what makes a good driver essay

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How to Be a Good Driver

There are several factors that make one a good driver. A good driver is supposed to observe all road usage rules and guidelines. He or she should have steady concentration throughout a session. This helps one's mind to fully focus on driving. The probability of accidents likely to occur is minimized if a driver concentrates when driving.

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A good driver should have good anticipation. This is best explained as defensive driving.  One should be able to notice everything that happens around when driving. This guides one into defensive driving which is essentially a very important skill.   A good driver changes the area of vision often when driving. He looks back by using the side mirror especially when he wants to overtake or change lanes. He looks side ways to ensure that he is not as close to other cars as to likely cause an accident. He looks forward to ensure that when the driver in front applies brakes, he can instantly swerve or decide to induce emergency breaks.  Anticipating helps a driver to see any road signs in front of him like sharp corners, zebra crossings or possibilities of accidents ahead. A good driver takes care of himself as well as taking care of other motorists on the road (Driving Standards Agency 105).

A good driver should have at minimum average driving skill. One should change gears without jerking passengers in the car. When breaking, accelerating and when taking sharp corners, one should have the other passengers in mind. Constant practice of good driving and applying common sense helps to make one a good driver. Good driving skill is aided by personal instinctive discipline. One should not be very fast in applying every skill that he or she knows when driving. Calmness in driving should be adhered to so that proper driving can be put to task (Caffelle and Newman 28).

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A good driver should have the good attitude when driving. One should not carry anger and other personal problems to the driving situation. Tolerance and tranquility is an important factor when driving. When a driver has the right attitude, skill and expertise, the possibilities of accidents are almost zero. The proper attitude helps one to concentrate in driving rather than concentrate in the issues disturbing him or her.

Knowledge of the road or the Highway Code makes one a good driver. Different roads or highways have their codes that are supposed to be considered when driving. A good driver should know the speed limits that certain highways prescribe. Different highways have same and different road signs. For one to be a good driver he should be able to understand all these road and highway signs and apply them appropriately.  This knowledge may be acquired by taking the road theory test.

Self discipline is an important attribute of a good driver. A good driver should in every way possible have self discipline. The ability to observe road rules and regulations and respecting other road users, stems from self discipline. A driver who does not have self discipline does not observe road regulations, ignores speed limits and road markings and parks wrongly. A good driver does the opposite of this. He or she does not succumb to time pressure at the cost of road safety.  A driver who has self discipline respects other road users and does not scare drivers who are learning to drive or those who have not perfected driving.

A good driver should posses a clean and valid driving license and try as much as possible to avoid causing accidents. A good driver should obey the traffic police. When the police stop him or her for instance, he or she should stop and listen to what they may want to tell him because it may be a matter of life and death. A good driver should therefore posses the above qualities.

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Essay on Driver

Students are often asked to write an essay on Driver in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Driver

Introduction.

A driver is a person who operates and controls a vehicle. They can drive cars, buses, trucks or any other motorized vehicles.

Responsibilities

Drivers have a lot of responsibilities. They must follow traffic rules, respect other road users, and ensure the safety of their passengers.

Good drivers need several skills. They need to have good hand-eye coordination, be able to judge distances, and stay calm in stressful situations.

Being a driver is not just about driving a vehicle. It’s about ensuring safety, following rules, and having the right skills.

Also check:

• 10 Lines on Driver

250 Words Essay on Driver

The role and responsibilities of a driver.

A driver, in essence, is a person who operates and controls a vehicle. However, the role extends beyond mere operation, encompassing responsibilities towards safety, efficiency, and legality.

Driving Skills and Safety

A driver’s fundamental duty is to ensure the safety of passengers, pedestrians, and other road users. This requires exceptional motor skills, spatial awareness, and knowledge of traffic rules. Advanced driving skills include understanding vehicle mechanics to ensure optimal performance and safety.

Legal Obligations

Drivers must adhere to traffic laws, which vary by region but generally encompass speed limits, signals, and prohibitions against impaired driving. These laws aim to maintain order on the roads, and violation can lead to severe consequences.

Environmental Concerns

In the context of environmental sustainability, drivers have a role in reducing carbon emissions. This can be achieved by adopting eco-friendly driving habits, maintaining vehicles to optimize fuel efficiency, or choosing electric or hybrid vehicles.

The Future of Driving

With the advent of autonomous vehicles, the traditional role of a driver is evolving. Future drivers might need to understand and manage autonomous systems, adding a new dimension to their responsibilities.

