Female Speaker: Adam and his friends have been practicing driving in an empty parking lot for a few days now and it appears that they're ready to hit the road for the first time. Let's check in on Kim and her mom Michele.
Hi Kim! Hello Mrs. Davis! So are you two ready to hit the road?
Kim: For sure.
Mrs. Davis: As ready as I can be.
Female Speaker: Well, I'm sure you're anxious to get started so I'll let you get going. Good luck!
Kim: Thanks.
Mrs. Davis: You want to enter the roadway as smoothly and currently as possible. Make sure you turn your signal in the direction you want to go, let's turn left here. How does the traffic look?
Kim: Both directions look clear to me.
Mrs. Davis: Check again to be sure and then slowly accelerate into your lane.
Kim: It still looks good; this guy coming on my left is going to turn.
Mrs. Davis: What are you doing? Don't ever do that.
Kim: He had his turn signal on.
Female Speaker: Oh boy! Kim almost a potentially serious mistake and scared the heck out of her mom.
Mrs. Davis: He had his turn signal on so what? Kim could have gotten us both killed. But I shouldn't have yelled, she did know any better because I hadn't warned her about those kinds of things.
Kim: I saw a turn signal, so I thought they were turning onto the street before mine. I didn't know what was so wrong about that. I get it now, never assume anything. Parents don't yell at us, it doesn't help.
Mrs. Davis: Covering defensive driving is a must before hitting the road; it's just not something you can expect your child to know.
Female Speaker: She's right defensive driving is a must; it's unrealistic and unsafe to assume that all the other drivers are going to abide by the law and drive mistake free. Here's another look at Kim's situation. The approaching vehicle is signaling for a right turn; however you'll never really know where they plan to turn until they actually make the turn. They could turn at an intersection directly before you, into the intersection you're sitting at or an intersection immediately after you. And they may have forgotten to turn off their signal from a previous turn and have no intension of turning at all. Like Kim has now learnt never make decisions based on assumptions.
Mrs. Davis: So we're cool now right?
Kim: We're good.
Mrs. Davis: Good! Now let's try this again. Okay, so as we're traveling at a speed of about 35 miles per hour, you need to maintain a following distance of at least 3 seconds.
Kim: So if I picked a fixed object on the side of the road, I should meet it 3 seconds after the car in front of me passes it right?
Mrs. Davis: That's right. Let's choose the guy at the bus stop ahead as an example, as the corner front of bus reaches it, begin counting.
Kim: One, two, three.
Mrs. Davis: Great! So you've got enough distance to steer and break out of problems if they occur, as your speed increases.
Kim: I'll need to increase my following distance.
Mrs. Davis: Very good, now remember you must maintain a safe following distance and stick to the speed limit.
Kim: Oh Sorry I didn't even realize that I was going that fast.
Mrs. Davis: It takes time and practice to get a feel of the speed you're traveling, but you must understand traveling slightly above the speed limit really doesn't get you anywhere much faster and driving way above the speed limit may get you where you're going a bit sooner but it would risk.
Female Speaker: A great risk that's what. Michele is bringing up an excellent point about speeding; it's rarely useful and always dangerous. Nearly one-third of all fatal crashes are caused by the unnecessary act of speeding. This chart says it all, it shows the relationship between speed, time saved and risk of death. When traveling 10 miles, the difference in traveling time between 50 and 85 miles per hour is less than 5 minutes, yet the risk of death is 12 times greater.
Okay, so may be you're thinking to yourself I'll never drive 35 miles per hour over the speed limit, so I don't have to worry about such a risk. But look at these numbers, for every 10 miles per hour you drive over 50, the risk of death doubles. Is it really worth the risk or would it make more sense to depart a few minutes earlier. For those of you still not convinced, we decided to take a look at a real world scenario and run a little experiment of our own, because many people are quite speeding with arriving sooner, we were in 2 separate trials incorporating 2 speeds, the method was as follows.
Jamey traveled to and from work for a week, while traveling the speed limit at all times. The distance traveled was 9 miles each way. Jamey recorded his travel time using a stop watch; he started the stop watch as soon as he entered the roadway and stopped it once he entered his drive way or work place parking lot.
He entered his data into a spreadsheet daily; thankfully he always remembered to save the information. Jamey then repeated these steps while traveling 10 miles per hour below the speed limit, now, I could show you hours of footage of Jamey driving to and from work or I could just reveal the results of our experiment.
Yeah I thought you'd prefer to see those results so here they are, as you can see after adding all the times together Jamey's average time of travel while driving the speed limit was 14 minutes and 50 seconds. Let's take a look at how he faired when traveling 10 miles per hour slower. As you can see after adding all the times together, Jamey's average time of travel while driving 10 miles per hour below the speed limit was 16 minutes and 10 seconds.
