I am resuming my blog entries and for solely my non-fiction work. ALLOW ME TO CALL YOUR ATTENTION TO A MAJOR CAUSE OF 'ACCIDENTS' ON OUR ROADWAYS THESE DAYS.
As I drive around town and out on Highways and roadways, I notice a lot of bad driving habits of motorists in my vicinity. The most glaring on the Interstate and also common on city streets is the habit (bad) of a driver holding their left foot over or touching lightly the brake while accelerating with the right foot. This is especially noticeable with the larger SUVs. At least I notice it. No doubt it is the person driving that is worried about not stopping in time. And rightfully they should be worried. I checked up on it. Fifty four percent (54%) of collisions are from late braking. But no, holding one’s foot over the brake while traveling and even accelerating is not the correct measure to take. The correct measure is to add another car-length between the motor vehicle that one is traveling behind. In other words add a car length or even two to the following distance. That’s the right action and thereby also quit giving motorists behind your SUV/car a false signal when they see your brake lights come on when they shouldn’t.
The other bad and annoying and unnecessary habit I see is a motorist will start off from a traffic light and speed up only to brake again at the next light. Nearsightedness? Probably right but if that were the case should they even be driving? No one can drive a car on automatic responses learned and welded in by boring repeated day-to-day commuting. Not workable. It gives me not an ounce of joy and no satisfaction to make a joke of how most motorists are excellent at braking and lousy at driving; about 80/20 at a rough estimate. OK, so I might have had the luck of being a race car driver in some past existence* and I’ve retained some of those skills and awareness, and therefore my standards are superior to those of a typical motorist. But that’s what standards are for: to safeguard the lives of those who use our public thoroughfares from undertrained motorists and motorists obviously deficient in driving skills and awareness.
*And even if not from some past existence, four years of chauffeuring this life sets my standards.
If this blog entry seems interesting or helpful, grab a copy of The Careful vs. The Careless Driver, at either Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com or Smashwords.com
Charles Van Heyden Author/Chauffeur