Never drop your guard
For those of you who are regular readers of my articles you know that I’ve just finished teaching my son how to drive. He recently got his license but we still talk about driving on a regular basis. We recently discussed how a driver we both knew was hit in the side of their vehicle while they went through a green light by someone who blew through the red light. The driver who was struck was trained professionally and was a very good driver. However, why did they trust that the red light was going to stop another vehicle? A red light doesn’t stop a vehicle. A driver stops a vehicle.
** Check out this latest clip of a driver blowing through a red light HERE
I’ve had many good students over the years that I’ve been a driving instructor for Young Drivers of Canada. Some seemed to be a natural when it came to handling a vehicle. They passed their road test very easily and that was usually the last time I heard from them. I often wondered how they were doing with their driving well after they finished their lessons with me. Some former students I’ve heard from, but most I have not.
One of the things we teach our students at Young Drivers of Canada is to scan all intersections before we reach them. This is to determine if it’s safe to enter the intersection. For the thousands of students I’ve taught to drive, many were very good at scanning intersections. No one was really perfect at it as some intersections were missed, but most were scanned. As I stressed to my students, it only takes one driver to wreck your day so keep trying to scan all intersections. I was persistent and nagged them all quite a bit to scan intersections.
After hearing of the person we knew who was t-boned in the intersection, I took that time to remind my son that you should never drop your guard when it comes to safe driving practices. Just because you may have passed a driving course and your road test, it doesn’t mean you can relax and just drive as you feel. You have to keep working hard. The same can be said about a professional athlete. Just because you reached the big leagues, doesn’t mean you can relax and stop doing what got you there. You have to keep working hard to maintain your high level of expertise.
The driver we knew from this collision was shaken up by this crash, but is just fine. The vehicle on the other hand is apparently a right-off. I’m glad there was no one in the passenger seat as they would have been seriously injured or worse. And knowing this driver, I’m sure they have taken this crash as learning experience. Growing up my father used to tell us that whatever we do, do it well. I’m sure this would also include while we’re driving. After all, our health depends on it.
**Check out this dash cam event of a driver running a red light. Proof again why we should never drop our guard. HERE
But some intersections have almost zero visibility due to shrubs, landscaping, etc. And you can not possibly see anything until you’re already in the intersection. How are we supposed to deal with those? Surely if we are already driving 50 km/hr and the light goes green we aren’t going to stop and look both ways for a long time, or will be rear ended. Sure we could hesitate but other than that, despite all of your good intentions there may be not much you could do to stop this in certain instances regardless of all of the scanning.
Take another look at intersections. You can see each side clearly enough by the start of the crosswalks even if shrubs are on the corners. You may also be surprised with how quickly you can stop while traveling at 50 km/h. The “almost zero visibility” comment is well taken, but there’s still plenty of space to see if you really want to. And when you get hit from the passenger side, don’t forget the driver who hit you would have been on the other side of the road. So even if you stopped near the centre of the intersection to avoid them, you wouldn’t be in their path. Thanks for your comment. 🙂
Have you driven in St. John’s, NL? Lots of our intersections have buildings or fences built right to the sidewalk (or curb if there’s no sidewalk), and in winter they all have mountains of snow built up on the corners. Sometimes I’ll make a right turn instead of a left and take a longer route because I actually can’t see what’s coming from the right, even from a dead stop.
I hear ya, I hear ya. Even I will admit to going on “auto pilot” at times or sometimes forgetting certain things, such as the scan. But this is a good reminder to stay alert when driving and to never assume things.