What makes "you" a safe driver?

No one’s vehicle is always in top condition because usage necessarily leads to degradation. Upkeep is a matter of keeping a vehicle in good condition, not top condition. No, I don’t turn my cellphone off because sometimes I use it as a GPS. I don’t use it as a phone, though, if that’s what you meant to ask. Yes, I always use turns signals and shoulder check before changing lanes. Yes, I keep distractions to a minimum (it’s impossible to eliminate them entirely because the whole world is a potential distraction).

Most people do their best. If you drive professionally, you’re going to see people make mistakes from time to time. Maybe you should try not to assume that the 10 seconds of someone’s life you’ve experienced defines them. It might make you less of a broken record.

Three main things: Driving defensively, never assuming I have the right of way, and never phoning or texting behind the wheel.

I leave the driving to the train driver.

LOL. Riding atop a horse instead of a car as a first choice of transportation. Horse feed is plentiful and I have to feed her weather I use her or not. Gasoline is very expensive here and there aren’t any gas stations nearby. The jeep has been basically reduced to being a farm implement.

I don’t tailgate.

^Then that makes you a perfect driver @Call_Me_Jay . I hate tailgaters.

Why is “you” in quotes?

I always shout ”fore” on the tee…

Drive with the flow, glance into the rear view mirror every ten to twelve seconds.

I have yet to kill anybody.

~agile sidewalkers.

I was rear ended twice in 6 months. I have become extremely allergic to anyone who rides behind me too close (and I don’t tailgate). If it’s a car like mine, I want to be able to at least see their headlights. If I can’t, they’re too close.

In heavy traffic, I’ve taken to entering the roadway after the clot of cars has passed. If it gets too crowded or someone tailgates me, I turn off and enter again after the traffic is thinned out.

@canidmajor Because he has no idea how punctuation works.

“What makes you a good driver” could mean “What makes one a good driver.”

What makes “you” a good driver makes it clear the question is about your personal behavior, not people in general.

Italics might be more correct. But “you” made sense to me.

I pretty much follow the law to the letter. I use my turn signals. I always come to a full stop. I never assume anything!
I had to take a Defensive Driving course years ago. (And I thought I knew how to drive after attending Driver’s Education!!!) It really opened my eyes.
@snowberry If someone tailgates me I turn on my emergency flashers.

@kritiper Does the flashers make them drop back? And why?

I think that number of tickets and number of accidents would be a fairly accurate representation of whether or not someone is a safe driver.

I just googled “definition of safe driver” and that came up, although the site I looked at said that insurance definition, law enforcement definition and other definition may be different.

I know for myself, I don’t shut off the phone. I have bluetooth built into the car. I’m not arguing with anyone about whether or not bluetooth is safe or not, as I don’t consider myself the sole defender of new technology. I can tell you that 90% of new cars sold will have bluetooth by 2016, according to this article:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Over-90-Percent-of-Cars-to-Feature-Bluetooth-Devices-by-2016-Study-Says-167469.shtml

I try to follow the law and what I learned in defensive driving classes, as far as being observant, etc. My car is at the shop more than every six months due to how much I drive. It’s only two years old so it’s still in good shape, and the tires are only a year old.

I am patient, courteous and alert.

Remaining aware of what everyone around me is doing, and keeping in mind not only what IS happening, but also what COULD happen.

And I never take any kind of phone with me.

(Whatever it is, it can wait….).

@kritiper and @chyna In my experience turning on my flashers doesn’t make anyone drop back. It just irritates them I guess, although it might cause them to be more wary of what’s going on. And police don’t like you to turn on your flashers unless you have a serious problem.

I always use my turn signal.

I feel like I know the driving laws pretty well.

I don’t eat or drink in the car. Once in a very blue moon I do, but it’s extremely rare.

I believe the other drivers might be incompetent so I drive trying to leave plenty of space around me, and I try to make predictable moves on the road.

I put my lights on in fog and rain.

I don’t drive during the hours I usually sleep.

I pull over if I feel conditions are very unsafe.

