RECAP: Defensive Driving Courses – Why You Should Take One
Defensive driving is more than just driving slow and wearing your seatbelt. Participating in defensive driving courses means being able to avoid accidents by understanding the potential dangers around you. By knowing the danger, you’ll be better prepared should a hazardous situation arise. Defensive driving will teach you the best course of action for most circumstances, to save you precious seconds in an emergency.
Defensive driving courses have a significant role in teaching people who are new to driving safety. While driving lessons will teach you how to pass your test, a defensive course will teach you how to survive on the road. These courses teach general safety guidelines such as staying alert, keeping a safe following distance from other vehicles and knowing when to check your blindspots, but they also teach the arguably more important skill of anticipating the moves of the other cars. Even if you drive safely, other people may not and might take risks, possibly endangering you and others. These skills can set up a beginner driver for safer driving, for life.
But it’s not just beginner drivers that can benefit from these defensive driving courses. Commercial drivers can benefit by learning about fleet safety and refreshing their skills on safety on the road and responsible driving. Disabled drivers can take courses on how to better maneuvre their adapted cars to avoid clashes with other drivers. Motorcycle riders are the people most at risk of injury on the road, due to the fact that there is not a car shell, seatbelt or airbags to protect them. Defensive driving, even learnt in a car, will increase your knowledge of the road and other drivers. Senior drivers can also benefit from these courses as even though they are the least likely to take risks, they also generally have the slowest reaction time. Defensive driving courses can help expose those risks and reduce them. This course can also be used as a tool to help make the decision of whether it’s time to retire from the steering wheel for good.
Some people may believe that they do not need a defensive driving course because they are very experienced and have many years on the road. You may have never been in an accident, but that does not mean that you’re not a ticking time bomb. Often when people have been driving for a long time, they fall into bad habits and will pay less attention to the road. A defensive driving course is an excellent refresher on why it is so important to stay awake and alert on the road, and can correct any habits you’ve learnt. You can also learn something new like how to perform a high speed stop on a wet road or how to avoid aquaplaning.
Everyone can benefit from taking defensive driving courses, regardless of age, skill level or even vehicle type. As long as you have wheels on the road, there is nothing that will help save your life more than these courses.
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