Stop Risking My Life When You Drive

Driving is hazardous to your health no matter how you lookat it, traveling at speeds faster than we were ever meant to go. Think whatpeople just 100 years ago would say if they saw the cars we have now…Amazing! Iam not talking about cars equipped with superchargers, turbochargers and nitro’d out race carsno I am talking about your Honda. For thousands of years humans have gotten bywith foot travel known as walking or running only recently have people begun todrive. This mode of transport is brand new in the great scheme of things andstill many people don’t take it seriously.

Everyday modern humans do things that would be considered tobe magic or the work of a higher power. Imagine how someone would have reactedto your 50” LED TV 200 years ago, they would have called you a witch and burnedyou for summoning demons. Cars are a device that has been designed to movepeople from one place to another more quickly than horseback and the car has revolutionizedthe human race.

There are a few key factors that should be followed whendriving a car, the first and certainly not least important is to pay attention.Today on the freeway there was a woman in an Audi driving at 55 – 60 MPH andhad her laptop mounted on the steering wheel. This is not only illegal but sostupid it cannot be over exaggerated how dumb and dangerous this is. There is aban on cell phone use in cars but this just takes the cake for distracteddriving, using a laptop while driving…sheesh. Another failure that people makeis failing to realize what on-ramps and off-ramps are. These stretches of roadare here for accelerating to highway speeds and slowing from them. In otherwords you can exit the highway without braking in traffic and causing a slowdown. On ramps, even the ones in Cali withlights on them are meant to give the driver a chance to get to highway speed sothey can merge. Too many people ignore this and cause accidents or congestionjust because they failed to use the provided facilities correctly. One thing toremember is that roads and highways are government property not yours so followthe rules.

We All Know How to Merge...or Do We?

So many factors to count for what shall we do? That may be the way some of us are looking at merging into traffic. When it comes to merging it is still up to us to determine if it can be done safely, our car stereo or in-dash navigation screen cannot tell us how to do it. Because many of us rely on a nav system to get us anywhere, regular driving techniques have become a bit lax.

Merging is a important part of everyday driving an its one that many people are really really bad at doing. The idea is to seamlessly move from one lane to another in traffic and keep the flow of cars uninterrupted. It seems that many a driver believes that merging their vehicle is everyone else's problem. Just start moving over and everyone else should get out of their way. This is not true, you are the one who has to take responsibility for your driving.

When merging the main idea is to look using your mirrors and actually turning your head to make sure you can make the gap you are trying to enter. Driving along any freeway merging is needed when ever getting on the highway and usually when highways intersect not to mention anytime you want to pass. Merging is very common and one of the most used driving maneuvers that we use without thinking about it. So if we all use it so often why is it that day after day and night after night we sit in traffic for no reason? The answer is clear it bad drivers! Drivers who slam on the brakes after the merge, push their way on, other drivers who don't let people in or even worse the ones who speed up to block people from getting in. If all the drivers at an intersection were to allow one other driver to merge then the speed of a highway should only drop by a few miles an hour due to the fact that the merging car can meet the required speed with the on ramp. If it comes down to merging being the cause of many traffic jams...which it does, the "Smart guy" is the cause of many of them. This is the guy that sees a long line for an exit off the freeway and waits to the last second to cut over. They risk hitting the person who is already waiting in that line and also they slow down their lane by making people behind them panic break. It's a rude and obnoxious maneuver and it is also down right dangerous. To the driver who does this "you are not smarter than the rest of us, your just much more rude".

A drivers action on the road are going to dictate how the traffic flows on the freeway so think before you make your merge. If we all do it right, the drive will be smoother and nicer for all of us. If you are one of those people who thinks it is ok to cut the line of traffic, you should try it at the grocery store when waiting to check out and see what everyone around you has to say about that.

Use Common Sense on the Roads People!

The streets of america are a rough place...no I am not talking about growing up on the streets, I am talking about driving on them. Yeah maybe you need a new air suspension strut or air suspension compressor but that is not what makes them a rough place. What makes them bad is the other drivers, yes that means YOU and me and everyone else around. Every person has seen the news story when they end with "this horrible crash could have been avoided" but what does that really mean? what can we take away from that statement?

Cars and trucks are basically weapons on wheels, they are 3000+ lbs of unforgiving steel. People tend to forget the responsibility that goes along with driving a vehicle, the government regulates guns and driving for good reason. Sure we have all had that phone call or text come in while sitting in traffic and answered it while driving. There are signs on the road, ads in magazines and spots on TV telling us all not to text and drive. Texting and driving is as dangerous as drinking and driving but most drives just ignore the dangers.

Most phones nowadays have a feature called voice text which will take what you say and translate it to text that can be sent. The feature will also read texts back to you for added safety on the road. Phones are not the only issue when  people are behind the wheel, laziness and ignorance play a huge role in accidents as well. Law enforcement will tell us that speeding is the cause of accidents and in some ways that is true but on average it is not. Accidents are just that accidents cause by mis-judgments of a situation or just not paying attention. "I swear i didn't see him there!" but the truth is you didn't look and this happens all the time. It is time for us all to take responsibility for our actions behind the wheel and make the driving world a safer place to be.