In conclusion, drivers are more than just vehicle operators. They are custodians of safety, legal order, environmental sustainability, and potentially, advanced autonomous technology. As our world continues to evolve, so too will the multifaceted role of the driver.

500 Words Essay on Driver

A driver, in the broadest sense, is an individual who operates a vehicle, whether it be a car, truck, or bus. Their role is pivotal in our modern transportation system, ensuring the smooth flow of people and goods. But a driver’s job is not as straightforward as it seems. It involves a complex interplay of skills, responsibilities, and challenges that often go unnoticed.

The Skillset of a Driver

Driving is a multifaceted skill that requires a blend of physical coordination, mental alertness, and technical understanding. Drivers must be adept at navigating roads, understanding traffic rules, and operating vehicle controls. They need to have a firm grasp of their vehicle’s mechanics to troubleshoot potential issues and ensure optimal operation. Moreover, they must be mentally alert, capable of making split-second decisions to avoid accidents and ensure safety.

The Responsibilities of a Driver

Drivers bear a significant amount of responsibility. They are entrusted with the safety of their passengers, the goods they transport, and the people they share the road with. This responsibility extends to maintaining their vehicle in good working order and adhering to traffic laws. Drivers also have a duty to act ethically, showing respect to other road users and not engaging in reckless or dangerous behavior.

The Challenges Faced by Drivers

Despite the importance of their role, drivers face numerous challenges. They must navigate congested roads, unpredictable weather conditions, and the behavior of other road users. Fatigue is a significant issue, especially for long-haul drivers who spend extended periods on the road. Additionally, drivers must cope with the stress of ensuring safety while meeting tight schedules and deadlines.

Technological Advancements and Future of Driving

Technology is reshaping the world of driving. Advances in autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence are creating a future where human drivers may become obsolete. However, this shift presents its own set of challenges and ethical considerations. While autonomous vehicles promise increased safety and efficiency, they also raise questions about job displacement and the loss of human control over vehicles.

In conclusion, drivers play a critical role in our society, a role that is often overlooked and underappreciated. They possess a unique skill set, bear significant responsibilities, and face numerous challenges. As technology continues to evolve, the future of driving is uncertain, but the importance of this role remains undeniable. As we move towards a future with autonomous vehicles, it’s crucial to consider the human element in driving and ensure that progress doesn’t compromise safety, ethics, or livelihoods.

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The Importance of Safe Driving (Essay) + 20 Safety Habits

The importance of safe driving cannot be stressed enough.

In 2020, 38,824 people were killed in car crashes in the U.S. alone. That number rose to 42, 915 just the following year. That’s a huge number of traffic fatalities! And those are just the reported cases; many more go unreported or undiscovered. So what counts as distracted driving? Anything that takes your attention away from driving can be classified as a distraction and can cause a car accident. This includes things like eating and drinking, changing the radio station, looking at something other than the road ahead, and yes, even using a hands-free device.

Why Driving is Essential And How to Stay Safe?

There are many reasons why having the ability to drive is essential. For one, it allows us to get from place to place much faster than walking or biking. This is especially true when covering a great distance. For example, going on a road trip, or traveling across the country, especially if you are a professional travel writer .

Other benefits include:

• It gives us a sense of freedom and independence compared to relying on public transportation schedules or asking friends or family for rides all the time.
• Even though cars require gas and maintenance, which can be expensive, they’re still quicker and more convenient than alternative methods like taking the bus or train.
• When you have your vehicle, you don’t have to worry about planning around someone else’s schedule. You can come and go as you please!
• This newfound flexibility extends beyond just traveling from A to B. Now, you can spend more time with family and friends who live further away, since visiting them isn’t such a logistical nightmare anymore.
• Not only does this save money spent on things like taxis or buses, but it also strengthens relationships that might have otherwise grown distant.

The Hazards of Irresponsible Driving

Of course, with the privilege of driving, comes responsibility. Driving can be hazardous, destructive,  and even deadly. That is why we are discussing the importance of safe driving in this article. I once had a friend who was traveling from Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo at night, and she died in a car accident on the way. It was a tragedy. She was only 27 years old. Hence, everyone must learn safe driving measures before they ever get behind the wheel of a car. “Only when we have mastered the art of driving safely can we truly enjoy all that the open road has to offer.” Key Takeaway: Driving is important because it is faster than other modes of transportation, it allows for independence, and it can be dangerous if not done properly.

