Safe Speed Forums

....changing lane/looking away from front view whilst approaching hazards/intrusions to smooth flowing traffic?

Only by experience and knowledge of local area have I avoided many a shunt when I have been concentrating on changing lane near lights/crossings/in town, incidentally this is where you are most likely to need to change lane and also where most hazards are.

Maybe changing lane and you have a quick glance (time taken to check speedo) in mirror then over shoulder only to turn round and car in front is braking hard or stopped.

The best avoiding action, I find, is to leave a good stopping distance, even then I have been very lucky not to have a bump.

Could this possibly be the cause of about 95% of urban/town accidents?

One accident I seen happening (and one I nearly done myself) was two drivers trying to get on a roundabout, the lead driver appears to go then hesitates (bad judgement of oncoming car speed), whilst the lead driver is starting to move the back driver ASSUMES the lead car is going and then starts to move whilst checking the oncoming traffic to his right, unbeknown to him, in this time, the lead driver has stopped whilst he is still moving. Need I say more?

Yet another accident lost in the statistics of the dft!

Regards

Andrew

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It's a scam........or possibly a scamola


Homer Simpson

I'm sure this is one of the most common accidents. There's often broken glass at roundabouts, no?
I always try to remember this when I aproach a roundabout and always have since driving lessons, but even so there have been a couple of occasions when I realised that if "they" had stopped I wouldn't have been able to!
If I'm behind I try to leave a good gap and look forward before accelerating. If I am in front then I'll make sure I don't have my foot on the brake if I think I might be about to get a gap. Other than trying not to hesitate in the first place, if I realise that I need to stop I'll make sure I put my brake lights on as soon as possible because the lights turning on is the most noticable thing I can do, the person behind should see this even in the corner of their eye.

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Andrew.

'Inattention' is almost certainly the number 1 crash cause. As we gain more experience our judgement about when we can afford to direct attention away from the road ahead continues to improve.

The 'roundabout' thing is indeed common. The fundamental lesson is: 'look where you're going!' simple, vital advice. I've heard instructors say: 'Never drive anywhere where you haven't already been with your eyes'.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

yeah, never done that myself but been passenger in a few. trick is never assume, or assume people will do the most dimwitted, slow and awkward thing possible.

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Fear is a weapon of mass distraction

OK this discussion has jogged a few other thoughts on near misses/gaining driving experience etc.

Quick note on roundabout scenario. If I am in this situation I do not take my eyes off the car in front until it has moved away from the stop area.

One thing I learned (quickly!) about motorway driving after I passed my test....if you are driving in any lane on the m'way and you go to change lane (say from inside to middle lane), another driver might just be changing from outside to middle, in other words, 2 cars trying to get into the same lane Worst still the outside lane driver can be approaching at speed, and edging over towards you from behind in your blind spot.


Also, nearly bought a copy of the Highway Code yesterday I think I feel a more mature attitude towards driving now that I am in the 30's
Maybe IAM test next?

Regards

Andrew

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It's a scam........or possibly a scamola


Homer Simpson

I did this, years ago. I can say you only ever do it once! I've been very careful ever since...

I came over a bridge in Falkirk once driving an artic. Free flowing traffic, 30 limit. I checked my mirrors, and when I looked back, the traffic had pretty much stopped not 100 yards in front, and me still doing 30
I hit the brakes, knowing I couldn't stop in time, and seeing that the other side of the road was clear, yanked the wheel right (god bless ABS!) As I saw the back of the car in front disappearing under the left hand side of my windscreen, I was waiting for the bump, which never happened; I came to a stop on both sides of the road with the front of my trailer level with the back of his car.
I consider myself a good driver - usually. When you drive as much as we truckers do, you'll get incidents like that occasionally. The important thing is to learn from them. I don't think I've ever learnt so much so quickly- I've certainly never done it again!

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We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the kerb.

This is what you want to go with those lessons.

I'd say that if you haven't got time to look in your mirrors before carrying out a manoeuvre then you are travelling too fast for the situation.

Looking before doing something - if you watch other drivers approaching a junction or roundabout, you'll usually see them look to the right and that's all. It's only good fortune that most of these turn left at a junction without colliding with anything. At the roundabout making assumptions about what other drivers will do is often the cause of minor shunts. The driver who gets rear-ended when joining a roundabout could be said to have encouraged a collision if he/she moves forward onto the roundabout then stops, knowing that other drivers are likely to only look to the right and assume that the car in front has gone!

The last collision I had 3 years ago was when I stalled at a junction and the driver behind did just that.

I did that, about 20 years ago. It was an unmarked police car with CID officers in it! It was more of a 'kiss' than a 'bump', there was no damage to either car as it was the 80's and those massive grey ABS bumbers were on both cars and we sort of bounced off each other. They let me off once they had got my name and address, and I heard nothing more about it.

I had packed in smoking (for the first time) a few days earlier, after they showed me their badges I needed a ciggy!

It is, as mentioned in an earlier post, something you will only do once. But even now, 20 years on, as I write about my cheeks are reddening.

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

Two of my drivers have done that - the most recent drove into another work vehicle