- Hi there, Smart Drivers.
Rick with Smart Drive Test tonight,
talking to you about
habits that will keep you safe when you're driving
and as well,
these habits will ensure
that you pass your driver's test first time.
Stick around, we'll be right back with that information.
Must have driving habits.
One of the must have driving habits
that you have to have for driving
is shoulder checking.
Do not give up this habit
even after you get your driver's license.
And I have had a number of people come back to me and say,
oh, shoulder checks are pointless,
I'm going to give it up as soon as I get my license.
And unfortunately,
a lot of people come back to shoulder checks
after something goes wrong,
they have a near miss on a lane change or a lane merge.
Somebody comes on in front of them.
They fail to shoulder check
and then they start shoulder checking again.
And as I say to people, shoulder checking,
or rather not shoulder checking in a car and driving
is the same as not checking to see
if a weapon is loaded before handling it.
So it's that dire if you're not shoulder checking,
it's a huge, huge risk,
so make sure that you're doing that when you're driving.
So the first thing, my driving theory, SPOC3,
which stands for social driving, observation,
space management, communication and speed management.
And social driving is all of the things
that drivers do when they're driving.
Not coming to a complete stop at stop signs, intersections,
not signaling, speeding, keeping up with the traffic flow,
all of those things, driving over painted islands,
pulling out in front of you and whatnot.
All of that is part of social driving.
And space management is the biggest component,
it's on the Star Trek thing with SPOC3.
space management, the final frontier,
make sure that you have space in and around your vehicle.
And communication and observation,
make sure you're observing other traffic, other vehicles,
road users on the roadway
and make sure that you're tracking them.
For example, if you go past a motorcycle
and you're going to change lanes
shortly past the motorcycle,
you want to be tracking the motorcycle
and figuring out where that motorcycle is
in relation to you before you change lanes.
I.e. shoulder checking for example,
and seeing where it went and if it's around somewhere.
So have a look at that, okay?
Observation, communication.
Space management, as I said,
if you have space around your vehicle,
it buys you time,
buys you options in the event of an emergency.
And as well, when you're out on the highways,
and I learned this week
while I was driving five days back across the country here
that you want to drive in the spaces
between the clusters of vehicles.
First of all, you have a buffer of space,
you're not on the brakes,
and if you're not near anything,
it's much less likely that you're going to hit something,
especially the vehicle in front of you.
So you don't want to be close to other road users,
you don't want to be close to other fixed objects,
so maintain space around your vehicle.
The one place that you can always, always, always
maintain space is the in front of your vehicle.
And yes, people will cut in front of you
and those types of things,
but they're always going to be going faster
and they're not going to be there for very long,
so keep space in front of your vehicle.
New video last week was the sixth
and last driving lesson with Arielle.
And I'll put up a short video here in the week or so
showing you her results on her driver's test,
but essentially it was just mock driving tests
and showing you what was needed for the driver's test
and getting her ready for her driver's test that week.
So have a look at that if you haven't seen that already.
Live stream every Sunday at 6:00 PM Pacific Standard Time,
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We answer all of your questions about driving,
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or starting a career as a truck or bus driver.
Click up in the corner here,
set a reminder for Sunday's livestream
and we'll see you then.
Communicate effectively,
The way that we communicate with other traffic
is lights and signals.
Our horn, hand gestures, make sure you use all five fingers.
Don't tell somebody they're number one,
especially on a driver's test.
And eye contact,
If you're unsure of what another driver's doing
or another road user, then get eye contact.
And then finally the most important way
that traffic communicates with other road users
is with the position of their vehicle on the roadway.
If somebody is in a left turning lane,
there's a good chance that that vehicle
is going to turn left, so be proactive.
Interpret and read traffic patterns
and the actions of individual road users.
You don't want to be reactive because reactive simply means
that you're giving up control of your vehicle
and expecting that you're going to be able to do something
fast enough,
that you're not going to run
into the vehicle in front of you.
You want to have an appropriate response
to the actions of other road users on the roadway,
so change your attitude.
And what I mean by this is
the number of drivers that come back to me and say,
oh, other drivers won't let me in.
If you change your attitude and say,
yes, most of the time other drivers will let me in,
then you just signal,
make sure you have three flashes on the signal,
shoulder check, check your mirrors, look forward,
do all the checks again, shoulder check, check your mirrors,
and then you move over.