The Importance of Safe Driving

When driving, safety should always be a top priority. Although many benefits come with being a safe driver, some people may not realize them. Here are just a few reasons why staying safe on the road is crucial:

1. It Reduces the Risk of an Accident

This is perhaps the most obvious benefit of driving safely. Traffic accidents are one of the most dangerous global threats to people’s health and life. The problem is aggravated because people injured in accidents are usually young and healthy teen drivers. According to the World Health Organization, around 1.3 million people die in road accidents every year, and about 50 million are injured. Following the rules of the road and paying attention to your surroundings can help reduce your chances of getting into an accident. Even if you’re an experienced driver, things can happen unexpectedly, so it’s always best to be as cautious as possible.

2. Save Money on Car Insurance

Insurance companies typically offer lower rates to drivers who have good records and avoid accidents. If you’re looking to save money on your car insurance premiums, one way to do it is by driving carefully and avoiding any potential mishaps. While saving your hard-earned money should not be the primary reason to practice driving safety, it is a bonus. If you are under 18, your parents can help with this process, but it’s a good idea to be involved and understand rates, coverage, and what makes an insurance company good.

3. Avoiding Costly Traffic Tickets

Getting pulled over and receiving a ticket can be expensive. This is not only in terms of the fine itself but also for the points added to your license, which could lead to higher insurance rates down the line. If you want to avoid these costs, then obeying traffic laws and observing safety practices are crucial. Just remember that even if you think something isn’t worth pulling over for, an officer may disagree. So, err on the side of caution when behind the wheel.

4. Enjoying Peace of Mind Knowing You are Less Likely to Cause an Accident

One worry many drivers face is constantly thinking about what could go wrong out on the open road. When you drive safely, this shouldn’t be much of a concern. Instead, you’ll be able to relax and enjoy the ride without worrying too much about what might happen. These are just a few of the benefits that come with driving safely. So next time you’re behind the wheel, remember to take things slow and be extra cautious. It could end up saving your life and others too. Key Takeaway: Safety should always be a top priority when driving. Following the rules of the road and paying attention to your surroundings can help reduce your chances of getting into an accident.

The Importance of Defensive Driving

Defensive driving is a set of skills and techniques that drivers use to stay safe on the road. These skills help drivers expect problems, avoid accidents, and make split-second decisions in hazardous situations. You can learn it through formal training programs or by gaining experience behind the wheel. The importance of defensive driving cannot be understated. It could very well save your life or the lives of other people one day. It’s not just about keeping yourself and your passengers, if you have any, safe. Defensive driving also protects people on the road, as well as your property (and theirs). The bottom line is that when everyone drives defensively, our roads are safer for everyone involved.

So what does defensive driving entail?

Essentially, it means being aware of potential dangers on the road and taking steps to avoid them. Knowing the perfect distance between you and the car in front of you can give you a safe braking distance in case of a sudden stop. It also means anything from obeying all posted speed limit signs and yield signs to using extra caution when merging onto a busy highway during rush hour traffic. In short, always drive with caution and never assume that other motorists will do what they’re supposed to do.

More Specific Tips for Safe Driving

• Obey all posted speed limits even if you think they’re too low. Speeding gives you less time to react if something unexpected happens ahead of you.
• Keep your eyes peeled for pedestrians, especially near schools or in residential neighborhoods where kids are likely to be walking or biking alongside cars.
• Be cautious when backing out of parking spots or driveways. Look both ways first.
• Use extreme caution whenever there’s bad weather, like rain or snow, since these conditions can reduce visibility and traction.
• Don’t tailgate! If someone’s tailgating you, move over safely so they can pass.
• Yield to emergency vehicles: Fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, etc. always have the right of way for their safety and yours.
• Always maintain your cool. Road rage is one of the other common causes of roadway fatalities.

Defensive driving is a critical skill for all drivers to possess. By taking the time to brush up on your defensive driving techniques, you can make our roads safer for everyone, including you.

How to Become a Better Driver?

Whether you’re an experienced driver or you’ve just finished driver’s ed class, there’s always room for improvement. By learning to anticipate problems on the road before they happen, you can avoid accidents even when other drivers are being reckless. Although driving is a skill that takes time and practice to perfect, by becoming aware of what safe drivers do (and the habits they avoid), you can make improvements in your driving skills.

