on the road when a man is behind the wheel, while newer Chevy Corvettes are always always driven slowly and in the right lane. Older BMW's: often aggressive, new Audis: driven slowly and often sit in the left lane, Prius: slow and shitty, often randomly changing lanes or sitting in the left lane. There are a lot more, and I could probably even go through every major model for sale today. The second way is by marking individual cars around you. The woman on the cellphone in the SUV who keeps speeding up and slowing down, the guy who hates getting passed but refuses to speed up, the truck trying to get through on the left lane practically driving from the back seat of the car in front. And of course, the "field" - the vast majority of cars which are sort of filtered out into the background noise, the trees of your downhill course, the shifting walls of the labyrinth. Pay attention to the cars around you, and you can end up driving more safely and getting where you wanted to go faster.
Personally, I would love to see a class in high school devoted to driving. I think it could be fun and informative while greatly reducing the number of accidents (especially fatal ones) on the roads every year. Right now, the driving exam is basically a joke, it means that you know what the pedals do and that you can read signs. It would be like saying that you are capable of using a gun because you figured out what the trigger did.
So here, according to me, are the top 10 most important things you can do to make yourself something other than the incredibly shitty drivers which populate our roads like rats
1) The left lane is the passing lane. Move right unless you are passing someone. Move right if there is someone moving faster than you behind you. If you are on a single lane road and there is a huge chain of cars behind you, pull over and let them pass. If someone tries to pass you on a single lane road, pull a little to the left and let them pass. Going slow DOES NOT mean you are being a safe driver. You 'might' be safe, but you are causing road rage and crazy driving behind you, with good cause, and that leads to accidents. You are at fault in those accidents.
2) Pay attention. Changing lanes is not something to be done on a whim. LOOK, signal first, and make sure you KNOW there is no one in the spot you are trying to move into. Every decision should actually be considered, evaluated, and then made. Not simply made.
3) Be consistent. Random driving causes huge problems. Speeding up and slowing down especially. If you are doing 85mph when there is no one around, but slow down to 70mph when there is another car around, you suck and I hate your guts, and you cause traffic jams and accidents. Along with this, if you are doing 68 in the left lane and you are getting undertaken because you are slow and should move over, you are an unsafe raging asshole if you accelerate to not let the other guy in. Along with this, if you are going very slow as you pass a group of cars and are holding up a much faster moving car behind you, and then when you finally move over, you accelerate - you are also an asshole. You were in the way, it's your fault, deal with it. Being undertaken in almost any situation is a sign that you are in the wrong lane, with a few notable exceptions (see #7). Stop being arbitrary. Basically, try an make the same decisions the same way, all the time. If there is a big gap in traffic, and then a smaller gap in traffic, if you don't pull out in the big one, no one will expect you to pull out in the little one. Same goes for turns and lots of other decisions.
4) On the highway, use your brakes as little as possible. Braking hard just because you see red lights in front of you IS NOT SAFE. Again - you might be safe, but you just caused a traffic jam and possibly a pile up behind you. This is made worse by following closely behind the car in front of you...
5) Do not follow closely behind the car in front of you, unless they need to get the hell out of the way. Ok - there are a lot of people out there violating rule #1, and they need to be told that they are violating rule #1. Even still, try not to get too close. In dry conditions, this means not only are you going to brake-accelerate-brake-accelerate and cause waves of traffic behind you (yes - you are starting traffic jams) while you are burning more fuel than necessary, you are also more likely to start and be part of an accident. This is especially true in snowy conditions. For some reason, the idiots around me in Boston seem to think that winter driving involves going slow and staying right behind the car in front, hitting your brakes all the time, this is idiotic.
6) Know your car. Your car is very important to you. When you are driving, it is an extension of you. You should know your car well, be aware of it, listen to it and understand its capabilities and limitations. The most basic feature here is know how big your car is: this is critical for driving in traffic. Also, know your blind spots, know how good your brakes are, how your car handles rain and snow, how well your car handles on corners or at high speed, know what your engine sound like when it is running well and know how fast your car can accelerate when it is needed. None of these require any technical knowledge: you don't need to be a mechanic, you just need to pay attention. Your car is a complex, impressive, and capable machine. Pay it a little attention and you will be a lot better off.
7) Pay attention to traffic patterns and adjust your driving accordingly. There are different types of traffic, especially on highways (I plan on writing a whole piece about this some time). Pay attention to them, and change your driving accordingly. There are times when traffic is spotty, and big blocks are formed because there is some idiot sitting in the left lane (fuck you lady in the silver Pontiac Gran Prix who made me sit in traffic for 30minutes yesterday), in those conditions, making that driver wake up and breaking up the clot are good things. In continuous heavy traffic, where as far as the eye can see there are minimal gaps and everyone is going the same speed, if you are weaving through traffic you are just being a dangerous asshole - unless your wife's (or your own I suppose) water just broke, and then you are being a dangerous asshole with cause.
8) Learn what to do when shit goes wrong. Driving well is not about being able to go down a highway at 70mph without hitting anything. A 1st grader could be taught to do that - and do all the time in computer games. Skidding, snow and ice, mechanical failure, tire blowouts, aquaplaning: these are all relatively common issues, and you should know what to do. As a general rule, the best thing you can do is not freak the fuck out. Many accidents, especially single-car accidents, or single-car accidents which then lead to multi-car accidents, are caused because something goes wrong and then someone flips out and does something crazy. Often, if you simply held the wheel straight and either avoided braking or gently applied the brakes (or sometimes the accelerator), everything would be fine. Case in point: the Firestone "rollovers" were caused by people, not tires. At 75mph, if your tire completely blows out (which is worse than the tread coming off - what happened in these cases) if you just hold the wheel, put on your hazards, and get off the side of the road, everything should be fine. It is often a bad reaction which causes a bad accident.
9) Practice what to do when shit goes wrong. Yes - practice. Seems crazy, but if the first time that you go into a skid is on a highway, thats probably not a good thing. But if your first time is a snowy parking lot - that's a lot better. If your first time is on a skid pad in a driving class - even better. Yeah, you can't practice everything. But you can get used to car control in conditions other than ideal, and that goes a long way.
10) Monitor those around you. If you want to be safe, make sure you know what others are doing around you. There are two good ways of doing this. The first, and general way, is one that my Dad (someone who pays close attention to his driving) taught me to do: figure out driving patterns for specific cars. While you can't always tell a book by its cover, you often can, and it often helps. Dodge Caravans are some of the most aggressively driven vehicles on the road when a man is behind the wheel, while newer Chevy Corvettes are always always driven slowly and in the right lane. Older BMW's: often aggressive, new Audis: driven slowly and often sit in the left lane, Prius: slow and shitty, often randomly changing lanes or sitting in the left lane. There are a lot more, and I could probably even go through every major model for sale today. The second way is by marking individual cars around you. The woman on the cellphone in the SUV who keeps speeding up and slowing down, the guy who hates getting passed but refuses to speed up, the truck trying to get through on the left lane practically driving from the back seat of the car in front. And of course, the "field" - the vast majority of cars which are sort of filtered out into the background noise, the trees of your downhill course, the shifting walls of the labyrinth. Pay attention to the cars around you, and you can end up driving more safely and getting where you wanted to go faster.
As a new driver, I really appreciate this article. Thanks--though I've been on the road for almost a year, I still have a lot to learn.
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