Defensive Driving
The best advice anyone can give about driving is: Drive defensively.
Please start with a
very
important safety device in your vehicle: Buckle up.
(See “Safety Belts” in the Index.)
Defensive driving really means “be ready for anything.” On city streets,
rural roads, or freeways, it means “always expect the unexpected.”
Assume
that
pedestrians or other drivers are going to be careless and make
mistakes. Anticipate what they might do. Be ready for their mistakes.
Rear-end collisions are about the most preventable of accidents. Yet they
are common. Allow enough following distance. It’s the best defensive
driving maneuver, in both city and rural driving. You never know when the
vehicle
in
front of you is going to brake or turn suddenly.
Drunken Driving
Death and injury associated with drinking and driving is a national tragedy.
It’s the number one contributor to the highway death toll, claiming
thousands of victims every year. Alcohol takes away three things that
anyone needs to drive a vehicle:
Judgment
Muscular Coordination
Vision
Police records show that almost half of all motor vehicle-related deaths
involve alcohol
-
a driver, a passenger or someone else, such as a
pedestrian, had been drinking. In most cases, these deaths are the result of
someone who
was
drinking and driving. About
20,000
motor
vehicle-related deaths occur each year because of alcohol, and thousands
of
people are injured.
Just how much alcohol is too much if a person plans to drive? Ideally, no
one should drink alcohol and then drive. But if one does, then what’s “too
much”? It can be a lot less than many might think. Although it depends on
each person and situation, here is some general information on the problem.
The Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) of someone who is drinking depends
upon four things:
How much alcohol is
in
the drink.
The drinker’s body weight.
The amount of food that is consumed before and during drinking.
The length
of
time
it
has taken the drinker
to
consume the alcohol.
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