Skills Checklist - What You Need On the Road

 

Do you have the following driving skills?

Vehicle accidents claim thousands of lives every year. Some of them are unavoidable and are truly no one's fault. Others could have been avoided. If you're out on the road like most Americans, you should be able to say with confidence that you have the following skills.

1: Braking and Swerving

Being able to stop or swerve your vehicle quickly is a skill that you need to have. This takes time to develop and, if you don’t have these skills, you're at a much higher risk of being in a bad wreck. Remember that stopping with anti-lock brakes is much easier than it is without them. You'll need to learn to not lock up your brakes if you have regular brakes on your vehicle.

2: Merging

Merging accidents are very common. You have to understand the laws that relate to merging, first and foremost. The car merging has to give up the right of way, in most cases, to cars already on the road. Merging should be somewhat akin to using a zipper: one car fits neatly into the space behind the last. The posted speed limits on the ramps are designed to make merging easier. Follow them.

3: Cornering

Cornering is usually taught to motorcyclists in great detail and not taught to automobile drivers at all. The trick to taking corners correctly is to look all the way through the corner rather than at the curve right in front of you. Remember to follow the posted speed limit.

4: Night Driving

You should have at least two seconds before you hit anything that comes into range at the end of your headlights. This is plenty of time to react, no matter what you need to do to deal with the situation. There are some very powerful headlights on the market now. Make sure you have good ones that give you the maximum visibility allowable by law.

Negligence and Lawsuits

All of the skills above are reasonable abilities to expect of any driver. If you end up in a situation where someone fails to live up to them, contact an accident attorney. They may be able to help you sue the other driver. A Dallas car accident attorney will look for negligence in the other driver's behavior, which is simply not being able to react as any normal person behind the wheel could reasonably be expected to react in the same situation that caused your wreck.