When you get your driver’s license, you do not suddenly become Michael Schumacher, as much as you think you might be, you do not know everything about driving. I believe there are a few fundamentals to driving that are not taught or tested when it comes to getting a driver’s license through South Africa’s K53 system.
- Thinking ahead … and behind
It’s as if a lot of people seem to drive with blinkers on, only ever looking straight ahead a few metres in front of them and nowhere else. This is very dangerous because those people are seemingly oblivious to potential threats around them, and they are often the people that get into the types of accidents where you just go, “but how!?”
When you drive, use common sense and logic. Check your mirrors, check your blind spots, and just keep track of where the cars around you are at all times. You want to do this so that if you have to swerve out the way of a potential accident, you know whether you can or can’t swerve; whether it be to the left or to the right because you know where the cars are.
Doing all your mirror checks, as taught via K53, can seem frustrating when practicing for your test, but you must not disregard your mirrors and blind spots the moment you get your license, as so many people do. Always be wary of other people on the road.
- Drive the speed limit
No, I am not referring to those traveling excessively over the speed limit, in fact it is quite the opposite. As much as people who speed can be a danger to themselves and others, it is people who drive excessively slowly that are equally dangerous on the roads. Traveling less than three quarters of the speed limit, although not dangerous on its own, is potentially so when combined with traffic, particularly in a city environment where people get impatient quickly. Driving over the speed limit is also considered to be reckless driving as per K53 rules.
Often I will come into contact with an excessively slow driver, and it will most likely be on a road where overtaking is not really an option. That slow driver then builds up a train of increasingly impatient cars behind, who will try and overtake at any available opportunity. These opportunities are often very dangerous, and have been known to result in head-on collisions.
So, although you may not be driving dangerously when you drive really slowly, you create dangerous drivers by doing so, as well as just generally inconveniencing people who have somewhere to be.
- Driving blind
Blind corners are called as such for a reason, because whether you were to drive round them with your eyes wide open at midday, or with Stevie Wonder’s glasses on in the dead of night, you will not be able to see oncoming traffic. Slow down for them. They are dangerous. The same goes with overtaking over solid lines on blind rises. Don’t do it, wait till you can see what’s happening with oncoming traffic. As per K53 guidlines, overtaking on the solid line is against road laws.
- Other road users are your biggest threat
Whether you think you are a good driver or not, you will become a better driver as soon as you realise that other road users are your biggest threat, and you start predicting what they may or may not do. This is not to say that you should become a paranoid driver and think that everyone is out to get you; however, you must identify potentially hazardous drivers on the roads and think about what they might do wrong and how to avoid an accident in a worst-case scenario. Specific places must also be taken note of. I can count a number of intersections and freeway on- and off-ramps that I need to be extra careful at due to careless drivers. There are lots of people who drive badly everywhere in the world and it is because they think that nothing will ever happen to them that translates into how they drive. Accidents happen, all the time, and they are called accidents for a reason, so do your best to predict and avoid them all the time.
