If you want safer roads, learn to drive better

Along with some of the Auto Express team, I was lucky enough to head up to Yorkshire recently to go back to school for the day. Many of us haven’t really thought about how we drive since that joyous moment an examiner told us we’d passed our test, but a day with Paul Ripley’s excellent instructors was a chance to reset and consider bad habits.

The course revolved around on-road hazard awareness, reading the signs and clues all around so you’re in a position to spot danger earlier, and be better placed to deal with it when it occurs. In this job, where we spend a disproportionate amount of time driving unfamiliar cars on unfamiliar roads, it’s important to make sure the Auto Express team is as skilled as possible. But everyone would benefit from stepping back to look at their driving as a skill rather than an activity.

As much as it gets you thinking about your own driving, the course is also about giving you the mentality to side-step the poor decision making of others – even if there’s apparently no such thing as a below-average driver. Statistically, of course, half of those behind the wheel are sub-par, but how many people have you ever met that would admit to being in the bottom half?

Being curious and interested in driving is a good start, because people who look around and can read what the road is telling them are immediately ahead. From looking at everything, such as road markings, to being alert enough to spot dangers early, any driver should be constantly assessing, processing and adjusting their behaviour according to the information around them.

Often, even learning to drive is about how quickly you can get your licence. For many drivers, those hours of tuition are the only formal tuition they will ever get. Compare that with the continuous training heavy goods vehicle drivers are quite rightly required to go through, and the difference is clear.

Maybe the roads would be a little bit safer, a little bit less stressful and a little better for everyone, if we all considered our mindset when driving. Our streets could be a nicer place if we took stock of our own driving skills and made an effort to improve on areas where we know, but perhaps wouldn’t admit, we sometimes fall a bit short.

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