4/28/2019 10 Simple Driving Skills Everyone Should Know - Expert Safety Tips To Be A Better Driver - Thrillist

iStock/Simon Podgorsek

CARS

10 Simple Driving Skills Everyone Should Know

By AARON MILLER By AARON MILLER @aaron_m_miller
Published On 08/17/2015 Published On 08/17/2015
@aaron_m_miller

Driving is not intrinsically easy. Watch the morning news and you're guaranteed to see no less than
four car accidents before you've even nished your coffee. Fortunately, these 10 easy-to-learn skil
will turn you into the type of driver insurance companies reward, and other drivers respect. Plus,
everyone should know how to properly parallel park... it really isn't that hard, people.

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Flickr/Yo

1. Maintaining control when a tire blows out

There are a few steps you should take if you have a sudden and violent de ation of a tire, but
essentially your goal is to keep the car pointed in a straight line while you slow it down. Read up on
the full procedure here .

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Wikicommons/Kelly Bru

2. Recovering from a slide

If, mid-spin, all you see is a menacing guardrail, it’s a near certainty that you’re going to hit it. Keepi
your eyes on the road, focused on where you want to be rather than on the object toward which
you’re going, is paramount.

Turn the steering wheel toward where your eyes are, and keep it there. Don’t worry about how far
turn the wheel; thanks to the magic of hand-eye coordination, if your eyes are in the right place,
you’ll steer to the right place.

Provided you’re not getting sideways because of an overenthusiastic use of throttle, what you nee
to do is accelerate carefully, which will force the car to rock back onto the rear wheels, and give the
tires the added traction needed to regain control. As the car begins to straighten out, smoothly app
the brakes, and pat yourself on the back.

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Flickr/Bev Sykes (ed

3. Adjust your focal point

If you think of your brain as a computer, you’ll understand that it needs time to process various
pieces of information. If you’re only looking at the car in front of you, you’re not allowing your brain
much time to process potential threats.

Look as far ahead as you can to give yourself as much time as possible to react. In busy traf c on a
freeway, you should be focusing your eyes past the rst few cars in front of you. Look between lane
if you can, and trust that your peripheral vision will alert you if the car in front slams on its brakes.
That’s why you have it.

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Wikicommons/Chris

4. Braking with antilock brakes

It’s amazing that so many people don’t know what to do in an emergency while driving a car with
ABS... which is nearly every modern car on the road. A lot of confusion comes from being taught ho
to drive by parents that grew up in a pre-antilock time, when things like modulating the pedal,
pumping the brakes, and being unable to steer while braking was common. Now? Braking in an
emergency involves one step: press the brake pedal down as hard as you can.

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Tara M

5. Driving in the rain

In light rain, all the oil on the road from other cars will ensure that the road is at its most slick.
Heavier rains wash that away, but then you deal with potential hydroplaning if there’s so much wat
that the tires don’t come into contact with the pavement. The secret is to keep your eyes peeled fo
any puddles that are potentially deeper than the rest. Note any abnormally large splashes from
vehicles in front of you, so you have time to prepare by either slowing down or moving over.

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Flickr/Mike Beaure

6. Driving in the snow

First things rst: make sure your car has adequate tires for snow use. All-season tires will work for
the lighter stuff, and in heavier stuff if you’re a little more careful, but if you live somewhere that ha
the kind of winter that traditionally involves shoveling driveways, you need to have winter tires.

The rest of snow driving is really a matter of common sense. Drive with plenty of caution, allow
plenty of space for cars in front of you, and stay within your abilities.

If you try to turn and nothing happens, you’re going too fast for the conditions, and you need to
straighten out the steering wheel and brake gently until you’re going slow enough to make the turn
If the car starts spinning on you mid-turn, refer to #2 on this list.

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Flickr/Robert

7. Be a defensive driver
Be aware of what’s going on around you, including types of vehicles and what each driver is doing
(i.e. texting, driving erratically, etc.). The safest play is to assume someone is about to cause a wreck
so it’s your job to gure out where you would go once one starts to unfold. Can you duck onto the
shoulder or is there a drop-off? Is there someone in the lane next to you, or can you swerve into it i
need be?

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Flickr/Jon Co

8. Get a grip on road rage by taking the road less travelled

As with most other undesired behaviors, understanding road rage is the key to keeping it in check.
It’s simply aggression as a means to assert dominance over strangers viewed more as large metallic
objects rather than as people. And take a more decongested route—It’ll be a more relaxing drive
since you’ll be worrying less about drivers, probably won’t add more than a couple of minutes to
your journey, and might be a more interesting and enjoyable road anyway.

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Aaron M

9. Operating a manual transmission

The fact that the vast majority of vehicles today are automatics doesn’t mean there will never be a
time in your life when someone will count on you to drive his or her manual car. You don’t have to b
a gearhead to drive a stick shift, and it’s a skill you’ll feel really good about having once you do.

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Flickr/AtOMiCNe

10. Parallel Parking
Sure, more and more cars are capable of parking themselves with each passing year, but this is still
valuable skill to have, and it’s actually pretty easy. You just:

1. Pull up until you’re almost even with the car in front of you, but not quite.
2. Crank the steering wheel toward the curb, and start backing up.
3. Once the rear wheel of the curb-facing side of your car is even with the street-facing side o
the rst car, straighten the steering wheel and continue reversing.
4. When the rear wheel of the street-facing side of your car is even with the street-facing side
of the other, crank the steering wheel in the opposite direction.
5. Reverse until you’re parallel.
6. If that doesn’t work, you’re at least close by this point, so a couple of adjustments and you
should be good to go.

Aaron Miller is the Rides editor for Supercompressor, and can be found on Twitter . He practices the foca
point concept religiously.

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