If you've communicated effectively
people are going to help you out,
they're either going to slow down,
they're going to speed up and get past you
and other people will say,
all people always speed up and try and get past you.
If people speed up on it when you're trying to merge lanes
they're doing you a favor,
cause they're going to get out of the way. So do that.
Observation and tracking,
and I talked about this a little bit in the introduction,
make sure that you're not just driving blindly
with your head down
and you're not really taking note of the traffic
and vehicles and road users that are around you.
Make sure that you're taking note.
Okay, there's a tractor trailer over there,
there's a motorcycle here,
there's a cyclist up three-quarters of a mile up the road.
These are the types of things
that you need to take into account
when you're driving.
Because if you're going to start making maneuvers,
you want to figure out
where these other road users are going to be
in relation to your vehicle.
Especially if you're going to be making lane changes
or changing the direction of your vehicle,
you need to figure out where these other vehicles are.
So tracking vehicles in relation to your path of travel
will keep you safer on the roadway.
Predict traffic patterns,
looking ahead at controlled intersections, turning lanes,
looking for rubberneckers and anything out of the ordinary.
Know that if there's an emergency vehicle
pulled over on the side of the road,
it doesn't even have to be an emergency vehicle
it can be a tow truck, a construction vehicle,
a farm vehicle, know that all of the other vehicles
as they're approaching the emergency vehicle
pulled over on the side of the road,
they're going to slow down.
You can bet money on that, that 98% of the time,
if there is an emergency vehicle on the side of the road
and it doesn't even have to be on your side of the road,
if it's on the other side of the road,
know that traffic is going to slow down,
increase your following distance, slow down,
watch the traffic in front of you,
you'll see the spaces between the vehicles get smaller.
And when they get smaller,
that means that the vehicles are slowing down
and know that you too have to slow down.
Know the characteristics of other vehicles and road users,
and know that this time of year there's lots of RVs
and caravans out there.
If you're on a two-lane skinny with two-lane traffic,
and there's a caravan, you know that the caravan,
you were probably not going to be going any faster
than the caravan on that roadway.
So that's just a matter of course for summer driving.
Interpret the actions of individual road users,
look farther down the road,
interpret the vehicles' movements.
Same thing today,
I was coming through Enderby on the way back home here,
Enderby's a small town, it's about 45 minutes up the road.
And a person's coming out,
making a right hand turn in front of me off a side street,
and they drove right out in front of me.
And I'm like, I'm not going to move over for you,
and I'm not going to stop.
I had to hold my course because if I had to moved over,
I was risking driving into oncoming traffic
and I'm not going to do that for some knucklehead
who's going to drive into me.
If you want to drive into me,
then we're going to have a sideswipe crash
and it's going to be their fault
because at least if I have a sideswipe crash,
nobody's going to be injured,
there's going to be some property damage.
Whereas if I risk a head-on collision,
I'm in even bigger trouble.
So sometimes you really, really have to hold your own.
Paying attention to your driving and having patients.
Remember, the right-of-way is never taken,
it's always given.
Okay, so experiential develop habits that will protect you.
Lots of drivers will come back and say,
why do I have to shoulder check on a left-hand turn?
You're developing habits that will keep you safe.
Not today, maybe not tomorrow, not next week,
but maybe in five years,
if you continue to shoulder check every time you turn left,
you shoulder check every time you turn right,
it's going to keep you safe and protect you
and could prevent a crash that may injure or kill you
in five years from now.
Young drivers, I've said this before,
drinking driving, dating, and distracted driving
are the challenges for new drivers.
All of these are new,
you don't have a great deal experience
with any one of these.
And then again,
communication and observation
are important for the purposes of driving, okay?
And this is a poll that I did some time ago
about why young drivers have a higher crash rate
than other drivers.
All right, so we're going to leave it there for tonight.
I'm back.
Lots of great information coming,
lots of great videos
and thank you for your support.
Thank you for being part of the Smart Driver community.
Hit that thumbs up button,
leave a comment down in the comment section.
We'll do what we can to help you out to get a license
and those types of things.
So if you passed your license in the last couple of weeks,
congratulations on that, all the best.
And if you got a test coming up this week,
good luck on that.
And remember, pick the best answer,
not necessarily the right answer.
Have a great night. Bye now.