Ignorance and apathy, main causes of bad driving habits
Brush up on your driving techniques, bad driving habits such as over-confidence and apathy could be the main contributors of road accidents.
Annually, the holiday season claims plenty of lives due to road accidents.
Before you hit the road, detect, address and manage your bad driving habits warns Arrive Alive.
Bad driving habits have two main causes, ignorance and apathy.
Luckily for motorists, ignorance can be rectified by training.
Apathy, however, is a little bit more complex but arises over time when drivers have continually taken risks without experiencing any negative consequences, making the short-cutting of proper procedure an established routine.
Over-confidence is a common outcome of apathy.
Therefore, all motorists should have refresher training at least every two to three years according to Arrive Alive.
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The training will help point out any areas in which you’ve lost your edge and ensure that innate human apathy does not lead to short-cutting of procedures which might eventually kill someone.
Over-confidence in driving allows for the platform for potential danger.
This is a major contributing factor in accidents.
Many drivers have the attitude that they know everything and would not need to be trained or checked up on.
This may lead to other bad habits like insufficient following distances.
Thinking that a vehicle will stop in short distances when it is physically impossible to do so.
It also leads to speeding, as most people don’t realise the effects of speed and how it varies in different conditions, causing a lot of road deaths annually.
This is evident when drivers have engaged in an activity such as skidpan and they begin to think that they’re skilled.
Which often results in doing things and practising things which are not as yet ingrained.
How do you detect and address or reduce these bad driving habits, you may ask. Simply start educating and training at an early age.
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Attend a reputable defensive driver training six-week course, so you can benchmark your ability against a credible standard.
Professionals assisting you during the course will not only show you what bad driving habits are but how these habits could affect us in our daily lives.
Automate your application of these habits.
You should be able to continue to drive defensively without additional effort in the face of adverse conditions, severe distractions, unexpected situations, and the incorrect actions of others.
Attend refresher training every couple of years to stay sharp, and learn new techniques needed to drive modern vehicles effectively.
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