20 Safety Habits for Drivers:

• Always wear your seat belt.
• Ensure your vehicle is in perfect working condition.
• Obey traffic signals.
• Don’t drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
• Don’t text and drive.
• Drive within the speed limit.
• Obey the work zone speed limits. The same goes for hospitals, schools, and near children’s playgrounds.
• Share the road with bicycles & motorcycles.
• Don’t talk and drive.
• Use properly installed child restraints.
• Wait for trains before crossing the track.
• Give way to emergency vehicles.
• Maintain the proper distance between your car and the one in front of you.
• Don’t be easily distracted by sights and sounds around you.
• Don’t give in to road rage. Maintain your cool.
• Remember that you are not on a racetrack, overtake the car in front of you only when it’s 100% safe.
• Stay in your lane unless you need to turn or pull over.
• Don’t forget to use the turn signal.
• Be courteous. Don’t block pedestrians and other cars.
• Be extra cautious in inclement weather conditions.

Key Takeaway: To become a better driver, learn defensive driving techniques and avoid the bad habits of other drivers.

FAQ About the Importance of Safe Driving:

1. why is driving so important.

For one, it increases your mobility and independence, allowing you to go wherever you want when you want it. It also can make getting to work or school much easier and faster, saving time and money. In addition, learning to drive can help build confidence and responsibility.

2. What are the benefits of driving?

The benefits of driving vary depending on the individual. For some, it can be a liberating experience that gives them a sense of freedom and independence. For others, it may cause anxiety or stress because of the responsibility that comes with operating a vehicle. However, the act of driving is relatively safe when compared to other activities, such as motorbiking or swimming. When done correctly and responsibly, driving can be an enjoyable and convenient way to get around.

3. What is a driving skill?

A driving skill is the ability to operate a vehicle safely and efficiently.

4. What are the skills required to drive safely?

• Knowing how to control the speed and direction of the vehicle.
• Being able to judge distances accurately.
• Having good coordination between eyes, hands, and feet.
• Reacting quickly in emergencies.
• Knowing traffic rules

5. What are the three most important things about driving?

The three most important things about driving are safety, awareness, and control. Safety is the number one priority when behind the wheel.

Always drive defensively and be aware of your surroundings. Be especially cautious in bad weather or at night. Awareness is key to being a safe driver. Pay attention to other vehicles on the road, as well as pedestrians and cyclists. Anticipate what others might do so you can react accordingly. Always maintain control of your vehicle. This means knowing your car’s capabilities and limitations and staying within the speed limit—even if traffic is flowing smoothly around you. In conclusion, we should take to heart the importance of safe driving. The benefits and privileges it brings come with great responsibility. Don’t let yourself or your loved ones become a part of the statistics. By following the tips presented here, you can become a better driver and help make the roads safer for everyone. Next up, you may want to explore a guide to remote work safety tips .

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The Driver’s Seat

By Adam Gopnik

I decided to learn to drive because I wanted to learn to drive. I wasn’t, I told anyone who would listen, searching for a metaphor of middle age, or declaring my emancipation from my pedestrian past, or making up for time wasted in the passenger seat. There’s a rich literature about learning to drive written by women, for whom it represents a larger emancipation from the feminine roles of enforced passivity, of sitting in place and accepting helplessness. That wasn’t my “issue.” I wanted to learn to drive because I wanted to make a vehicle move in an orderly direction forward and around corners and to necessary places.

I didn’t know how to drive for reasons that seemed to me obvious and accidental and psychologically uncomplicated. My parents, who worked a few blocks from our apartment, didn’t have a car for a few brief years that happened to coincide with my teen-age ones. Then, in my early twenties, I found myself in New York, where people don’t have cars, and where, among a thousand enterprises in transportation, from learning to roller skate to mastering the transfer from the No. 6 train to the R to get to Times Square, taking the time to learn to drive seemed the least worthwhile. The years, and the decades, had flown past, and on that once-a-year summer occasion when we rented a car and set off for Cape Cod, my wife, Martha, who grew up in a semi-suburb of Montreal and had her license at eighteen, did the driving. She was a terrific, expert, careful driver, and the last thing we seemed to need in the family was another. I simply wanted to be her relief chauffeur—a middle-inning guy, able to go to the pond on an August morning or to the drive-in movie theatre on an August evening. I wanted to be able to get ice cream at night and cinnamon buns in the morning.

