Fear and Loathing on the Highway, Part 2 - Stupid Driver Tricks

Before we get on to Stupid Driver Tricks, I thought I'd address the issue of making sure your car is ready to be driven. I used to drive airplanes for a living, and I still think of this as a preflight inspection. Before getting in the car, check:

• The tires on the passenger side. If you'll notice, most of the cars you see along the highway with obvious low pressure in a tire will have it on the right side of the car (in the US). That's because many drivers seem to think that their automobile has only two wheels, and rarely bother to look at those on the passenger side. Just look at the tires. You can't tell if they're properly inflated by looking, but you can tell if they're too low for safety.*

• Liquids beneath the car. Water from the air conditioning is normal. Green stuff (antifreeze) and oily stuff are not. Be especially suspicious of liquids inside and right next to the wheels. You may have a brake leak.
• Broken lights and other damage. Speaks for itself.
• Check the outside mirrors and the side and rear windows to make sure they're clean. Especially at night, in the early morning, and near sundown, glare caused by dirt can obstruct your vision.

• Look for anything else that seems odd.
• Last thing: check in front and to the rear of the car for obstacles like toys, kids, pets and so forth.

All of the above takes less than a minute, unless you have to check further on something. Once a month, I have someone stand outside and check for problems while I turn on all the lights and operate the brakes and turn signals.

Check your tires with a pressure gauge every month, even if they look OK. The pressure on a passenger car should be around 36 p.s.i. (2.53 kg/sq. cm.). Check your owner's manual or the sticker inside the door. You can't tell by looking at it that a radial ply tire is low until it is near the danger range. Use a gauge! Before Moving the Car When you get into the car, the first thing is to fasten your seatbelt. If you don't wear seatbelts, you may as well not read any further, because you're too stupid to understand this article anyway. (Don't bother leaving comments about all the reasons you don't. I've heard it all before, from the cops I used to instruct, and it will just make you sound ignorant. Perhaps I'll write an article about that later, but for now I'm not responding.) Carefully adjust your seat for comfort. Then adjust the center and side mirrors so they give you a good view when sitting upright in driving position. I like to adjust side mirrors so that I have to move my head slightly in order to see the side of the car. This covers the blind spot better than the usual practice of setting them so that you can see the rear fender. You still need to check your blind spot by turning your head, though. Lock the doors. In a severe collision or rollover, your chances of staying inside the car (where you definitely want to be) are roughly 10 times better. And now...
Stupid Driver Tricks, or How to Spot an Amateur Driver Quick detection and allowance for for careless or inexperienced drivers is an essential skill, especially on expressways. We need to look for signs of those who are likely to be (or create) a hazard, on the theory that forewarned is forearmed. Here are some obvious clues that I look for. One of the easiest things to spot is a poorly-maintained vehicle. This can indicate anything from extreme inexperience (as in recent immigrants or kids), to advanced poverty or alcoholism, but is in many cases an indication that the driver is unskilled or impaired in some way. Look for low tires, missing mirrors, loose parts, obvious disrepair, smoky exhaust, and the like. Other indications of dysfunctional drivers are trash on the dash and rear window ledge, and generally obstructed vision: lots of stickers on windows, entire rituals hanging from rear view mirrors, obviously old junk piled in the rear seat or the truck bed, and so forth. A surefire way to identify problematic drivers is the way they enter traffic. People who fail to react quickly and efficiently at intersections are as likely to cause trouble as those who claim the right of way when it isn't theirs. Drivers who make right turns into the center or far lane demonstrate that they either don’t understand the rules or don’t care about them, since laws, in the US and other countries where people drive on the right, uniformly state that you must remain in a single lane (if possible) when making a right turn. Folks who hesitate to enter traffic confuse other drivers, and are liable to make split-second decisions when you aren’t expecting them. Watch out for the ones who won’t make eye contact. They’re either distracted, or getting ready to do something they think you won’t like. On limited access roadways, be leery of drivers who don’t know how to merge properly. The correct way to merge is to accelerate to the speed of other traffic while you’re on the ramp, then make a lane change into the traffic lane while signaling. People who don’t know how to do this cause pileups behind them on the ramp, and one of those folks is almost certain to do something rash. Once a driver has demonstrated this level of inexperience, you need to watch them carefully -- while leaving their neighborhood in a safe manner. By the way, in the US and Europe you are required to cooperate with people trying to merge. Merging traffic has the right of way!

Drivers who don’t signal for turns, lane changes and merges also label themselves as amateurs. This essential communication with other drivers is so basic and simple that those who don’t do it are bound to have other dumb tricks up their sleeves. Watch them like a hawk!