Let's take a look at those averages side-by-side. As expected Jamey saved a little time when he drove 10 miles per hour faster but on average he only saved an incredibly insignificant 1 minute and 20 seconds per trip. Keep that in mind, when you're driving, speeding presents way more problems than it does solutions. The negative impacts of speeding include Speeding Tickets, you'll be fined large amounts of money, your insurance rates will go through the roof and multiple Speeding Tickets may result in suspension of your license, all just to save a few minutes. Increased Stopping Distance, the faster you drive the longer it takes your vehicle to stop when braking. If the unexpected happens ahead of you, there is a good chance that you won't be able to stop in time to avoid a collision. Accidents and Injuries, speeding greatly increases your chances of being involved in an accident, therefore greatly increasing your chances of being injured or injuring others.
As I mentioned earlier, nearly one-third of all fatal crashes are the results of speeding, seriously speeding plays a huge role in many accidents, on average a 1000 people are killed every month in the U.S because of speed related crashes.
Speeding causes so many fatalities because the greater the speed, the greater the impact. When speed increase from 40 miles per hour to 60 miles per hour, the force of impact more than doubles. Arrive alive might seem like a cheesy slogan you see on the side of highways but it's a valid point, it's much better to take your time getting somewhere than it is to never get there at all.
Mrs. Davis: Now as we approach this intersection, you have to be aware of what's going on around it, you need to search and identify various things. Can you tell me what type of intersection we're approaching?
Kim: That's a 4 way intersection.
Mrs. Davis: Okay, how is it controlled?
Kim: It's controlled by 4 stop signs.
Mrs. Davis: Good! Now do you notice any potential problems within this intersection?
Kim: I don't see any real problems but I do see some people that look like they're about to cross the street.
Mrs. Davis: Nice catch, you have to be extra cautious of pedestrians, they always have their right of way. I want you to make a right turn at this intersection, so what should you do?
Kim: I'll signal and position myself on the right side of the lane.
Mrs. Davis: You also need to think about drivers approaching this intersection from other directions, it's just as important to know what they might do as it is to know what you're going to do.
Kim: But even if I know what they're supposed to do that doesn't mean that's what they're going to do.
Mrs. Davis: That's exactly right Kim, you should be thinking like that at all times, now what everything that you've told me, make this turn here.
Female Speaker: Okay, so a lot of interesting things happened at that intersection. Let's slow it down and take a graphical look at the situation from the beginning. Kim did a great job adjusting her speed as she approached the intersection, she also noticed the pedestrians on the sidewalk, which is necessary but often overlooked. Something you probably couldn't see was that Kim came to a stop before the stop line, once you've reached an intersection controlled by a stop sign, you must come to a complete stop with your front bumper behind the stop line or crosswalk. By stopping in the appropriate spot, you make the intersection safer for pedestrians, other vehicles and even yourself.
As you saw in the live action footage the pedestrians began crossing the street, once they're off the curve you must stay stopped until they cross. While Kim was waiting for the pedestrians to cross, a vehicle on the left approached the intersection, stopped and then entered the intersection. Even though Kim had reached the intersection before this vehicle, she had to wait for the pedestrians, so this vehicle took the right of way. You should never actually take the right of way like this, but Kim avoided a problem by staying stopped.
Once the pedestrians reach the other side of the road, Kim made sure the intersection was clear before she finally made her turn. As you just saw, when making a right turn it's best to be in Lane Position 3, this allows for about 6 feet of space in the left of your lane. When you want to make a left turn, position yourself in Lane Position 2 and allow yourself 6 feet of space to the right.
Here's a look at something you should be cautious of whenever following other vehicles. For some unsafe reason, many drivers make wide turns as if they're driving a tractor trailer, watch the lead vehicle. Did you see that? Making that wide of a turn is totally unnecessary and very unsafe. The trailing vehicle could easily continue driving straight ahead and end up colliding with the turning vehicle.
So don't make wide turns and always pay attention to what the driver ahead of you is doing. Remember don't assume anything.
Kim: So what's next mom?
Mrs. Davis: I think that's enough for one day.
Kim: Oh come on let's just keep going and get through this stuff.
Mrs. Davis: We will keep going tomorrow and we're not doing this to get you stuff.
Kim: I guess I shouldn't have called it stuff, I'm just so anxious to learn all that I need to know so I can get my license. I'm sure she's just doing all this to protect me, I'll probably be a better driver because of it, it just might take a while.
Mrs. Davis: That girl is crazy, if she thinks we're going to fly right through these lessons, I know what it's like to want a license but I'm not going to race through the information and increase the chance of her making a serious mistake when she's alone. All in all she's done some real good thing so far; just have to take it day-by-day, it's too dangerous to rush anything.
Female Speaker: Well it looks like Michele and Kim made it back safe and sound. Next time we'll get to take a peek at how Molly and her dad are doing with their lessons.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services