Of course, there were other, more ignoble motives pressing on the decision to learn. Even as a feminist in a feminist age, I sometimes felt that I was in the wrong seat. Instead of sitting where generations of fathers have sat, pressing down on pedals and cursing the competition on the road, I had spent decades in the traditional mother’s seat, filling her role—shushing the children when the driver was tired or looking for the exit, or holding out the paper bag of cookies to unseen, waiting hands in the back. When the rental-car man or the gas-station attendant approached the driver’s seat and saw me in the “wrong” one, I immediately glared and scowled in what I imagined to be a persuasive impersonation of a hugely overskilled driver, the kind whose license has finally been taken away by the cops, however reluctantly, after a lifetime of dangerous but entertaining high-speed, “Dukes of Hazzard”-like performance. (Though I accept that these gender roles are nine-tenths “constructed,” invented, and cast, still, that does not make it less of a temptation to play another: that the clown wants to play Hamlet does not mean he thinks that the actor playing Hamlet is actually a prince.)

My immediate trigger, though, was simpler: my son, Luke, turning twenty, had to get his license—he was a sophomore at a liberal-arts college just out of town—and various Robert Bly–Iron John type scenarios of manhood achieved and passed on still existed somewhere in the Walter Mitty theatre of my mind. “Let’s learn to drive together,” I said. But where, in the typical contemporary memoir, the troubled youth and the alienated father would silently acknowledge their vexed journey toward expertise and adulthood, he merely gave me an opaque look and asked if I was really sure this was a good idea, and had I run it by Mom? “Your reflexes are a bit funny, Dad,” he said. I made a joke about being guys together, he mumbled something about “gender fluidity,” which he had been studying in college, and we agreed to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles together and take the test for learner’s permits.

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The D.M.V. has become such a byword for bureaucratic indifference and big-government horrors that it was nice to discover that the 125th Street branch, at least, was about as well-run a place as one could hope to find. As we waited, I insisted that the reason government bureaus could seem so bureaucratic was that, by their nature, they have to be inclusive, and they can’t inflict the basic market rationale of price differences upon their customers. If the privileged could pay more for quicker service, they would, but this would undermine the premises of citizenship. That first-class passengers get a shorter line through security claws at our idea of citizenship, which ought to include the notion that the rich and the poor suffer the indignities and delays of common civic cause equally. That this has never happened—the rich could buy their way out of Civil War conscription—doesn’t make it less of an ideal. I want David Koch waiting in line alongside his chauffeur to be checked for hidden bombs and razors.

I was talking too much, and too quickly, because I was nervous beyond words about the test. I hadn’t taken a test in many years, and I was afraid that I hadn’t studied the little booklet of road rules well enough. People do fail the written test, and in New York State more than half of those who take the road test fail that one. “Dad, it’s easy—it’s multiple choice,” Luke said, as we waited to enter the test-taking room. “There will be two answers that are obviously wrong. Then there will be two sort of plausible ones. If you just choose the plausible ones at random you’ll get fifty per cent. Since you do know something , you’ll get more than half of that right for sure. You can’t help passing.” The American social truth—that what we spend years teaching our children is essentially to spot the two obviously wrong answers—was the essential truth of the D.M.V., too. The larger social truth Luke was touching on, that being good at passing tests has relatively little to do with being good at what those tests are supposed to be testing, in the end came to haunt my entire experience of learning to drive.

I passed the test and got my permit, with a suitably grim photograph, and the very next week I signed up with a driving school in Manhattan that was supposed to be particularly good with later-in-life students. At five-thirty on a Tuesday afternoon, I got into the driver’s seat of a car parked outside my apartment building and advertised on the side as “Student Driver.” I noticed that various catchphrases had been laboriously written out in block letters on adhesive tape and stuck to the dashboard: “ NOODLES !!!” and “ BUSY BEE !!!” and “ GSSLG !”

“I love it, yuuusss, I love it!” Arturo Leon, my driving instructor, said with more enthusiasm than I expected, as I adjusted my mirrors, trying to recall how my father had always aligned these things. And then, to my shock—I expected to be eased into the pool, inch by inch—he had me pull out into the street and make a left turn on the adjoining avenue, and there I was—at rush hour on the Upper East Side, heading north among impatient taxicabs, doing what I suppose was a steady, frightened fifteen miles an hour, while the world roared and bleated around me, speeding past our little car. Arturo, I noticed, kept his foot alarmingly well away from the extra brake on his side in the specially prepared student car.