I don’t tailgate. I once in a while fkashbmy beams if a driver is really going slowly and not getting over, but if they are doing that they probably don’t give a damn the person behind them wants to go faster.

I check my rear view regularly, although, I admit I used to do this more, I’m slack on it now.

When I’m commuting (very busy 3 lane in each direction, everyone going 80 mph), if all of a sudden I come to a problem where everyone is stopped, I’ll put the flashers on for a brief bit (30 seconds maybe) so the guy flying up behind me sees there’s something unusual.

Oh yeah, in heavy rain and snow I slow the hell down! Drive like your brakes don’t work well.

I believe the other drivers might be incompetent

I can’t find the quote, but on a bicycle forum I used to frequent one of the guys had a signature that said something like, “Treat cars as if they are large animals with poor reaction times and terrible vision.”

@chyna Yes. Has worked every time for me. It makes them aware that they are too close and that you (the leading car) know it. Plus it kind of freaks them out, when those lights come on suddenly for no (other) reason.

@Call_Me_Jay Bicyclists, as well as motorcyclists, should ride as though they are invisible.

Getting into a few accidents, hopefully minor, early on makes people better drivers, assuming they accept their fair share of the responsibility. I think most accidents can be prevented but people just don’t pay close enough attention, or they expect people around them to warn them or something.

I had a girl friend in my early 20s and 30s who was a HORRIBLE driver. She didn’t pay attention to anything. She’d pull out in front of people and grumble like they’d done something wrong if they honked at her. She had, maybe 20% of her attention on the road, just enough to stay mostly in her lane. That’s it. If I commented on it she’d smugly say “I’ve never been in an accident. That’s proof that I’m a good driver.” Wrong. She was simply lucky. FINALLY she did get into an accident. Although she wasn’t in the wrong, she could have easily avoided it by paying a little extra attention. That was in our 40s. Don’t know how many since then.

I had my first accident at 17, when I stupidly, stupidly followed the yelled commands of a passenger instead of thinking for myself. Lesson learned.
I had a second in my early 20s in Seattle, in my Mom’s car. :( That’s when I learned that just because someone has their blinker on, it doesn’t mean they’re going to turn. I got the ticket, of course. Lesson learned.

Haven’t been in but one other since, and it was super minor. That was a funky deal. It was when I was coming down sick with pneumonia and I wasn’t thinking straight.

Do you alway make sure your vehicle is in top condition, tires, brakes lights, and so on? The only time I check it like that is when we’re hooking up a trailer to haul. However, sometimes I’ll check stuff while looking at the reflection in the plate glass windows at convenience stores.

Do you turn your cell phone off while driving? No, it’s on, but I never, never, never answer it or make a call, and certainly never, ever, under any circumstances, text.

Do you always use your turn signals? Sure. It’s mostly just habit. I’d have to consciously decide not to if I didn’t want to for some odd reason.

Do you always shoulder check before lane changing? Yep.

Do you always try and drive undistracted? Yes.

I still think the biggest thing is keeping as much space as possible between me and the cars in front of me. I may be flying along at 70 or 75 like they are, but they’re way the hell and gone in front of me, and I make sure they stay there. It’s like watch a pathetic movie sometimes, the way people herd and bunch up, then get pissed and whip into other lanes and charge up on people.

In town the spacing is not so large but I make sure that if traffic is rather static, everyone going the same speed, that I have my car staggered in the space between the two cars in the lane next to me so if someone makes a sudden, stupid move without looking they won’t hit me. If I’m going faster than them, I wait until the car ahead of me has cleared that space before I pass.

I view driving as a cooperative, not a competition.

Oh, and also, people tell me I’m a good driver, and they don’t feel at all nervous with me. They can tell I know what’s going on, I see what’s coming up.

I think most people believe they’re good drivers. I posted a question on another site once, “Have you ever been told you’re a good driver?”
Most people answered, “No, but I know that I am.”

driving is like swimming.
olympic swimmers are good swimmers. the average human on the other hand is a dog paddling to stay afloat.
race drivers are good drivers. the average human is a potential road menace.
That is why there are speed limits and traffic laws on public roads.
Not on race tracks, because race drivers do not need them.

