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Every teenager runs into the age-old paradox at some point before becoming a licensed driver. They can’t drive until they have the experience, but they can’t get experience without driving. Both sides of the issue have a point. We don’t want inexperienced drivers on the road who might be hazards to both themselves and others. At the same time, we can’t condemn millions of teenagers to perpetual adolescence.
At our driving school in Orange County, we want our drivers to learn the techniques that will keep them and others safe. We call these “defensive driving” techniques. They are like the fundamentals of baseball or swimming, and like those two venerable sports, they have lifetime benefits.
Attention Span
In the modern world, there are highly technical devices constantly clamoring for our attention, and they aren’t all mobile phones. The fastest road to a traffic collision is for the driver to be looking elsewhere.
Drivers need to be observant, front and behind and side to side. When the time comes that a driver cannot be attentive, then driving needs to cease until attention can be restored. The alternative is not a safe option for anyone. In particular, other drivers have no idea that a nearby car is being driven by someone who isn’t paying attention.
The Other Guy
Defensive drivers never depend on other drivers for safety. They plan for the unexpected. Offensive drivers will change lanes suddenly without signaling and come to a screeching halt for no apparent reason. They will try to beat the left turn arrow and hold up an entire intersection.
A defensive driver from behind the wheel driving school will see these things coming long before they actually happen, and will be able to prepare for them.
Drivers who don’t learn this principle are usually the ones who merrily hammer into the front fender of the car trying to beat the light, which holds up traffic even longer. Almost all rules of safe driving derive from anticipating bad decisions by other drivers and from expecting dangerous conditions. It all starts with seeing another driver and assuming they are going to swerve across four lanes to get to their exit.
Speed
This is the maxim that precedes most teenage-driver accidents. If concerned moms had their way, every new driver would be issued a Pasadena grandmother’s station wagon with their license and forced to drive in second gear until they are old enough to vote.
The reason speed is so dangerous is because young drivers don’t have enough experience to understand how hard it is to stop in an emergency. They also don’t know how quickly oversteering can cause them to lose control until it happens, and often by then, it’s too late. Reducing speed must be at the heart of any defensive driving regimen. That, combined with watching those other cars like villains in a spy movie are driving them, will lead to much safer roads.