Panic enveloped me. Taxis were honking furiously—furious, I dimly realized, at me! “Let’s give him the hand,” Arturo said, showing me a gentle, palm-out wave. “Just give him the hand: ‘Yes, thank you for sharing.’ ” He was addressing the car alongside us as its driver yelled soundlessly. He smiled. We moved forward up the avenue. Driving was like a nightmare, or, rather, like a dream I had had many times at the age of six or seven, of being behind the wheel of my father’s car and moving forward, floating forward. I broke out in a sweat—up Madison into the South Bronx, incredibly doing this thing.

Though I kept my eyes mostly pointed rigidly ahead, in the moments when we stopped at a red light (“I want to see the floor under the car ahead of us,” Arturo would instruct me, and it took me a while to understand that by “floor” he meant the asphalt street surface; that, a city boy like me, he thought that everything flat and low on the ground was a floor), I got to study my teacher. Cherub-faced and immense, he worked nights as a d.j. with his brother, loved to sing scraps of old Motown songs as we drove, and thought that rush-hour Manhattan and the crowded shopping streets of Arthur Avenue and Third Avenue in the South Bronx, where he lived, were the perfect arena for learning to drive. As I drove, struggling to keep the terror down, Arturo kept up a non-stop patter. He was a great teacher and a champion talker, somehow managing to be both elaborately formal—he couched any direction, even a last-minute, life-saving one, as a polite request—and cheerily intimate: I learned about his Ecuadorean parentage and his immigrant upbringing, his failed marriage, his two beloved children, and his future prospects, both erotic and professional.

“O.K., we’re going uptown, please continue straight ahead—excellent,” he would say casually, hissing the “xc.” And then: “I love it!” We would head north to approach the Madison Avenue Bridge, or the Willis Avenue Bridge, or the Third Avenue Bridge—all bridges of which I had previously been unaware. “Do I turn here?” I would say, my voice shaky, as livery drivers and cabbies raced around and ahead of me. “If you would just push the car slightly left just here?” he would reply. “Just slide over. Just slide into the left lane. Just look and signal and sliiide . Thank you! Thank you! Excellent. I’m so happy with the way you did that.” He started to sing: “Because I’m happy / Clap along if you feel like a room without a roof. / Because I’m happy / Clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth.” And then: “Thank you for doing that so easily. And we’ll just continue here, and now I’m going to stop you here .” He nimbly slipped his foot sideways onto his own brake, as, coming off the bridge at my steady fifteen m.p.h., I narrowly missed a sixteen-wheeler coming the other way. The truck driver blasted his horn—his steam siren, really—and Arturo waved gently at him. “Let’s give him the hand, right here,” he said. “The hand means thank you, bless you, fuck you. The hand means everything we need it to mean. Oh, thank you so much for signalling to us! Sharing is caring!” He would smile serenely, while slipping in through his smile an obscenity directed at the truck driver for my benefit, and I would laugh and give the truck driver the hand, too. Then Arturo would lean back and let me drive while he told me about his kids—Bryan Armany and Hillary Alizé—and his struggles to keep them in a straight line at school, about his father’s bad health and his mother’s love.

“Become the noodle!” he kept insisting, and I soon learned that this meant to relax completely, go limp from head to toe. His constant talk, I decided, was intended to make you become the noodle by not allowing you to think too much. Dread is always the product of imagination. You see the bad consequence coming and the image paralyzes your judgment. Arturo had me on the F.D.R. Drive at rush hour before I had a chance to think about it.

Two or three times a week, we would spend a couple of hours driving, up to the South Bronx and back again. (Luke did five hours, and it was a wrap: he was ready for the road test.) Arturo would have me crawl along Arthur Avenue and Third Avenue, learning the complicated timing necessary to avoid pedestrians crossing against the light, and then go out into the empty, boarded-over areas of the borough, to practice parallel parking and three-point turns. Then he would reward me by taking me out onto one of the big highways, the Bruckner or the F.D.R., where I could, unbelievably, go forty miles an hour and negotiate lanes like a cabbie, until I found the exit home.

Unlike everything else I’ve learned to do in midlife, driving negated the usual path of learning: the incremental steps, the breaking down and building up of parts, the curve we go up as one small mastery follows another. Driving, I realized, isn’t really difficult; it’s just extremely dangerous. You hit the gas and turn the wheel, and there you are—in possession of a two-ton weapon capable of being pointed at anything you like, at any speed you can go at, just by pressing a pedal a little bit harder. The poor people in the crosswalk—the guy in the tank top striding indifferently forward; the mother yanking at her child’s hand—had no idea of the danger they were in with me behind the wheel! I had no idea of the danger I am in doing the same thing, day after day. Cars are terrifying, and cars are normality itself.