I disagree that race car drivers are good drivers. My husband used to race semi-pro for many, many years. He brought along his racing habits to the street and it isn’t good. He tends to speed up when people pass him. He tends to close up gaps between him and the cars in front of him so that people can’t get in. He tends to drive faster to catch up to people even though he was fine until he caught sight of them. He used to tail gate really bad. He never read the street signs! One time we were on a 6 lane, and he was in the far right lane. He did not notice the two signs and the one picture sign that said that lane had turned into an exit. He just bonzied along. I just waited. At one point he murmured something about where to get off. I said, “Well, it’s not going to matter because you’ll be forced to exit here in a second.”
He said, “What are you talking about…OH SHIT!” And he rashly, quickly moved left. He should have continued with his exit and gotten back on in an orderly manner. But you know, those cat like reflexes race car drivers have. I also think he counts on those reflexes, which are still pretty good, more than he should to save us.

I’ve about broken him of that ridiculous, dangerous shit.

I knew another guy who had the impressionism that he was a good driver because he used to be a race car driver. He was a co-worker. Once he and I and another female co-worker were in the car with him. He got right up on this pick up truck that had shit precariously piled in the bed of the truck. It wasn’t tied down. My female coworker said, “Oh, this is so dangerous…”
Mark says, “I’m a race car driver! I know what I’m doing!”
I said, “Yeah. You’re setting us up for a wreck.”
He got pissed at both of us, and he just sat there, for miles, with this trash teetering in the truck directly in front of us. Guess he was gonna show us.

My husband races cars, he’s an instructor too, and sometimes he takes unwarranted risks on the road. He trusts other drivers too much. I keep telling him the other drivers on the interstate are not race car drivers! When he follows too closely he tells me he’s “drafting.” When he takes a turn too fast, and I complain, he doesn’t want to deal with me.

99% of the time he drives right around the speed limit, maybe 5 over, and he isn’t constantly reckless, but he has his moments.

His reaction time is better than the average driver in my opinion, but I have to agree that sometimes racers are too overconfident in their abilities, and especially the abilities of others.

I don’t like driving and I don’t own a car. I hire a car once or twice a year and drive carefully keeping within the speed limit when I do. I always signal my intentions and I am always courteous with other road users. Driving on the open road can be fun, in traffic, not so much.

My Tesla Model S with Autopilot.

@Call_Me_Jay The quotation marks aren’t merely less correct, they are wrong. Taken literally, @SQUEEKY2‘s question is asking us to talk about someone who isn’t actually us because scare quotes indicate that the word inside them is being used in a non-standard way (usually, but not always, ironically). Sure, we all know what he meant. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a mistake.

we all know what he meant

So no need to complain. It’s not a grammar fight Share your thoughts on driving.

Thanks, Jay but some people feel the need to be grammar cops, sorry for the mistake princess, the question just below this one had a word in quotations and didn’t see you bitching about that one how come?

@JLeslie Exactly! Rick tends to drive as if every other car is an experienced race car driver too. They are not on the same page as you are!

Wow @Irukandji. So what exactly does ”..10 seconds of someone’s like you’ve experienced…”, from your comment here mean? Can’t help but notice that everyone over looked it because they know what you meant.

@Call_Me_Jay Try to keep up: I already shared my thoughts on driving.

@SQUEEKY2 The next question doesn’t use quotation marks incorrectly. Good try, though.

@Dutchess_III You seem to have misread my answer. It says "life," not like." In any case, if the OP had just acknowledged his mistake and moved on, we wouldn’t have been taken down this sidetrack.)

You took it down the side track @Irukandji. Unnecessarily.

@Dutchess_III Exactly! Race car drivers barely blink when they drive. Their adrenaline is up, they are on full alert in a way that the average drive usually isn’t.

Rick is NOT far more alert on the city roads than average. If he was he wouldn’t constantly miss speed limit changing signs, road ending signs. He’d see a car at a stop light right in front of him in plenty of time, but he doesn’t. He slams on the brakes at the last minute like it took him by surprise. He just slips into his bad racing habits that are useful only on the tracks, where everyone is on the same page, but dangerous on the road.

