- Is this what you feel like when you drive on the highway?
Are you terrified
and have some trepidation around traveling at high speeds?
Today we're going to give you five tips and strategies
to be a safer, smarter driver on the highway.
Stick around, we'll be right back with that information.
(upbeat music)
Space management, tip number one, manage space well.
Maintain your three second following distance.
So we're following the big truck.
The big truck is going past
the fixed sign on the side of the road.
One rhinoceros, two rhinoceros, three rhinoceros,
so I'm about two and a half seconds behind the big truck
in front of me.
You want two to three seconds minimum following distance.
Also know that big trucks, loaded big trucks
like this one in front of me,
this is a set of Super V's a way out at 140,000 pounds,
that this big truck is going to slow down going up the hill.
So we're now doing 50 miles an hour, 80 kilometers an hour
with the big truck in front of us.
I'm going to come out of fifth gear out of passing gear
and I'm going to get into fourth gear,
shoulder check, I got to throw on some D frost here.
And I got to vehicle coming up behind me really fast.
Now, windshield wipers on full, going past the big truck.
And going downhill, do not hang out here.
All right, the speed limit is 90 kilometers now
and 55 miles an hour for those of us in the States.
Turn off our windshield wipers, put up that,
shoulder checking and moving back over to the other lane.
Now, space management, you don't want to be near other things,
you don't want to hang out behind big trucks
and whatnot when you're driving on the highway.
We can see it's clear now, vehicle going past us,
out in their lane, and they're going on
and nothing to worry about.
We have good space management.
I have another vehicle coming up here,
I can see him in the mirror behind me.
Gang spray coming off, got my windshield wipers back on.
So in the wintertime when you're driving such as this,
make sure that you have the washer fluid full,
and you have good windshield wipers on your vehicle as well.
And also I can see that vehicle behind me
is too close to me,
they're probably one second off my bumper.
So I know that I cannot jam on the brakes
with that vehicle behind me.
So I'm looking farther down the road,
and I'm doubling the space in front of my vehicle,
because that vehicle behind me was too close to me.
But now that vehicles backed off and regain their space,
so now I'm safe again.
On the highways,
you also want to drive between the clusters of vehicles.
For whatever reason,
drivers feel that they need to drive in a cluster
and they're easily recognized on the roadway.
It's just a group of vehicles driving together
down the highway.
You want to drive in the spaces between the clusters,
that is going to keep you a lot safer.
As well, you're going to be driving the speed limit
for the most part,
and you want to drive in the right hand lane.
Stay in the right lane
and just let the other traffic flow around you.
You're going to be a lot safer.
Don't be out there in the hammer lane
unless the traffic around you is driving really slow
like in front of you and you need to get past
those types of things.
But for the most part, if you're new, you're a beginner,
you have some fear around driving out on the highway,
then stay in the right hand lane,
just put it on cruise control at the posted speed limit.
And then look farther down the road
and just stay in this lane.
Stick around to the end, funny bits
and more videos to make you a safer, smarter drive.
Tip number two, scanning.
Make sure that you're looking in your mirrors,
you're checking the traffic behind you.
You're looking far down the road,
you're figuring out where the road goes,
I can see that it curves around to the right here.
I can see that I have dashed lines
in this center of the roadway here
so it's safe for me to pass.
Lane or road markings.
And lane markings are important
when you're driving on the highway.
I have a fog line here on the right.
And I can see the vehicle in front of me is braking.
And again, I see a merge sign here.
So I'm looking for the traffic coming out onto the highway.
And if I see traffic coming out onto the highway,
then what I'm going to do
is I'm going to move over to the other lane.
So I'm looking at that interchange
and I'm checking to see there aren't any vehicles there
which there are.
Bridges and overpasses in the winter in a freeze first
and I'll put a video up for you on 11 tips
on driving in the wintertime and keeping yourself safe.
Now I've got the sun behind me
and it's reflecting off the two wing mirrors
and it's getting you right in the eyes.
Try to focus on looking forward,
don't get obsessed with the light coming off the mirrors.
Now we're going to turn a little bit,
it's going to diminish, it's not going to be as bad
but it is one of the hazards
that you're going to have to deal with
when you get out on the highway at times,
near sunset and sunrise,
when the sun's just kind of on the rise
and you're going to get that glaring sun.
And when you get that glaring sun,
you're going to have to use the techniques for driving at night
to locate the roadway
and look for other traffic and keep yourself safe.
I'll put the car up in the corner for you
on the night driving video.
Have a look for that.
