When I was 16 and in high school it was the height of the mini skirt fashion. Pun intended, short skirts, on 16 year old girls when I was 16 and raging hormones, was real and true distraction. The school dress code said the hem line had to come to the girl's thumbs when holding her arms at her side. I was enjoying the wonderful view of a very short skirt on a really stupefyingly pretty classmate and I rear ended a car that stopped for no reason at all, except the red light!

100% my fault, my dad accepted my excuse. I had to pay for the repairs on my car, and insurance paid off the 40 year old geezer that stopped for no good reason.

That is the last crash I have had except a lady that ran a 2 way only stop sign and drove into me and I had no way to get out of her way, and that was in the mid 1970s. No tickets, no accidents since the 1970s for me, and several hundreds of thousands of miles driven since. I think I got this driving thing figured out.

Biggest tip, hang up the damn phone and DRIVE. Look in all the mirrors, and turn your head before you change lanes. I don't have a fancy modern car with backup cameras and lane departure sensors.

^^^ KC
I like that!
Let me know how it works out.

(don't use a pinto)

True.
So many times I see a car with a driver with their head tipped to hear their phone.
Where is their driving concentration?

I always look both ways when turning either direction, and normally do it twice. I also look both ways when walking across a one way street in the city.

That $4k had to come from somewhere...

I didn't find out about it unil a few years later .... Insurance Co's suck. When I called them immediately after the incident, and explained what happened, and that both the cop & I suspected a scammer, they said "don't worry, we deal with these types all the time"...

And then I found out how ... they paid her to just go away... so I fired them :D

Nationwide ain't on my side ... no mas!

A little late..but you get a pass because of the walking caution.
No rate raise.:):)


I was driving a rural road just last week when a driver started to pass me. We were coming up on a driveway and a car came out of it and only looked to his left..and not to the other direction.

When he was fully on the road, he was faced with two cars coming at him.

I took the shoulder on my right...the passing car squeezed between me and the driveway car.

It was very close...It very easily could have been a three car collision at 60 mph.

A full day performance driving class, Many DE's and getting my road race license really improved my street driving. Porsche's curriculum for this stuff is really very good.

I’ve been using my left foot to brake when quick reactions are desperately needed, as in it’s hovering over the pedal ready for wandering homeless zombies or distracted drivers. Got the feel down pat from racing karts for years. Not used often when I’m in a manual trans car.

I've had that happen to me. I was visiting Tenn last summer. Met some family at a restaurant and I was behind my Aunt leaving the parking lot.

She did exactly what you describe and I almost hit her.

But you know what? It would've been my fault. I let my guard down slightly. Nothing wrong with the protocol.

You are exaggerating the distance. I drive these methods in Phoenix, Arizona every day. Never have any issues.

15' is not as far as you think. Just put the edge of your vehicle's hood at the edge of the stop line. I.e., imagine a line leaving your eyes, it goes just across your hoodline and then to the edge of the stop line.

Easy peasy...in city traffic.


Drving on a track is super great for street driving. It really improves spatial recognition and "slows" things down at the same time.


If you need that quick of a reaction time, it appears you are following too closely.

Increase your following distance to 4 seconds.

But I've not ridden with you, I don't know what you're doing.

Not following anyone actually. I’m in the auto biz (maybe ten auto dealers in a small area) so there are many chances of distracted auto worker/sales types not paying attention to other drivers, pulling out without looking, etc. Coupled with pedestrians, some of whom not appearing to have homes makes for interesting scenarios.

Always. I'm looking for other road users, not just car drivers. People on foot may be coming from either direction on the sidewalk.

I also never change road position (including moving within a lane) without checking my rear quarter.

If a driver rear-ends someone stopping 15' short of a crosswalk or stop line, then they are paying too much attention to what is in front of you and not enough attention to what is in front of them. Regardless of what may be further ahead - green light, whatever - the limits of possibility for you are determined first by who is in front of you and what they are doing. This was why the one commenter with the TT Supra hit the old guy getting on the freeway. You have to wait for them first.


My mom got in the first at-fault collision of her driving career, which at that point had spanned about 1962 to 2016, when she was behind another driver turning right in front of her from an off-ramp onto a busy commercial road; he started to pull out and then stopped, she didn't and hit him. Aside from the embarrassment she was bummed because despite the damage appearing minor, it totalled her late mom's Lexus, which she really liked.

Piggybacking your judgment on that of other drivers will always get you in trouble eventually. I see this most chronically at an intersection a block from my office - usually littered with crash debris - where drivers in the opposing direction will almost dare you to hit them as they turn left in front of you, one driver going because the driver in front of them is, and the third behind him doing the same.

When I was a teenager I somehow learned about the British book Road Craft, the British police drivers' training manual (more or less). I bought a copy and read it and learned a lot from it.

That driver passing on the rural highway with the other driver waiting to pull out of a driveway should have noticed the car waiting to pull out and delayed the pass until past the driveway.

I think it might have been an article in either Car&Driver or Road &Track which talked about Road Craft at some length. Sometime around 1983.
I really took that to heart.

Best
Les

^^^ Otter
The driver coming out of his driveway did a rolling non-stop while looking left only.
The guy passing me (like myself) were only 50 yards or so from him when it all happened.

I had a direct view of the whole works...the driveway guy was absolutely at fault.

You're right. It was Car & Driver, probably about 1989-90, since I know I learned about it around the time I started driving. Might have been a Rich Ceppos column, a detail which randomly came to me just now. I've still got whatever issue that is in my basement, so I suppose I could find out!

in case anyone is interested
https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/Digitization/29945NCJRS.pdf

You don’t mention driving with your headlamps on. I’ve discovered that in the last few years people don’t see the 911. I’ve found that having my lights on seems to help. My wife keeps hers on all the time.

Newer cars make it almost impossible to drive without the lamps on....I like that.

I like driving and work at it every day..
 

Not just carving a nice line through the turns on a back road, at .5 G's, imagining doing 9/10ths, but remembering the upcomming corners and intersections, points of high pedestrian traffic or freeway intersections.
I try to think ahead, trying to avoid poor visability intersections, or known busy intersections.
I installed a WINK 4 foot rear view mirror after being surprised on a long right hand freeway on ramp.
One key cautionary warning is if you are surprised at the aparent unexpected appearance of a car in, or near, your path, you need to improve your "watchfullness", this is a wake-up call.

more later, wife's just announced she has covid,
C

They also tend to blind the drivers going the opposite direction. I really don’t get why newer cars have mega-lumen headlamps. It seems like new low-beams are brighter than old high-beams.