It’s been a bad week for MVI’s (motor vehicle incidents) here on Pender. It helps to be able to help, through the fire department and ambulance service, but seeing lives so abruptly changed is tough, especially after being through it myself last year.
Here’s how to have a more survivable accident:
Wear your seatbelt properly, every time.
Slow down.
Secure all that loose crap in the car (imagine getting beaned by a full can of pop thrown my a major-league pitcher).
Nobody rides in the back of a pickup truck. Ever.
I’ve developed a bit of a fondness for the folks on this board, so please forgive this bit of mothering.
I used to commute to and from work on the metra-train. Once when we were pulling out of a station the train barely got out of the station when it came to a stop again.
It wasn’t impressive enough a stop for the people around me to stop reading their newspaper or book and look out the window but I did.
What I saw was an automobile still spinning around and around from the train hitting it. The driver must have thought they had enough time to cross the tracks before the train built up speed coming out of the station.
Both occupants of the car were killed.
Or play a harmonica. You’d be amazed at how, on some harmonica forums, they can blah on about how practising the harp is such a good use of driving time.
Excellent post–just one minor point, brought to mind by my drive back home today:
“Slow down” isn’t always good driving advice, particularly on highways. Driving too slow and impeding traffic makes you more likely to have a wreck in the first place.
Move with the flow of traffic, and always let faster traffic move past you unimpeded.
If you are unable to safely drive at highway speeds, please plan another route that doesn’t involve driving on the highway.
Always assume the other driver is “impaired” or an idot driver. Around here, this is very often the case. I drive for a living and expecting anything has saved me more than a few times. I must always be ready to run off the road to avoid these types.
That seems a little harsh, don’t you think? After all, I’m typing this on my blackberry while driving, and I only have to take both hands off the wheel when the cell phone rings and I have to put down the blackberry, deal with the cell, refold the map, take another bite of a sandwich, and grab another six pack from the back seat…
Don’t tailgate. Keep a proper distance away from the car in front of you, so when they come to a sudden stop (remember, they’re an idiot and will do that), you have time to slow down before smashing into them. And keep extra distance when the streets are wet/snowy/icy.
Kids in the backseat, and properly restrained in their carseat/booster seats. Kids up to 80 pounds need to be in a booster. Yeah, I rode seatbeltless in the front seat when I was a kid too, and survived, but that was dumb luck. Don’t take that chance with your children or grandchildren.
Oh, I’d never use my knees to steer. They are more valuable for keeping books open to the right page and keeping a cold beer from falling over. Elbows are for steering, after all.
I did see a young man last summer on the busiest street in town reading a comic at the stop light. The bad thing was, when the light turned green he turned the page, obviously still reading, and drove off.
Yesterday coming home from work I was beside a woman who had the cell phone up to her ear held up with her shoulder while she ate a burger while driving.
I’m not perfect though. I have talked on the cell phone while driving, and I have eaten while driving - but not a messy burger!
This is all what we would call common sence in Sweden.
Lots of people don’t follow these advice, but most of them aren’t stupid, they just don’t give a ****. Too bad for them.
Have to confess that I’m one of them sometimes
I mean, I do stop to eat lunch, I hate it when people talk in their cell phones while driving and I almost always wear my seat belt, can’t think of any good reason not to. The only thing is that I might be driving a bit too fast some times, but that sort of stuff never goes out of control. Not on public roads anyway.
Learn what the term “merge” means. Especially when getting on the highway. And especially when I’m behind you. It doesn’t mean get on the highway at 35mph when the traffic is going 70mph (and I’m the one behind you, so I’M the one with the 18 wheeler coming up my butt).
And if I’m the one ON the highway, with no way to move over to the left lane, it doesn’t mean getting on at 35mph or STOPPING in front of me! It means I’ll leave you a space to get on at the same speed we all are currently going.
Learn that MOST cars now adays have turn signals. And not only do they turn ON, they also turn OFF.
Don’t drive an automatic with 2 feet. Driving “at speed” with your brake lights continually flashing on and off wears out your pads, and it drives those behind you (me) nuts.
Do NOT expect me to floor it when the light turns green. Around here, a red light means 3 more cars trying to make it through the intersection, and I do not want to get T-boned, so I tend to wait a second or two before going. If you hit that horn the second the light turns green, I just may wait a little longer…
Unless you ARE driving an 18 wheeler or a bus, you DON’T need to swing into the left lane to make a right turn. If you DO need to do so, try slowing down before the turn.
Just because you have 4 wheel drive doesn’t mean you can STOP any faster than me on ice.
Saturday evening as my wife and I were on our way to our weekend job we decided to pull into a Subway for a sandwich. As we were turning into the driveway a feller in a big pickup truck ran smack into our rear end and blew our little Dodge Intrepid’s shit away. I’m really rather sad about that, because the car was still in near showroom condition with less than 100k miles on it (and for a 1995, that’s practically stellar).
The upshot is, the guy’s paying for my rental car…
2006 Dodge Charger R/T…
You might have a good point there!
