If you’re not learning from someone else’s mistakes, why not?
Often enough, we watch what happens to someone else and avoid doing the same thing, especially if it was pretty bad. It’s sort of like learning from someone else’s mistakes. The only problem is, that rarely happens in the mind of many drivers. Drivers will often make the same mistakes as everyone else who may have crashed their vehicle, only they expect nothing bad will happen to them. Case in point, rear crashes on the freeway/highway. They happen so often yet drivers make the same mistakes day after day expecting not to crash. The only difference is the drivers ahead of them have not slammed on their brakes…yet.
It seems every day there are multiple collisions on our busy highways, that’s because there are. This is especially true in the greater Toronto area. It’s rare to see a single vehicle collision but can often see 3 or more vehicles crunched up together. Is it the weather which causes these collisions? Not always. Well, rarely actually. Its driver decisions which causes these collisions. If asked to these drivers, I’m pretty certain they would say they have driven past a multiple vehicle collision where another driver has driven into the rear of another vehicle. A rear collision is one of the most common forms of collisions in North America, let alone Canada. But it seems no one has learned anything from them.
Over the more than 30 years I’ve been a professional road safety educator, following distance was not measured in car lengths. Never really was, yet so many people seem to use that as their measurement tool. So, let’s consider that. If drivers use the ‘2 car lengths’ as the measurement at city speeds, how would that same physical distance at twice the speed be able to stop you quickly if the driver ahead of you slams on their brakes? I can answer that question for you. It can’t. Now, before you say it can and disagree with me, let’s look at some facts. I like facts.
Once your eyes notice brake lights, your brain gets notified and tells your foot to get off the gas and hit the brakes – hard. This following distance is measured in time, not car lengths. Now you would also need to consider the weight of your vehicle, how good your brakes are, how good your tires are and if they are properly inflated and if you hit the brakes hard enough to begin with. We all know we each have different reaction times, so if the driver ahead of you is quicker than you, bam. So, does 2 car lengths really make sense any longer?
I know what you’re going to say now. If you leave extra space between your vehicle and the vehicle ahead, all the other drivers will take that space. Not necessarily true. It does happen but not anywhere near as often as many drivers think. While I was training a new driving instructor, they had said the same thing to me. I asked them to record how many drivers cut them off – not do a smooth lane change in front of them but actually cut them off – during their 30 minutes commute. The next day when I asked for the results, they smiled and said not to worry about it.
It’s never too late to learn from the actions of other drivers. Learning from the mistakes of others should at least let us know what not to do. Perhaps the toughest part is learning what to do differently.