Oh. Lol. Ok. :). I gave you a GA for the answer above.

He tends to create situations when he’s driving that causes him to go into high alert. It’s the adrenaline rush, I guess. But he creates them, without even thinking. Well, he thinks about it now! After 15 years with me in the co-pilot seat!
He knows that when I look out my side window he needs to consider how close he is to the car in front of him, and is he really going to pass…or not? He just never gave any of it much thought. Most people don’t. They just drive and do whatever other people do.

Oh good grief, oh princess @Irukandji I acknowledge I used quotation marks incorrectly please don’t throw me in the fire mountain!!
^^ OOPs two exclamation marks now the gods will surely strike me down!
What does get me is you seem a lot more forgiving about stupid drivers than a punctuation mistake, my mistake doesn’t put lives in danger just anger grammar cops like your self.

He’s quite forgiving of his own typos, as well. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t…..
have sex.

@Dutchess_III I’m going to agree with you that my husband sometimes creates situations. I think you’re right it’s partly the adrenaline, and I also think he enjoys that g force feeling, which I hate, hate is not enough of a word to describe how much I hate it.

My biggest annoyance with my husband is he doesn’t like to have to slow down. If a car comes in front of him he’ll maintain his speed hoping to change lanes, rather than adjust his speed. When he comes to a curve he’ll want to maintain speed if he knows he can take the curve, but the average driver would slow before that particular curve, that sort of thing. It’s not that he is driving like a maniac speed demon, it’s just when he should adjust down, he often doesn’t.

The worst is when traffic is ridiculously slow, and cars ride random so there is no easy way out for miles. That is bad driving in the other driver’s part. After being caught behind that crap for a time, when my husband can finally break free he goes faster, and may weave through traffic to break free, more than he typically does on a given day. Even I would weave out of shit situations like that. When slow cars don’t get back over to the right when they can, it’s incredibly frustrating.

See, that’s so typical of very young, and many male drivers. They lose sight of the fact that they are driving a 2 ton killing machine. They just need to chill, and stop with the competing. Is it really worth your life, the lives of your passengers, the lives of all those kids in that mini-van to get to your destination 2 minutes earlier?

I can tell you that about a year ago a trucker started playing aggressive games with Rick on the Freeway. (End of the story, many people turned him in and they caught him.) Rick, of course, was totally ready to play. Then he stopped and thought….what would Val tell me to do? First she would yell, ”You’re on a fucking highway doing 75 playing a game with a 20 ton truck with your little passenger car have you lost your mind????” That’s what I would say! Well, but not exactly like that, because that would get him fired up and even more angry , so I’d use a different tone and different words. But that’s what I’d mean.
So he just backed off and chilled and called the cops. The guy kept slowing down, like taunting him. Rick refused to rise to the bait. So proud of him. I did say, “You know, you could have taken an exit and got a pop or used the bathroom or something too.” Just getting off the highway for a while can fix a lot of things.

Early in my career my company forced us to take a ‘defensive driving’ course. To this day I remember a lot of what was taught and it has served me well. The big thing was and is to never expect the other guy to do the right thing. Always be ready to make an adjustment for the other guy’s mistake. It’s simple and has kept me accident free….............except for the time the cop hit me!

I paid attention in Driver’s Ed.

Another comment on race car drivers: They aren’t really “taught” per se, except by family or friends in the business. And what they learn from them is what to do and not what to do on a race track. Drafting, when to accelerate, when to back off, when to go high, when to go low, when to shift, all in the name of winning the race. It’s balls to the wall, safety takes a 4th seat.
They learn to compete, not cooperate.
None of it applies to street driving so I wouldn’t call them “professional drivers,” either.

@Squeeky2, did you have any official training and safety courses for OTR truck driving?

Well, my husband took race classes, and now he is a licensed instructor, so I would say he was taught, and he teaches.