Indecisive drivers who signal, then stop signaling, drift to the side as though changing lanes, then get back in the center, slow as if turning, then speed up, are guaranteed to do something unexpected. Be careful. Similarly, watch for the ones who leave their signals on. They’re either distracted in some way, or impaired.

Statistically, there is an 80% likelihood that someone driving with their headlights off after dark is intoxicated or otherwise impaired. Keep that in mind when interacting with them, and remember that cops know it as well. Make sure yours are on!

People who drive with one hand on top of the wheel do not have their vehicle under control. There are several reasons why that is the case. For one thing, in an emergency you cannot hold onto the wheel firmly through any reasonable range of motion. If you can’t react to an emergency properly, your vehicle is not under your control. For another, the weight of the driver’s arm will usually cause weaving if he maintains a firm grip, so the tendency is to either keep the hand relaxed or, worse, to rest the wrist on top of the wheel. A pothole, a sudden flat tire, potential sideswipe, or anything else requiring quick, precise steering input will leave such a casual soul in deep doo-doo -- along with those nearby.

Contrary to what they taught in driver ed when I was a sprout, the best position for the hands on the wheel is at the bottom, at five and seven or four and eight. Along with a properly-adjusted seat, this allows fine steering corrections using the hands and wrists -- very precise and with little fatigue. Having hands high on the wheel requires gross muscle input, using the shoulder, chest and arm muscles -- not nearly so precise and much more tiring. The lower position also allows turning the wheel at least 180° with either hand while maintaining a firm grip, and facilitates "feeding" the wheel from hand to hand the way pros do. The 10-2 position goes back to the days before power steering, when gross muscle input was the norm. If you see your favorite NASCAR driver doing it, it's because race cars don't have power steering. (They also produce very tired drivers.)

Almost by definition, people who fail to wear restraints are not the best drivers. The opinion is subjective, but it’s based on many years as a police officer, thousands of crash investigations, and literally millions of miles on the road. There are probably exceptions, but don’t depend on it. They believe they know more about driving than the experts and, for that reason alone, they aren’t to be trusted.

Which brings us to the subject of body position. Watch out for drivers who lean to one side or the other, especially against the door, or who drive with the seat reclined (a current fad among the young folks in my area). The same goes for tilted heads from holding a phone under the chin. Bad driving posture and head position limits the field of vision, while tilting the head destroys depth perception and reduces detection of peripheral movement. Stay away from the side the phone is on! Between a tendency not to turn the head and the distraction of the call, you can’t trust those folks for a second. Better yet, just stay a good distance from phoneheads altogether. There is a growing statistical base indicating that talking on phones while driving -- whether or not with a hands-free device -- causes as many crashes as drunk driving. It's true that statistics can lie -- but they don't die; people do.

Most observable driving errors, apart from those mentioned already, can be attributed to lack of attention or simple unskillfulness. These include following too closely, erratic speed, frequent braking (the best drivers brake the least), frequent lane changes because of failure to plan ahead, and driving in other driver’s blind spots (or allowing vehicles to remain in theirs). Driving along beside trucks is a particular bit of insanity that I’ve never understood, but see frequently. Experienced drivers try to maintain a safety zone around their car, with space ahead and to at least one side in case they have to make a quick move. There is more to communicating with other drivers than horn-blowing and middle fingers. A tap on the horn when pulling alongside a vehicle with restricted vision (or a quick headlight flick at night) is appreciated by all professionals, and is a helluva lot safer for you. Day or night, a flick to let a passing trucker know that she has clearance to pull in front of you is a big help. Beware the driver who never seems to look in mirrors, who doesn’t make eye contact, or who seems to ignore all the others on the road. No good will come of remaining too close to one of those.

The proper way to pass a truck on a multi-lane highway is to stay about 20 feet behind the end of the trailer, wait until you have room ahead, then signal and accelerate past. This minimizes your time in the danger zone and the driver’s blind spot. Since you’re there and gone, the trucker won’t have an opportunity to forget about you. Remember the wave of air flowing off the front of the truck at high speeds -- it can cause your vehicle to swerve unexpectedly. Don’t let the guy behind bully you. You decide when you’ll pass.

That’s enough for now.

And hey -- be careful out there!

In addition to having driven for half a century, the writer has been a police officer, a tactical driving instructor for police cadets, and was for five years and 300,000 miles a professional chauffeur along the Palm Beach - Miami I-95 corridor, the most dangerous section of Interstate highway in the US. For years he taught remedial driving to police officers, and knows whereof he speaks.
Copyright© William E. Webb 2006 - 2007 All Rights Reserved