This discrepancy between difficulty and danger is our civilization’s signature, from machine guns to atomic bombs. You press a pedal and two tons of metal lurches down the city avenue; you pull a trigger and twenty enemies die; you waggle a button and cities burn. The point of living in a technologically advanced society is that minimal effort can produce maximal results. Making hard things easy is the path to convenience; it is also the lever of catastrophe. The realization of how close to disaster we were at every moment helped press my panic button, and, while Arturo’s singing and commentary reduced the panic some, I tried to find other ways to overcome it as well.

One way to calm myself was to become my calm father. Whenever I think of him, I am in the back seat and I see the back of his head, his mesh driving gloves, and his calm voice debating a topic with his children improbably crowded in behind him. (My first memories of life are in the Volkswagen “bug” my parents bought in the late fifties, into whose tiny back seat they introduced, like clowns into a clown car, one child after another, until there were six.) To see him so is to do a terrible disservice to his accomplishments—a chauffeur is the last thing he was—and yet in another way it is to see him whole, if one translates the act of driving into an act of understated service. He thought little of doing a kind of drive-around of his six children and twelve grandchildren, now dispersed around the continent like pieces on a game board. From rural Ontario to Boston to Ann Arbor to Berkeley to Washington to New York—the driving would last fifteen or sixteen hours, and he would emerge, bearded and smiling. “I’ve never had an accident,” he liked to say. We were very close when I was a teen-ager, and I loved him more for knowing that I was not remotely like him: he was sound, solid, in his role as a dean paterfamilias to a campus—all things I never hoped to be. My not driving was, in some sense, a response to his driving all the time. We make ourselves in our father’s sunshine but also in his shadow: what he beams down we bend away from.

He had been driving, he often recalled, since he was twelve, as a young boy on a farm in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, his family, unusually, Jews among the Pennsylvania Dutch. He first drove an Army-surplus jeep, used as a tractor, and at sixteen got his license. He often told me of how, as a teen-ager, having a car was the means not just to autonomy—though it was that: you could get behind the wheel and go to Atlantic City, to Provincetown, even to old Quebec—but to privacy. It enabled a lower-middle-class kid in a fractious, noisy extended family to be alone with his thoughts. He said to me once, when I was small, “You know, you can drive right across the country now without a stoplight.” The image stayed with me. (I suspect that the significant things we say to our children usually vanish, while incidental oddities linger.) I wanted to travel with him, but I left the driving to him.

Why, I wondered, had he never encouraged me to drive? Why had he not kept a car when I was a teen-ager? He gave me a driving lesson once—in Italy on a sabbatical leave, as it happened—and it had gone all right. But then he stopped, and he didn’t really have to; we didn’t have a car, that was true, but there were friends and rentals. If driving mattered so much to him, why would it not to me? Had he failed me in some way, or had I failed him in some way I was still not ready to recognize?

Learning to drive changed my perception of the city. Pre-modern peoples have to be persuaded that what they impute to sentient agency is actually the work of automatic forces: lightning, tides, the moon rising are not the result of gods or demons working their will but just things that happen from consciousless natural forces. I had to persuade myself that what I had grown to attribute to automatic forces was actually the work of agency. The crazy taxi-driver, weaving in and out of traffic, I had always viewed with what was, to my wife, undue calm—he was like a whirlpool in the river’s flow, just what was happening naturally. That he was making it happen, and should not have been, was not a thought entirely at home in my head. It had never occurred to me that the pulse and movement of traffic was not like the eddies and currents of rivers but a network of decisions made at frantic high speeds by coöperative and conflicting drivers. The deeper truth was that I accepted the action of cars as automatic forces because I thought, in effect, that my father was driving them all. I had always so trusted him up there in the front seat, as a benevolent natural force, that I extended that trust to anyone in that place.

