Keep up your safe driving skills with these tips and reminders on safe driving practices.
One thing that helps you be a safer driver is thinking about how other people are using the roads. There are many different vehicles on the road with you, all doing their own thing.
Stay alert for people on bikes and drive carefully when near them. Give them 1.5 metres of space when passing.
Sometimes they need to use the road so be patient and wait.
Check for people on bikes before you open the car door.
Look out for people riding e-scooters on the road, especially if lots of people are on the footpath.
Be aware that e-scooters may swerve onto the road to give way to pedestrians.
Keep an eye out for mobility scooters on driveways and at intersections.
Be patient and wait.
At 90km/h, it generally takes a truck-trailer unit more than twice as far to stop as it takes a car. If you cut in front of a truck and suddenly slow or stop, you’re at risk of causing a serious rear-end crash. If you’re moving in front of a truck, make sure you leave them plenty of space and indicate early. If you’re behind, leave a 3-second following distance.
If you’re behind or next to a truck, make sure you can see their mirrors. If you can’t see their mirrors, they can’t see you.
Medications can save your life or make it much more comfortable to live. But they can affect you in other ways too – changing how well you can see, hear, process information, or even stay awake.
It’s illegal to drive while over the limit of some medications.
If you drink alcohol while you’re on medication, it can change the way it affects you. Talk to your doctor about the risks.
You need to know how your medication can affect you before you decide if you can drive when it’s in your system. Here’s some steps you can take:
Don’t drive if you feel any of the following:
When you get older, your brain takes longer to process information. This means you need more time to react to driving situations. For example, if someone is indicating that they’re going to change into your lane, your brain needs to:
Each of these steps takes longer for your brain to do as you get older.
If you’ve been driving a long time, then you’ll have a lot of experience you can draw on to react correctly. You just need to give yourself enough time. Here are some ways you can do this:
You may experience changes in your hearing as you age. You may need to adjust to driving with less hearing.
Get regular hearing tests so you know what your level of hearing is. This will help you know what you need to adjust.
If you’re driving with less hearing, doing the following can help you get more information about what’s happening on the road around you:
Good vision is important to safe driving. We need our eyes to give us the information we use to make almost all driving decisions. As you age, your eyes will change:
To keep your eyes healthy, you can get regular eye tests. Some conditions can be treated with surgery, and some are easier to treat if they’re detected early.
When you’re driving, the following can help you increase your range of vision:
When we’ve been driving for many years, it can become automatic. This is when many crashes happen because we’re not paying attention. Safe driving concepts are ways we can help ourselves pay better attention to our driving. Thinking consciously about how you’re driving and the decisions you’re making will help keep you and others safe when you’re driving.
Your driving decisions start before you get in the car. Knowing where you’re going can help you to avoid hazards and focus more on your driving. Plan all of your trips before you start. Here are some tips to help you plan the best way to go:
If you feel sick or unusually tired, don’t drive.
Being clear about road rules and how to apply them will help you stay a safe and confident driver. If you’re an experienced driver, you’ll already be comfortable with most road rules. However it's a good idea to refresh yourself on the rules around intersections, roundabouts, and merging.
It’s also a good idea to check the road code every now and then to make sure you know about any new road rules, signs or road markings. You can read the road code online or get a copy from most book shops, or your local library, but check to make sure you have the most recent published edition.