Speed & Safety – 10 Major Safe Driving Techniques

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The Driver

  • Internal and external pressures to driver faster than competence

 

The Vehicle

  • Different vehicles have different handling characteristics
  • When driving an unfamiliar vehicle allow time to get use to its controls and handling

 

Road, weather & traffic conditions

  • When adapting speed anticipate and plan for potential as well as actual dangers

 

Speed limits

  • Statutory speed limits set maximum permissible speed
  • Safe speed determined by the conditions at the time
  • At night, conditions of low visibility or high traffic statutory speed limit may be excessive.
  • The onus is always on the driver to select a speed appropriate for the conditions

 

How speed affect the driver vision

  • As you drive faster, the nearest point in which you can accurately focus moves away from you
  • Foreground detail becomes blurred and observation becomes more difficult because you have to process more information in less time
  • Scan further ahead, so that you gain more time to assess, plan and react.

 

Using Speed Safely

  • The skill of driving safely at speed is not easily acquired
  • Every driver has their own speed limit (highest speed at which they are safe and comfortable in any given situation)
  • You should know what your speed limit is and never go beyond it

 

Overtaking

  • Driving at high speeds may entail frequent overtaking
  • Careful preparation, positioning, observation and judgement of speed and distance
  • Adapt speed to circumstances
  • The faster you go the less time you have to react and the more disastrous the possible consequences

 

Key Safety Points

  • Do not drive at speed unless you are competent, and it is safe to do so
  • Be familiar with the controls and the handling characteristics of your vehicle – use the controls smoothly
  • High-speed driving requires maximum attentiveness – if you cannot achieve a high level of attentiveness because of fatigue or some other cause, do not drive
  • Always drive so that you can stop within the distance you can see to be clear, by day or by night
  • If you double your speed you quadruple your braking distance