Driving Tips for the Advanced Driver

In my experience a Honda Civic with four passengers belted safely in, ran head on into a city bus at approximately 35 miles per hour. The driver died instantly, the three passengers all had their backs broken. The bus drove away from the scene with a twisted bumper. As a bus driver, I don’t want to make contact with your car, sometimes the choice just isn’t mine.
On a lighter note, why do we straddle lanes? To perform a safe turn we need 3 lanes of space. Either I stay in one lane and take up 2 lanes on the road I’m turning on, or inversely take two lanes to turn down a single lane road which leaves the hazard of an impatient motorist, or biker, thinking I’m going straight and inserting themselves into a crush danger. The best compromise is one and one half lane into one and one half lanes. Not doing so causes our back wheels to travel over the sidewalk endangering pedestrians. When the turn signal comes on, do the big guy a favour, hang back and block other traffic from squeezing into danger!

The last, is plain ol’ magnetic attraction. Well, so it can sometimes seem to us. Driving along everything is fine, we come alongside a smaller car and then it seems to be drawn into the side of our rig, as if some big magnet took a hold of it and pulled it over. The basic principle of driving is where you look; want to stop weaving in the lane? Keep your eyes high and look as far ahead as you can to some distant imaginary point, you’ll go straighter. When those big wheels come alongside — Don’t look at them! You automatically steer where you look, look straight ahead and keep your eyes high, and trust your relative positions in the lanes. If you are in your own lane and the big rig is in his, never the two shall meet.

Be mindful of what you’re doing, reduce speed and keep distance in foul weather, and always remember you have a home to get back to. Stay safe.