While attitude and driving skills are important, good driving habits enable a driver to stay away from danger, and react correctly in an emergency.

HABIT # one. Look at solutions, and away from problems as you drive.

Be alert and wary. An important part of your searching is to know what is behind and to the sides of you. Making eye contact with other drivers is a good way of helping you work out what they are likely to do next.

To improve your observation practice three skills:

1. Look often. Look ahead to where you will drive in the next 12 seconds. This represents about a city bloc at traffic speeds and around a kilometre at highway speeds. Scan your view back towards yourself in a zigzag pattern. Repeat this action a number of times for each new section of road as it comes into view.

To do this, you need to slow down early at situations like intersections, hillcrests and bends.

1. Look “Through” vehicles. Avoid looking at vehicles. Very dangerous situations occur when vehicles are hidden from view behind other vehicles that are moving. Often these are small vehicles, like bicycles and motorcycles. So search, be wary and look past obstacles.
2. Look For the “Traffic Gap” or the solution. A “Traffic Gap” is the distance between vehicles that you judge to be safe to drive in or across. Timing your driving to ‘catch’ the traffic gap improves your safety. Avoid looking for vehicles.

In the same way, avoid looking at any problem, look at its solution. There may be a sudden emergency like an animal on the road, or you may not be quite sure what another driver is going to do. A car might reverse onto the road, prepare for a “U” turn, or a right turn. A driver might forget to turn on or off an indicator.

When you see danger, look where you want your vehicle to go, and monitor the danger with the corner of your eye.

Automatic and Manual Lessons with Compass Driving School in the areas around Mirrabooka , Midland and Cannington licencing centres will make sure that these skills become part of your everyday driving habits.

Call or text Barrie on 0417712223