YET THEY COULD BECOME EVEN SAFER THAN MATURE DRIVERS BY TAKING THE DEFENSIVE DRIVER'S PLEDGE
READ HOW THEY CAN DO IT BELOW.
Many Road deaths and serious injuries (KSI) are caused by young and newly qualified
drivers. Are they bound to die on the roads? Or is there a way to save their lives?
Are you the parent of a young L driver taking training?
How can YOU prevent the newest driver in your family passing the driving test and, within
a few weeks, writing off the family car, killing his or her friends and themselves, all through a single, simple but stupid act of driving 'carelessly'? They don't necessarily INTEND to kill themeselves. All they need to do is forget the basic rules of safe driving that enabled them to pass their driving test.
Can you live with their stupidity - after they have killed themselves?
Most car crashes and road deaths are not caused by dangerous drivers; but the simple silly or stupid actions taken without thought by a newly qualified driver who has not QUITE LEARNED all there is to know.
Already more than two hundred ADIs across the country, followed its official Launch at the ADI-NJC Conference at Walsall UK in 2007, have joined the scheme: parents can now sign up their existing or newly qualified drivers for a short DEFENSIVE DRIVER TRAINING programme which, if followed and learned correctly, can guarantee they will not crash your car and kill them and their friends.
GET YOUR CHILD TO SIGN
THE DEFENSIVE DRIVING PROMISE -
as soon as they have completed their Defensive Driver Training Programme and give you greater peace of mind.
Just SIX or EIGHT additional lessons after they have passed their L Test may be all that is needed to keep their life-time's driving history going for another sixty years.
Failure to learn these simple techniques leads to a 200% greater chance of being killed than other drivers.
You Choose.
Can you bear to think of your children ending up like this?
Road Deaths 2006
* The number of deaths among car users in 2006 was 1,612, that was 4 per cent less than in the previous year. The number seriously injured fell by 2 per cent to 12,642. Total casualties among car users were 171,000, 4 per cent lower than 2005. Provisional traffic estimates indicate a 1 per cent rise in car and taxi traffic over the period.
* There were 189,161 road crashes involving personal injury in 2006, 5 per cent fewer than in 2005. Of these, 27,872 involved death or serious injury, less than 1 percent fewer than in 2005 (27,942). In 2000, the Government announced a new road safety strategy and set new targets for reducing casualties by 2010.
189,161 road crashes
71,612 car user road deaths
12,642 car user serious injuries
171,000 total car user casualties
189,161 Road crashes involving personal injury in 2006,
27,872 involved death or serious injury,
Less than 8% of drivers (those under the age of 21) are involved in more than 30% of night time road deaths.
What do you learn on A DEFENSIVE DRIVING TRAINING COURSE?
SIX or EIGHT additional hours training can help new drivers improve their own personal risk by 400%. A Ten-hour Defensive Driver Training Course can make them permanently safe
Defensive Driving involves: Anticipation; Awareness; Care; Consideration; Control; Eco-Driving; Planning; and Personal Responsibility.
The Defensive Drivers’ Promise involves taking a vow and promising your partner, your parents and relatives, your colleagues and all other road users, that you will always:
- Avoid making yourself or any other road users vulnerable
- Avoid reacting badly to other road users’ stupidity;
- Look for, and maintain, your own Safety Cushion”;
- Treat every journey as if it might be your last on this earth.
If you have never thought about your driving skills and behaviour since you passed your driving test, then you definitely need to have your driving looked at professionally; more than anything else this will spell out your own personal risk assessment very precisely for you. You owe it to your family, your employer, other road users and yourself.
Here are a few of the things they will be taught:
There are five simple safeguards that can be applied by all drivers which can guarantee they will never become involved in anyone else’s incident, or – worst of all – create their own personal little bit of chaos of bloody body parts and bent metal on the roads. Say this to yourself every time you get into your car and whenever you need to remember your safety:
“THINK FIVE!”
First of all think a further five seconds ahead than before. Look at least ten, or better still, fifteen seconds, ahead of where you are now. That way you don’t have to panic – you simply plan instead.
Second – never become fourth or more in any moving traffic queue. In any moving line of traffic as soon as there are more than three vehicles ahead of you, drop back until you have an additional five and ten seconds clear driving space between you and anyone ahead. If the vehicles behind you are closer than three or four seconds drop back even further. If they then overtake you, at least they won’t run into you. Would you rather have an idiot grinning at you in your mirror – or ahead of you leaping dangerously past everyone else in the queue?
Third – never commence any right turn until you have checked that the road you are turning into is clear. Never try to beat oncoming traffic by turning in front of them; look well into the road before you start to turn.
