Regarding shifting gears over railroad tracks, a friend of mine failed his CDL test in New York for doing that.
Most level crossings in my locale are on ground level enough that you shouldn’t really need to change up or down, but I suppose the risk is high enough that lorry drivers are asked to stop and phone before and then after driving over tracks.
As I mentioned it is a federal requirement for trucks. Not for cars.
Those two measurements should be roughly equivalent. They are interchangeable rules.
I’ve heard one second for every 10 mph, so often a lot more than two.
Not exactly. A car is what a little less than 20’ long? Let’s 20’ to make the math easy. So at 60 mph
One car link for for every 10 mph = 6X20=120 feet
Two second rule = 88 X2=176 feet. Which is about 50% further.
I personally have a hard time envisioning just how many cars will fit between me and the guy in front of me, but I can look at a mark on the pavement and count to two. 
I find it a bit more comfortable to try and maintain a 2.5-3 second gap, and find that not too hard to do even in LA traffic.
Gigi A 6 second gap at 60? :eek: Good luck trying to make that happen in LA.
Up here there’s no gap either. No other cars nearby!
Drive on the right, pass on the left. (Reverse this for countries that drive on the left.)
Use your turn signals when changing lanes.
You might think these are obvious. They’re not.
Best advice so far.
If you “obide” YOU will be the Dude.
Maybe, but the examiners are not testing your clutch-juggling skills. Their job is to decide whether you will be a safe driver, in any car. A handbrake hill start doesn’t require the familiarity with that particular clutch that a footbrake hill start does, and so is less likely to result in you rolling backwards.
My driving tip, gleaned if memory serves from a link in a SDMB thread - when stuck in a long stop-go queue, you can eliminate the stop-go for you and everybody behind you by leaving a gap in front of you. The trick is to realise how large that gap needs to be. If your daily commute involves a 2-mile crawl, like mine does, you need to leave a gap of at least 50m to soak up all the futile accelerating and braking ahead of you. It’s much more restful to crawl along at 4mph, which you can do in first gear with both feet off the pedals, than to constantly declutch-accelerate-brake-clutch like most people.
when driving on isolated Candian hwys at night it is fine to go way over the speed limit, adjust radio and MOOSE!!!
been there, done that, wrote off car, lucky to be alive
FML
I was driving behind a car the other day who was braking about every other second; I drive a manual transmission, and I couldn’t figure out how he was driving like that - who needs to brake that often in very little traffic? I’ve noticed driving a stick that I don’t brake nearly as often as automatic drivers; I let the engine speed do most of my work most of the time.
I forgot one of my obvious tips that people (surprisingly) tend to overlook - look the direction you’re driving in.
If anyone doubts that this is serious and true, ask my sister’s friend about it. I can’t imagine the pain she went through cancelling her wedding because her fiance was killed in precisely this manner.
I was 16. When my mother asked me why I had a blanket and a flashlight in my car, I was dumbfounded. She was convinced it was so I could take my girlfriend to a private spot and have sex on the blanket in the woods or something. She couldn’t understand/believe that it was in case I was stuck, wrecked, on the highway in the snow for hours in the dark.
Regarding the so-called 2-second rule, you’re supposed to add a second for wet conditions, one for ice/snow, one for each axle of a trailer you’re towing, one for night driving, one for a car-top carrier, one if the vehicle in front of you is a motorcycle and a bunch of others from the DMV manual I can’t remember off the top of my head.
:eek: :eek: What kind of vehicle were you in? A doc here hit one in a small car and, remarkably, lived. But he took a long long time to recover.