He really doesn’t do the “risky” things that often. Like I said, he mostly drive on or close to the speed limit, and especially if the road doesn’t have a lot of traffic he basically drives like the average middle age adult who doesn’t want to worry about speed traps. Lol.

When I was in my high school driving course, they made us watch a film the last thing before we were allowed to graduate. It was all about what happens after a huge fatal wreck. The scene I remember most clearly was shoveling up someone who was nothing more than a pile of guts. There was nothing to indicate what we were seeing was human.

That scene has stayed with me the rest of my life, which is what the instructors intended.

So what did he learn in race classes, @JLeslie? How to yield or how to cut off? How to take other driver’s needs into consideration? How to maintain a safe distance between cars? Or did he learn to drive really fast, really close to others, how to pass with an inch to spare, while still managing to stay alive if possible? What did he learn that would be helpful in public street conditions?

@snowberry, we had a class mate who was killed while trying to pass on a gravel shoulder on a 2 lane. The next day our instructor just about lost it when we were acting goofy and not paying attention, and just let us have it with both barrels. He said Greg would be alive today if he had just listened to him! Shut us all the hell up and we were very subdued from that day on.

^^Oh, helpful in public street conditions? Probably, I’d guess a couple of the things you learn that applies to the streets is handling a skid, or the limits of the car. There are Driver’s Ed enhancement courses taught by instructors to teens, and any age, where they practice stopping short, so they see ow the ABS feels, and all sorts of bad situations to learn how to handle a car. I’d say racers are generally more experienced and more skilled in those bad situations.

But, like you said, the more reckless drivers create some of the bad situations on the regular roads.

Then there are things that racing school teaches that aren’t for the regular road, not that some people don’t employ them in the highways and byways. Like the apex of the turn, cutting distance, heel toe braking, drafting, etc.

When I was teaching my kids to drive I taught them how to handle skids. Like, take them to an ice covered, empty parking lot and have at it! I went first though. Had to show by example. Showed them for a long time to be sure!

You know what I wish they’d really come up with? A mandatory course in safe driving, coupled with a simulator that can throw God-knows-what at you, based on how you’re driving. If the simulator senses you tailgating, the car in front slams on their brakes, or slams into another vehicle in front of them.
A loaded truck that you’re following too close drops its load right in front of you or on you.
Driving too fast in fog, and you got a trailer pulled off the road with the back end still sticking out into the lanes. We drove through fog where exactly that had happened in the on coming lane. We counted 50 cars before we just quit. However, SOME had managed to pull off safely on the shoulder. Hmmmm. They must have been going slow enough to have time to react.

That isn’t a bad idea @Dutchess_III problem is most people wouldn’t pass, so they have to dumb down the driving test.
I think part of the driving test should be realizing you have to share the road with transports and be aware of their size, weight, and length, and fully loaded they can NOT stop like the average car can.

BTW, I see the “grammatical error” that grouchy @Irukandji tried to derail the thread with. I would have done the same thing to highlight “you,” and all the inference that implies. I rarely get modded. Never for writing standards.

I don’t know. If they had 3 shots at it before they were graded, I think most people would wise up by then.

Not wanting to get a ticket.

That’s it @Esedess? That’s your only reason?

I’ve been thinking about the simulator thing @SQUEEKY2. You know, those things are really realistic. If they have an experience like what I posted above they’d never forget it.

@Dutchess_III There’s also a matter of financial hardships that an accident entails, along with not wanting to hurt or be hurt.

So I’ll amend my answer:
To avoid physical, legal, and financial problems.

Nobody normal wants to hurt or be hurt ,and I think the average person who uses their cell phone all the time while driving thinks that as well.
The biggest problem is most people think they are the worlds best driver, and no need to improve on perfection.
WE all need to set the gadgets down, and really think about driving and what is going on around us, all of us can still learn a thing or two.
We all want to get home alive, the emails, texts, tweets ,and Facebook can wait that little bit of time can’t they?

We also need to stop shooting heroin. “Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death among Americans under 50, and new data suggest the problem is getting sharply worse in 2017.” Quoted from today’s New York Times. I’m very upset about that, too and I think it’s worthy of some jumping up and down.

