How Safe Are You? Do You Need a Refresher Course?
Have you been driving for a number of years? Never been involved in an accident? Do you think this is an indication of how safe you are? Do you understand why and where crashes occur most often? The following is an example of a very near-miss crash in one of the most common scenarios; it is a true story as it happened with myself and one of my pupils:
Location: learner driver on main road with 50mph limit, having rounded a bend, ahead a T-junction on the right, some 10 seconds distant.
Scenario: a vehicle arrives at the T- junction to turn right onto the main road; however, several vehicles approaching from the opposite direction caused the driver to stop; during the 10 second approach, instructor discusses this scenario with the pupil, as this is the kind of road environment commonly associated with crashes.
Event: just as the last vehicle has passed the junction, the waiting vehicle emerges, at the moment when the learner car, proceeding ahead along the main road, is drawing level with this junction. Instructor sounds the horn, pupil brakes promptly then, as emerging vehicle stops in response to horn, obstructing part of learner’s carriageway, learner swiftly responds to instruction to come off the brakes and steers through the available gap, thereby preventing a serious crash.
So what happened? Why did this car driver pull out right in front of the learner? The temptation is to label them as a fool but did that driver set out to be so foolish? Are their normal driving skills really so bad? I think not. A simple, but nearly fatal error was made, most probably one of the following:
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the driver continued to focus on the vehicles obstructing their passage, approaching from the right, without any observations to the left during this time, a full 10 seconds. Once the last vehicle had cleared the junction, the driver was still remembering the last thing they had observed to the left, which was that the road was clear, and simply forgot to check again, thereby pulling out straight into the path of another vehicle.
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The driver did observe left, taking one very quick glance, but because the junction was on a slight angle to the road, and the driver had failed to ’square up’, the approaching learner driver would have been in the blind spot/spots of the driver’s car - the windscreen pillar and/or the passenger seat head restraint; the ‘driver looked but failed to see’, one of the most common police statements on crash investigation reports.
So, the lessons to be learned here:
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When waiting to emerge right at a T-junction, continue observing in both directions.
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When pulling out right or left from a T-junction, never rely on one brief glance in either direction as vehicles, and in particular motorbikes, can be hidden in your vehicle blindspots.
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Keep your thinking ‘active’, and never make any assumptions, especially at the most familiar junctions you use every day, at the same time, and where you believe you know every other vehicle on the road! One day a ’stranger’ may arrive and catch you out.
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And never assume a crash-free driving career is a reliable indication of your driving safety - you will never know how many other drivers have been ‘proactive’ in their driving and have avoided a collision with you!
The best way to ensure your continued safety is to take a driver refresher course - you never know whose life you could save, maybe even yours!
PS. Congratulations to Neisha Kerridge of Barford, Norwich, for handling this situation so admirably, even though you are a relatively inexperienced learner driver. Your calmness at the time, and prompt actions, saved the day! Very well done!