To give your vehicle centered in the lane
look farther down the road,
because the vehicle is going to go where you're looking.
So for example, this curve goes off to the right here
and goes over there, so we're looking over there,
and the traffic coming along the mountain there.
And that way the vehicle is going to stay centered in the lane.
So essentially what you got to do
is you got to get your vision off the end of the hood
of the vehicle and farther down the road
as far as you can see.
Tip number three, traffic signs.
Look at your traffic signs
while you're driving along the highway.
This is an object marker sign,
it tells you a fixed object
that you could potentially strike
when you're driving along the roadway,
and it tells you on which side to pass.
And I'll put a video up in the corner for you
how to look at the card
on a full explanation of object marker signs.
Now we have another sign here
saying that my lane is going to end in 200 meters,
about 250 yards, signal on, mirror signal, shoulder check.
And we simply drift over as the lane ends
into the other lane, keeping our signal on
until we're completely in the other lane.
Visor back up, I'm not in the glare,
and I'm regaining my space behind this vehicle again.
As well there's a rumble strip over there,
and the rumble strip helps drivers at night
who may fall asleep and drive onto the rumble strip.
And it causes the vehicle to vibrate here,
I'll just drift over here and show you.
(vehicle engine vibrating)
So that's what happens if you hit a rumble strip
along the highway and these are for drivers driving at night
and they may fall asleep in the wheel
and could potentially wake them up and I could...
Difficult to document that
but I know that it saved a lot of lives.
Destination sign, Colona 32 kilometers,
I can tell how far I am from a city.
And I'm going to end up in an urban area here quickly.
Tip number four, locating intersections.
I have an intersection here,
I can see by the object marker signs and other signs here,
and I'm making sure there's no vehicles there.
Locate your intersections.
This road sign is telling me that
there's another intersection up here.
It's an off ramp with an interchange
but it's still an intersection
where you could potentially collide with other vehicles.
So make sure that you're looking farther down the road,
and you're using the traffic signs
to locate the intersection.
And we have flashing lights up here
indicating the intersection,
we can also see that we have a road sign here
indicating heavy trucks entering the highway.
So this is a high risk intersection.
So you want to be scanning vigilantly
when you're going past this intersection
to make sure nobody's pulling out.
And I live here,
so I know that's the dump and the garbage trucks and whatnot
are coming out of the dump.
There we see the interchange here.
We're watching making sure there aren't any vehicles
getting off at the interchange.
And we're making sure we're looking down
into that interchange
to see if there's any vehicles coming up and out
onto the roadway.
Because it goes to three lanes here,
we want to stay in the center lane
if there's a vehicle coming out onto the roadway,
but there aren't vehicles coming out on the roadway,
so we're going to move back over so the right here.
Tip number five, cruise control.
Use your cruise control to manage your speed.
It's going to reduce fatigue on
when you're driving on the highway.
And as well, it's going to
greatly reduce your chances of getting a speeding ticket
because your speeds not going to be up and down.
You're going to be at one set speed
and it's going to reduce distracted driving,
because you're not going to have
to be looking at your speedometer all the time
to check your speed.
And we're coming around the corner
and again we're into the glare, so we put our visor down.
And we now we're looking at the median in the center.
We're following that vehicle in front of us
to make sure that we can locate the roadway
as well the signs along the side of the road
are also going to indicate where the roadway is.
The vehicle behind me has pulled back in behind me,
they're not beside me,
so I don't have to worry about that vehicle any longer.
And also I'm looking far down the mountain past here
to see where the road is going.
So now I can see it curves around to the left.
And again you can see here the cluster of vehicles
in front of us
but you want to stay out of that cluster. (laughs)
And keep in mind, space management trumps speed management
so it's more important to maintain your space
than it is to maintain your speed.
So it's space first and then speed.
We can also see
that we're coming up towards a red light here
and all the traffic is starting to punch out.
That's the other way that you know
traffic is slowing down,
so the spaces between the vehicles gets smaller,
in addition to brake lights obviously,
but then you can see the red light
and that will keep you safe
as you're coming into an urban area
and that's essentially what we're doing on the highway here.
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Have a great day, bye now.
When the vehicle in front of you goes past a fixed object,
one rhinocol, one rhinocol? (laughs)
One rhinocol. (laughs)
Maintain your... (laughs)
It's starting (laughs) now.
Oh my God, oh my God.
All right. (laughs)
What is a rhinocol? (laughing)
All righty. (laughing)
Okay.
Oh, (laughing) that was funny. (laughing)