Chasing tail

I know that everyone thinks they are generally a safe driver and that the idiot you happen to be following must have gotten his/her driving license as a free gift from a cereal box. Well as much as that is probably true, we do lose some of our driving skills the older we get. Complacently inevitably sets in and we get a little lazier with some of the more finer points of welding a half ton moving object on the roads. So I see nothing wrong in periodically questioning some of our own habits and actively adjusting where necessary. A "top up" course every 10 years would be the optimum way of doing this, although few people would relish taking their test again and again and again. For this reason, I have put together a list of a few things to mull over....I do hope that I am helping and do not sound "holier than thou". Not my intention at all , I promise!

Travelling distance. Can you remember memorizing all those stopping distances in the highway code book - ready to trot them out verbatim at the written test? Even if you still remembered the correct stopping distance for when you are travelling in a forward direction at 40mph, how would you know if you are a safe enough distance from the "also travelling in a forward direction" car in front. I certainly don't. Answer? The two/three second rule. Pick a static object at the side of the road, when the car in front passes said object, start counting "one elephant, two elephant", by which time - you should be passing the static object. (Three seconds are needed for when the weather is bad or the light is bad etc).

Posture. Back in the day when you passed your driving test, I can bet that you were posture perfect and had "ten to two" hands on the steering wheel. Check your current seating position, is your chair a little too far reclined? Obviously the angle of your chair recline is to aid your own comfort but food for thought here is that when the car manufacturers put the crash test dummy's in the cars and smash them to pieces to check the safeness of their vehicles - the crash test dummy's are ALWAYS in the upright position. Also, the manufacturers position of the seat belts and the air bags and all the other safety features are built around the same upright positions of the crash test dummies.

Handy hands. No surprises here! Make sure that you have both hands on the wheel as much as possible in a relaxed but firm grip. Avoid needless distractions and try not to multitask, (phone, excessive radio changing, eating, applying make up etc).

Speed limit. The speed limits on certain roads are calculated for many reasons. Mostly to do with the likelihood of pedestrians suddenly walking out in front of you and the speed that you need to be travelling for them to have a chance of survival. Also, the road ahead may have blind spots and/or sharp turns - so in order to stop your car from overturning, running someone over, crashing, scratching the paint, hitting another car, scraping the rims, spilling your piping hot coffee or whatever other damage you can do in your beloved car, observing speed limits seems to me to be a very good idea.

Thank you for listening yet again....I repeat that although I am not the worlds' most perfect driver, (far from it!), I just wanted to point out some of the things I find myself thinking about when I am on the roads.