Safe Driving
The Importance of Safe Driving
According to the Center for Disease Control, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among people ages 5-34 in the United States.1 In fact, between 2000 and 2005, 42,000 people died on our country’s roads and highways.2 Additionally, the lifetime costs of crash-related deaths and injuries among drivers and passengers were $70 billion in 2005.3 While all of these are the result of accidents, a large percentage of these are accidents that could have been avoided through proper application of safe driving techniques.
Safe driving techniques, as taught in defensive driving courses across the country, are methods that one can do to avoid most risky situations and prepare oneself to properly handle those that do arise. Safe driving is all about managing the inherent risk that comes from driving out on the roads. Roads fraught with unforeseen dangers and conditions that can turn an otherwise safe vehicle into a screaming metal deathtrap. In being a safe driver one must learn to anticipate these events in addition to having the skills necessary to counter or mitigate damage should they occur. These skills are used by safe drivers to manage and minimize this risk and are classified and taught as defensive driving.
Defensive driving itself is often classified into sections based upon assessing the various risk factors that appear every day out on America’s roadways. These are all based upon the idea of staying focused, alert and wary of the actions of other drivers. These three ideas are used in conjunction to help a driver to search for, identify, and execute appropriate action when threats occur on the road way.
The first of these, maintaining focus, is the key to both scanning for potential hazards from other drivers and also for making sure that one is maintaining their own safe driving behaviors. This step is the first, and perhaps most important, in the defensive driving chain because in that it forms the basis upon
According to the Center for Disease Control, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death among people ages 5-34 in the United States.1 In fact, between 2000 and 2005, 42,000 people died on our country’s roads and highways.2 Additionally, the lifetime costs of crash-related deaths and injuries among drivers and passengers were $70 billion in 2005.3 While all of these are the result of accidents, a large percentage of these are accidents that could have been avoided through proper application of safe driving techniques.
Safe driving techniques, as taught in defensive driving courses across the country, are methods that one can do to avoid most risky situations and prepare oneself to properly handle those that do arise. Safe driving is all about managing the inherent risk that comes from driving out on the roads. Roads fraught with unforeseen dangers and conditions that can turn an otherwise safe vehicle into a screaming metal deathtrap. In being a safe driver one must learn to anticipate these events in addition to having the skills necessary to counter or mitigate damage should they occur. These skills are used by safe drivers to manage and minimize this risk and are classified and taught as defensive driving.
Defensive driving itself is often classified into sections based upon assessing the various risk factors that appear every day out on America’s roadways. These are all based upon the idea of staying focused, alert and wary of the actions of other drivers. These three ideas are used in conjunction to help a driver to search for, identify, and execute appropriate action when threats occur on the road way.
The first of these, maintaining focus, is the key to both scanning for potential hazards from other drivers and also for making sure that one is maintaining their own safe driving behaviors. This step is the first, and perhaps most important, in the defensive driving chain because in that it forms the basis upon