Fourth – only overtake when you have worked out exactly how far it will take you to complete the overtaking manoeuvre in complete safety. If you are driving at the legal limit on a single carriageway it takes half a mile to safely overtake another vehicle travelling at 55 mph. When was the last time you could see a clear road for half a mile or more? Confirm your safe arrival point before commencing any turn; or wait where you can do so safely.
Appreciate the distances covered in any overtake situation and confirm that the time needed for the action is really and safely available. Can you really guarantee the road ahead is clear for sixty seconds? (if there are two vehicles on a collision course at 60 mph, they need at least one mile separation at the start)
Fifth – and finally – think on behalf of all the other road users within hitting distance of your own vehicle. Mentally put yourself in their position; and then imagine that they are daydreaming, driving a car with dodgy brakes, or haven’t taken into account the fresh greasy surface after a shower on a hot road. Or have borrowed dad’s company car illegally; or just hotwired it for a short trip. Give everyone else a little bit more time and a lot more space.
Think FIVE and have a nice long safe driving year; and you might make it through to NEXT year too.
Just allow yourself another five seconds for safety.
Here is a game for passengers to play - but best not by those actually driving.
Identify your fellow road users?
One of the regular in-car games that I played with my children and grandchildren, was to identify other road users.
Perhaps the most prolific are members of that famous institution:
The Middle Lane Owners Club.
No matter what other traffic exists, they stick rigidly in the middle lane of every motorway. Long service members are those who also drive at a constant 52 mph, thus preventing trucks from overtaking. (They usually stick to this speed limit in towns and 40 mph limits too!)
Then there are those who belong to the
Centre Line Shufflers.
Regardless of the width of any single carriageway these drivers (and especially riders) insist on keeping their front wheels three inches from the centre lines. They do it because they know they will never meet another member doing the same thing coming the other way of course! Well, perhaps just the once!!
Keen observers will also recognise members of the
Constant Speed Club.
They drive at a steady 40 mph all the way through the countryside where the national speed limit is 60 mph. However they can best be spotted when they enter built-up areas where the stated speed limit drops to 30 mph or less. They continue blithely on at a constant 40 mph.
More sneaky are members of the
Caravan Syndrome Society.
These drivers hang on closely to the vehicle ahead as it emerges left or right into a main road and follow it tightly. They live (and die) by the well-known principle that says if there is room for one car to emerge then there is almost room for a second. After all they are close enough to be considered to be a caravan attached to their predecessor.
Dedicated followers of this fashion can be elevated to membership of the
Continuing Caravan Owners’ Syndrome Society.
These are the drivers who know that they can still emerge even when they are third or fourth in a queue of traffic trying to join traffic coming on the main road.
It is believed that such drivers are required to belong to the
Tailgater’s Gang
for at least five years before they can join. Guess what Tailgaters do!
Motor Cyclists, especially on the main commuter runs, are automatic members of the
Inter-lane Weavers & Wanderer’s Fraternity.
Membership of this august body is offered free with every motorcycle. Use of this facility is noticeably in direct inverse proportion to the power of the bike used.
Pedestrians can be classified too: there is the
Pavement Gutter Hugger.
These keep one foot right near the edge of the gutter, twitching their backsides every now and again as if to dart across the road. They score extra marks when they suddenly dash across within fifty feet of the zig-zag lines approaching pedestrian crossings; but not actually on one.
However, pride of place really has to be given to those members of the
Baby Carriage Passenger Pushers Assisted Suicide Society.
These can best be identified by looking for the terrified faces of the push-chair occupants who are about to be ‘assisted’. Again most of these can be found emerging between parked cars two feet above the ground.
Some drivers are in a category of their own !
Finally
One of my favourite past-times is to remember the driving habits of friends and family (on my wife's side naturally!); I remember their little quirks. And I imagine that a clone of them is at the wheel at every vehicle within hitting distance of me. We have a friend who always occupies the centre lane of a motorway and always drives at 56 mph because he was once told that 56 is the most economic speed to drive. A pity he never believes my comments on how tough it is for truck drivers to get past him. My wife has a friend who spends ten minutes on the cockpit drill of her “Chelsea Tractor”; then drives everywhere at a steady forty miles an hour, regardless of whatever speed limits the local authorities have imposed.
The best thinking drivers regularly take advanced driving assessments and, even then, although their knowledge is much better and their vehicle handling skills are really brilliant, they need to update their driving behaviour to match. If you think about your driving at all you will know the benefits of having your driving independently assessed and approved. In the next two or three articles it might be worth looking at how you can do this, cheaply, easily and effectively.
Safe driving in the Spring time is just as important as at any other time of the year; but the dangers are often much greater because drivers are lulled into false senses of security. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and all is well with the world – until…. Until, that is, someone up front brakes hard and takes everyone by surprise. Oooops! What were you thinking when you should have been reading the road?
Please don't let this be the end ...... ?