What are the characteristics of an above-average driver?

[Machine_Elf]

This will be a repeat of what some others have said upthread, but here’s my thoughts:

-being predictive. Picking up on the subtle (and not-so-subtle) cues that tell you well ahead of time what’s going to unfold in the near future, giving you a comfortable amount of time to take action - more following distance, changing lanes, etc.

-being predictable. The more often you surprise other drivers, the more likely they are to misjudge something and make contact with you. Sudden lane changes or dramatic accel/decal means that the next time the other guy looks for you, you might be somewhere he wasn’t expected, and he may do something dangerous on the assumption that you are where he thought you were a moment ago.

-avoiding situations where others’ mistakes will cost you. Stay out of blind spots, for example. Leave plenty of following distance - not only to avoid rear-ending the guy in front of you, but so that you can decelerate gradually, thereby helping prevent the guy behind you from rear-ending you.

-Something taught to motorcyclists in formal training: separation of hazards. If you’re potentially facing multiple hazards at once, try to separate them out, e.g. change lanes after you pass through the intersection, not during.

-Making driving your primary task when you’re in the driver’s seat. Let conversations with your passengers become awkward if necessary while you focus on merging or changing lanes in heavy traffic. Gonna change songs on your MP3 player? Wait until you’re at a stop light, or at least until there are no cars or pedestrians anywhere near you.

-conducting post-incident analyses after an incident (“incident” here means crash or close call). Go through in your mind what happened, what you might have done that contributed to it, and - absolutely most important - what you could have done (and will do in the future) to improve the outcome, e.g. more following distance, slower speed, whatever. Consult your passengers (if any were with you) for their perspective). Establishing who had right-of-way in a multi-vehicle close call is less important, by far, than figuring out how you could have avoided that close call in the first place - even if it means surrendering your right-of-way.

A metric of an above-average driver (the outcome of all of the above) is a low rate of occurrence of close calls. The less often you are surprised or have to take emergency evasive action, or get a surge of adrenalin, the less likely you are to be involved in an accident in the future, and that also includes accidents that would not have been your fault.

[SpeedwayRyan]

Ticket free? I’m far from it. I haven’t gotten many in the last decade (largely as a result of a short commute and a less conspicuous – but still fast – car), but I’ve gotten several in my life, and I don’t think that has much to do at all with being a good driver.

I’d rather drive near (or ride in a car with) someone who drives above the speed limit but pays attention, has good situational awareness, is confident behind the wheel, etc., vs. someone who never speeds but can’t figure out that traffic is backing up behind them in the left lane, or or tries to check their facebook notifications on the highway, or can’t maintain a constant speed.

What makes a good driver? Paying attention is key. That probably goes above anything else. If your attention is divided or you are trying to do something else, you won’t be a very good driver. Only great drivers can do other things and still drive well, and great drivers generally don’t try.

Beyond that, being courteous is important – I don’t mean courteous like stopping to let people into a line of traffic, I mean like realizing that causing someone to slow down is a cardinal sin of the roadway. If you are pulling out in front of someone, you’d better be able to get up to speed in time. If you are dawdling in the left lane on the interstate and a car is speeding up behind you, you need to adjust your speed to complete a pass faster (or bail on the pass for the time being) to get out of the way of faster traffic. Forcing someone to slow down or brake means you’ve caused a dangerous situation – they have to brake, the car behind them has to brake, and you’ve started a domino effect of possible collisions that probably could have been avoided.

Also filed under being courteous: signaling. Turn signals do very little for the person using them, unless they want someone to actually help create a gap for them (which is rare). They generally exist entirely to give the people around you more information about your intentions so they can make informed choices. The kind of people who fail to use them are generally poor drivers, because they are self-centered and too lazy to flick their finger an inch forward in order to make the roadways a safer place. I find it hard to NOT signal. Signals can also (help me) help you NOT make a mistake. If I’m passing you and you signal to change lanes into me, I can try to get out of the way or honk at you. If you just up and decide to change lanes without signaling in advance, things might not turn out so well.

Similarly, people who don’t turn their lights on in the rain. Most of the time if it’s not nighttime, turning on your lights in the rain won’t help you see better at ALL. But it will make it a million times easier for other drivers to see you. It always amazes me to see people driving in a pouring rain in a silver car with no lights on – they are basically invisible, and they don’t care. The chances of someone pulling out in front of them or doing something similar are increased by a huge margin. Generally these types also don’t pay a bit of attention, so you can flick your lights on and off or flash your brights at them all day long and they’ll never get the hint.

To be fair, these people are given licenses based on some lame common-sense test and a drive around the block on a sunny day. It’s far too easy for a teenager to get a license to drive a 5000-lb. SUV at 70mph in this country…but that’s what we have, and until we get serious about changing it – and get serious about prosecuting distracted driving – things aren’t going to get any better.

[Voyager]

@SpeedwayRyan

Ticket free? I’m far from it. I haven’t gotten many in the last decade (largely as a result of a short commute and a less conspicuous – but still fast – car), but I’ve gotten several in my life, and I don’t think that has much to do at all with being a good driver.

I’d rather drive near (or ride in a car with) someone who drives above the speed limit but pays attention, has good situational awareness, is confident behind the wheel, etc., vs. someone who never speeds but can’t figure out that traffic is backing up behind them in the left lane, or or tries to check their facebook notifications on the highway, or can’t maintain a constant speed.

Going faster than the speed limit does not imply getting tickets. Unless you are dealing with a speed trap, my experience has been that cops give tickets to outliers. Now if you are going through a small town you can be an outlier even if no other cars are around. Slow outliers are bad also.

