Regardless if you are a new driver or you simply want to improve your skills. It is never too late, nor a wrong move to want to improve your driving. We recommend continuing to read this article even if you are an experienced driver. Who knows, maybe you aren’t doing some things off this list as well. So, let’s talk about how you can improve your driving skills.
1. Lower Distractions
If you have just passed your driver’s license and are ready to get behind the wheel for real, you will need to be responsible. Passing for your license, in reality, is only the beginning of actually being a driver. Most people will start playing loud music and treat driving as a moving party, this is not recommendable under any circumstances, especially for newer drivers. When you didn’t develop your driving senses yet, you don’t know what to focus on properly, add the factor of the radio or talking with friends to this and you are on your way to a car crash. So, the first thing you should do is try to lower as many distractions from the road as possible.
2. Properly Adjust the Mirrors
The usual thing drivers do when they get into a car is adjust their side mirrors so they can see the edge of the car. This is, however, not what you should be doing. That area is already covered with the rear-view mirror. Instead, you should set your side mirrors both on the driver’s side and the passengers’ side so that you can just barely see the edges of the car. With this, you are reducing the blind spots you have by a significant margin. Now that you have properly adjusted the mirrors, you need to use them. A lot of drivers neglect the use of these mirrors or just look at them when they absolutely have to. Side mirrors are incredibly useful and should be used around every 5-10 seconds so you always have a sense of your surroundings.
3. Separate Some Time to Practice Driving
Do you have a safe route that you drive through regularly? Great, use that route to practice your driving skills. Ideally, you will practice on a route that doesn’t have any rugged terrain. We don’t mean that you should go around in circles to practice, far from it. You need to practice being in control and being aware of your surroundings, and the optimal place to do that is on a route where you are already comfortable driving. Once you have regularly gone through that route, change. This is because you don’t want to get overly comfortable with a route so that you stop paying attention to your surroundings or just go on auto-pilot. So, introduce a different route from time to time to keep yourself on full alert.
4. Always Leave More Space Between Yourself and the Vehicle in Front of You
People that have been driving for longer periods of time will, over time, get too comfortable on the road. One way of noticing is when they start getting too close to other vehicles on the road. “An accident hasn’t happened in 15 years, what are the chances of it happening now?”, this mindset is precisely what can cause an accident to occur. So, never forget to leave the distance of at least 2 cars in between you and the driver in front of you. A great side benefit of this is that you almost never need to stomp on your brakes. Some shy away from this idea due to other opportunistic people taking advantage of your goodwill and going in between you and the vehicle ahead of you. This can be a problem from time to time.
5. Improve Awareness of Your Surroundings
Awareness of your surroundings is what separates normal drivers from excellent drivers. This is something that gets ingrained into you over time. You need to know exactly what to pay attention to on the road without letting any distractions sway you. Of course, this can be really difficult to accomplish. Thankfully, in the 21st century, we have car gear that can allow us to be aware of things around the car we could have only dreamed of before. For example, for caravan drivers, it can be really difficult to get a good view of what’s going on around them. With a caravan reverse camera, that is no longer the case. You can use technology to improve the possible awareness of your surroundings, so might as well take advantage of technology to your advantage.
6. Practice Patience
Going out during rush hours can be incredibly stressful. It never feels good knowing that you could go faster on foot than by car, and this can lead to instances of road rage and less-optimal driving. Practicing patience on the road will allow you to calmly approach every situation with a clear head and not make any risky moves just to save a few seconds of time. Patience has a huge influence on awareness so it is vital for any good driver to master both of these things in order to not let emotions sway them and always stay 100% focused on the road.
7. Move Your Eyes Around
It isn’t uncommon for drivers to fixate their sight on one thing straight ahead of them. This is called target fixation, and it can happen when you become too focused on an object that you increase the chances of colliding with said object. So, the best way of lowering the chances of getting target fixation is by moving your eyes around from time to time and briefly focusing on other things to break the continuity. You can check your mirrors and other cars, or when you are at a traffic light you can look around you and observe nature and passersby.