Defensive Driving.......it can save your life!

Well as I mentioned last night I spent all day Thursday at a defensive driving course...paid for by work. It was fantastic and I feel so much more confident.....although it was a very scary and stressful day.

It started at 7.30am....we began with information about seat adjustment, airbags, steering, seatbelt and mirrors. Do you ever drive crossing over your hands?.....DON'T. They explained that if you were in an accident with your hand over the middle of the steering wheel and the airbag is triggered the injury you can suffer is extreme...not only will it shatter your wrist but the skin on your arm!!!!! I won't say any more except make sure you use the push/pull method to steer from now on.

Then we moved on to emergency braking.....thank god I have ABS brakes and don't have to worry about locking up my wheels....makes life so much easier trust me. We had to drive down a hill....to get the car up to 60Km....then drive straight towards the instructor and keep driving until he drops his hand to tell you to stop. It was so unsettling and scary to drive your car straight at someone.....I was so tense after it....but I know that I can safely stop my car in an emergency....hopefully stopping on time or at least reducing speed to reduce the severity of the impact. Then we practiced driving at the same instructor but the time for stopping was reduced so we needed to brake and steer around the obstacle....but stop before hitting the witches hats. This was to simulate a situation where a child might unexpectedly come out onto the road. A very good skill to get perfect.

Next we moved onto doing all the same emergency braking but with water spread all over the road....the instructor also indicated whether you needed to stop straight or brake and turn left or right.....this really increased the reaction time and made it seem all the more real....you have to make split second decisions...that can really save your life.

After lunch we had a demonstration of stopping distances....really I know all the theory about distances it takes to stop but to see it for real in front of you is very confronting. It can take you up to about 2-4 seconds to actually start braking once you realise that you need to....this time actually significantly increases the distance to stop. When John the instructor demonstrated driving with his foot near the brake...this halved the distance needed to stop...simply because it removed the reaction time. Therefore if you drive towards obstacles with the idea that you might need to stop...e.g. when there is a pedestrian....approaching the lights, driving over a hill etc....when you know that it is all safe then you go back to acceleration....really you won't loose anything but if you need to stop it could make all the difference. It was also hard to argue with the need to have 40km zones around schools....the ability to stop at this speed is undisputable and you save so much distance.....to see it in real life is just amazing! I think this demonstration should be part of ALL driver training. It is one thing to read it in a book but to see it in real life has so much more impact. Also part of this demonstration was the distance needed between cars.....you need to leave at least 2 secs....if not 3. This distance will mean that you could stop in time without hitting the car in front of you....any less than that time and there is no way you can stop.....the car that was following at a shorther distance ended up stopping 5 m past the other car....this would have been a really serious impact in real life.....if you value your life and the life of your love ones please don't tailgate.

The last activity was the skid pan....this is a concrete track that they pump water all over and then to make sure you skid they added diesel to the mix. You then drive around at 40Kms, when I started I could feel a little slippery but did not really skid....yeah! but that was not the aim of this activity so the instructor got into my car and off we went. On the first corner as I was turning he pulled the handbrake on.....the car skidded and I ended up spinning 180 degrees to face the other way. I had remebered to steer correctly but forgot to keep accelerating. My initial reaction was to try to stop....so then we kept going...the next time was better....I just ended up driving over the grass and then practicing again and again....eventually your brain learns what is needed to be done and I could easily recover. I hope I never have to use this skill in real life but it is so reasurring to know that I can deal with it if it happens.

After finishing off at 4pm I was exhausted but what a fantastic day!!!! I learnt lots of skills that could end up saving my life. I highly recommend this course to anyone who drives their car with thier precious loved ones...the skills you learn could end up avoiding an accident or minimising impact of one.