Similarly, people who don’t turn their lights on in the rain. Most of the time if it’s not nighttime, turning on your lights in the rain won’t help you see better at ALL. But it will make it a million times easier for other drivers to see you. It always amazes me to see people driving in a pouring rain in a silver car with no lights on – they are basically invisible, and they don’t care. The chances of someone pulling out in front of them or doing something similar are increased by a huge margin. Generally these types also don’t pay a bit of attention, so you can flick your lights on and off or flash your brights at them all day long and they’ll never get the hint.

In California wipers on means lights on - though there are tons of nitwits who don’t do it. You don’t have to turn on lights if your interval wipers are on which I think is a weakness in the law, since the kind of mist and light rain you can deal with using interval wipers are dangerous too. Come on people, you aren’t going to drain your battery.

[SpeedwayRyan]

@Voyager

In California wipers on means lights on - though there are tons of nitwits who don’t do it. You don’t have to turn on lights if your interval wipers are on which I think is a weakness in the law, since the kind of mist and light rain you can deal with using interval wipers are dangerous too. Come on people, you aren’t going to drain your battery.

I have long been of the opinion that carmakers should just make the lights come on with the wipers – on any setting. It doesn’t ever HURT to have your lights on, even in broad daylight, and given the number of people who can’t figure it out on their own, I say we do it for them. It would take a long time to trickle down, though, since a lot of people drive older cars.

This issue is more about turning your lights on at dusk or at night vs. just in bad conditions, but I think one issue that is causing people not to turn their lights on is that many dashboards are fully illuminated all the time. Newer digital instrument panels and panels with strong backlighting can easily be read at night with the lights off, so people don’t get that visual cue they used to get when the backlighting only came on with the headlights: “Oh, I can’t see my speedometer, better turn the lights on!”

That old system worked pretty well, but now there is a safety issue if not properly implemented. Similarly, I think touchscreen infotainment screens in new cars are a major problem. For basically the entire history of the automobile, you could do things without looking – change the radio station, turn up the volume, crank up the AC or turn on the defrost. Now, driven by the need to have the “latest technology,” some automakers have cars with touchscreens to control all of that stuff, with a screen full of buttons that you have to LOOK at to control.

It’s really disgusting that carmakers were so quick to put the desires of their marketing team above such an obvious safety concern. Taking a bunch of basic functions of the car and changing them from something you can do without taking your eyes off the road to something that requires to you look at a screen for a couple of seconds is such a huge step backwards.

[Honey]

The best drivers are predictable, and never take other car’s signal lights for granted. I always know what cars are around me, not just in front of me, but behind me, beside me, and several cars ahead of me. I give bicycles and pedestrians wide berths, and watch them until I’m past them. I also never speed, never had a speeding ticket.

I have never had an accident, and I’ve avoided many of them.

[halman]

@jebert

The whole country is Lake Wobegon when it comes to drivers - everyone is above average. Just ask them.

So what does it take to really be an above average driver? Is an accident-free or ticket-free record enough? Or are there other characteristics or skills that would distinguish one as a better driver? Your comments welcome.

Be aware of what is going on a ways down the road, and prepare for it. If a car is stopped waiting to make a left turn, get out of that lane. Stay out of people’s blind spots. Expect people to act like they are the only ones on the road. Don’t ride your brake pedal. A tiny amount of pressure on the pedal and your brake lights come on. After a while, people won’t realize that you really are slowing down. Don’t let your car shift into overdrive in town, because it makes it difficult to accelerate out of a situation when the transmission has to shift several times to get you into low enough gear.

Practice backing up, and back into parking spots in order to get more practice. Either you back in, or you back out; If you are backing up, you are usually liable for any accident. Slow down when everyone is driving fast. It will encourage them to slow down, and it keeps you from felling rushed or bullied. If someone is riding your bumper, don’t try to drive faster, find a place to pull over and let them by.

Look out for things other than cars and trucks on the road. Powered chairs, bicycles, skateboards, people, motorcycles, keep your eyes open. Don’t try to do two things at once with a car; such as turning while braking. Slow down first, then turn. Look to your right before making a right turn to make sure that there is not a pedestrian or a bicyclist there.

“Patience is a virtue in the driver behind you, but not the driver in front of you.”

“You never really learned how to swear until you learned how to drive.”

[Wallaby]

@racer72

I attended a high performance driving school many years ago. It was geared toward becoming proactive behind the wheel, not just reactive. I still use what I learned today. I feel I have avoided a number of potential accidents from what I learned.

I did one too. The instructors said ‘One thing we want you all to learn is how very fast 60KMs/h (35 mph) is’. We did.

Prior to that, I was a typical teenager. An above-average driver was one who could handbrake turn, squeal the tyres, get away from the traffic light first, and (primary skill) talk utter bullsh!t.

[ethelbert]

@Hari_Seldon

I am tempted to say, “All you gotta do is drive like me”.

Well, I’ve had a licence for 61 years and never been in an accident. One of the things I see other drivers do is not anticipate. For example, I see a light turn red a block away. I slow down. ** In fact, I play a game of not using the brake, if possible.** Then some a-hole behind me will come around and pass only to come up to the light and screech on the brakes. Not only is this wasteful, but it will cause me to have to brake.

While this seems to work for you, I would recommend against it. Everybody has moments of inattention on the road and sometimes all you need to be snapped out of it is brake lights. They are the only communication you have with the car behind you.