So @jca are we comparing drug users , to driving, gadgets idiots?
Both are helplessly addicted and can’t help themselves?
The war on drugs has been going on for years,and by your claim getting worse,but I don’t see a win in the drug war anytime soon as long as there are addicts willing to pay and use it.
Maybe if you can get them to think for a second of the harm they are doing to themselves and their loved ones by doing drugs you might get a chance, because laws and enforcement are clearly not working .
But the addict only cares about their next high couldn’t give a shit if it even puts their life at risk.
Is that the same for the moron driver that just has to get that next text or email, couldn’t care less if it puts their life or any one else life at risk?

@SQUEEKY2: My point being that there are many things we can get very upset about.

I can also get upset about animal abuse, people fighting their dogs, abusing their pets, leaving their dogs tied up outside or in a basement for days and weeks in all kinds of weather without food or water.

I can assure you children are neglected and abused all over, too.

Scared children, scared pets, abused and neglected animals, abused and neglected children. It’s awful.

I can also get upset about a lot of things, a lot of stupid people in the world do stupid things and bad things. I can stay mad and let it affect me mentally and physically (blood pressure going up from stress, sleep loss from stress are two examples). I can go through life angry at all of it. All of it, constantly happening. Many people are clueless and bad and do stupid things and bad things.

I can spend my life saying “What is wrong with people?” Life is way, way too short for being upset about all this stuff.

You are right, let dumb drivers be they can’t help it if they were born stupid, right?
Let me know how you feel the next time a stupid driver endangers your daughters life let me know then and then I can say you just have to let it go.

What you fail to realize is drivers are far worse around transport trucks than regular vehicles, with cutting us off or very unsafe passes and it happens every freaking day at work not just once in awhile type thing.
I use this site as a way to vent my frustration with stupid drivers so I can be totally 100% professional when at work dealing with morons that just have to be cutting us off or endangering our lives.
I guess sort of the same as the political questions that go on and on and on get it now?

I realize it all, @SQUEEKY2. I choose not to dwell on it. As I explained, I can dwell on many bad things that come my way. I choose not to remain miserable and angry about these issues, as the majority of them I can’t control.

@Esedess I find it very interesting that your reasons for trying to be a good driver are so that bad things don’t happen to you.

I think you should think about it more deeply @jca. You really should. No one says you need to get angry. You just need to think about it.

@Dutchess_III I mean… I haven’t read through every comment above, but the couple I did read seemed to express efforts to that same result.

Well, they all agreed that it’s important to stay safe, but not because they could get a ticket or something.

I’ve had far more tickets than accidents in my life, and the worst part of the accidents I’ve been in were the monetary inconveniences. Guess it’s just a matter of experience.

I’ve never been in a bad accident. I’ve been in a couple of minor ones.The last was in 1985 or so, in Seattle. I haven’t gotten a ticket in 20 years. I’ve probably gotten 5 in my entire life.
I have avoided, or prevented more accidents than I can count.

@jca if anyone reading this and then experiences some one they know doing something stupid around a transport and educates that person how dangerous that was then just maybe it was worth dwelling on.
Even yourself with the truck backing into you, even though it was totally the trucks fault you had a far greater chance of avoiding it by simply being seen in his mirrors, but you refuse to see that part.

What truck? Yeah, if you can’t see them in their side mirrors, they can’t see you. I know this too because I’m the official trailer and camper backer upper director and if Rick can’t see me he’ll just run over me! I make damn sure he can see me.

A former high school classmate lost a grand son in an horrific wreck on I35 near Purcell, OK on Monday. Another grand daughter is not expected to survive and another granddaughter is in ICU with severe spinal injuries. They were 13 and younger. They were on an outing with friends. The mom of the friends was driving an SUV. There was a semi stopped in the right hand lane. Don’t know why.

She slammed into the back of it. Never even hit her brakes. She died too, along with her young son.

I didn’t know that classmate well at all, but I can’t even imagine what she is going through. I just want to scream. I want to rip something to shreds. I can’t imagine how she is feeling.