This opacity of agency in car driving, and the ways we try to surmount it, turns out to be the subject of intense academic study. Distilling an argument from some reading, most of it work created under the general aegis of the studies of street traffic done by the sociologist Erving Goffman, I had the sense that it all seemed to intersect on the idea that we regard cars as shells, closed homes, more than as mobile weapons. Traffic is a way of avoiding looking at other people’s faces. We like being in cars because they give us my father’s teen-age illusion of privacy, and as a consequence we are unduly surprised and even enraged when we are reminded that there are other people like us in them. Road rage is a function of mind blindness induced by the car’s enclosure: when we’re locked in our car’s little confession box, it’s easy to arrive at the illusion that we’re the only person out there. We consistently underrate the movements of cars as intentional objects, and then, in an instant, overrate them. A vehicle that obstructs our way is first a mute object in the maze to be avoided and then, suddenly, a menace. This is why the driver acting erratically, unexpectedly pulling ahead, or moseying down Madison at fifteen m.p.h., prompts “You idiot!” rather than “Are you O.K.?”

Arturo’s method, assuming that there was one, was, in part, to make driving a car more like walking on a sidewalk, full of recognitions and hand waving and early avoidance, tamping down the sudden shocks that the combustion engine is heir to. Driving so much with Arturo after reading the academics, I not only began to enjoy it but also began to like cars, and to see that driving is one of the last democratic things we do. I had long thought of cars as a weapon against civilization, and had said as much many times in print. They devoured cities, destroyed mass transit, assaulted walkers, greedily demanded parking lots where once there had been public space, and, worst of all, sent families out from dense cities into atomized suburbs. But now I saw that driving was in another way civilization itself: self-organizing, self-controlling, a pattern of agreement and coalition made at high speed and, on the whole, successfully. “Just signal and slide over,” Arturo would urge me on the highway, and, as I signalled, other cars—other drivers—actually let me slide over! No cop appeared at the edge of the road to enforce the rule. They just did! Swerving and sliding over is citizenship, and the startling thing is how commonplace and easy it is. It was the essential social contract at work at forty miles an hour. The promised approach of the self-driving car, though it might make the world easier for non-drivers like me—and, given how little I was improving, I thought it quite possible that I would remain a non-driver for life—would still mark a loss in courtesy. “Sharing is caring,” Arturo would sing out, again and again, and though he meant it somewhat sardonically, he also really meant it: we were sharing the public road and that alone was a way of caring for our fellow-drivers. Arturo’s all-purpose hand—the one that means “thank you,” “fuck you,” “who cares about you”—is the proper hand for a citizen. It broadcast civility, while keeping its private meanings to itself.

Along the way, Arturo tried to explain to me what he wanted me to do to prepare for the road test that Luke and I had scheduled together, for late October. Tactfully, he tried to get me to see that my job was not just to show that I could turn corners and do three-point turns and parallel park. More, it was to impress the license-giving tester with my readiness to do anything that was required of me, and to do it in a suitably deferential spirit. “They make their decision in the first ten seconds,” he explained, over and over. “In the first five seconds, just by looking at you. They want to see you work the mirrors, they want to see you check your blind spot—they want to see you work your blind spot.” He showed me how I needed to behave: twisting my neck around in the car to look over my shoulder, my neck bobbing back and forth inside my collar, like Rodney Dangerfield doing standup for an audience in the back seat.

I complained that I saw what was behind me more clearly if I just faced front and looked in the rearview mirrors. “I know,” he said, sighing. “It doesn’t matter. You got to be the busy bee anyway! They make up their mind in the first second they look at you—it’s up to you to show them that you are a safe, skillful, and secure driver by the way you behave when you start up the car, even before you move an inch.” He gave me a brief, dispassionate breakdown of the character of the driving judges, who were joined together by pride of office. They liked skill, but they hated arrogance. They wanted humble drivers. As Luke had explained to me that the key to the written exam was that it was multiple choice, Arturo was telling me that the key to the road test was that it was not multiple choice, it was a game of Simon Says, call and response. The point was to figure out exactly what the tester wanted and then do it.

Over time, Arturo and I became friendly, exchanging confidences about our kids—we both had a boy and a girl, his daughter Hillary named admiringly after Mrs. Clinton, while his son, Bryan Armany, like mine, Luke Auden, had a first name he liked the sound of and the middle name of an artist he admired. We talked a lot about the difficulties of fathering: when to press hard, when to let up—when to be present and when to recede. He was in the middle of managing his father’s decline, in and out of hospitals, moments of lucidity rising in a mire of confusion.

One evening, as I dodged the pedestrians in the South Bronx, or they dodged me, Arturo turned toward me. “Adam, I have something I want to ask you.”

“Sure, Arturo, what?” He seemed so formal.

“How do you write a book?” he said. “There’s a book I have in mind. It’s called ‘Dream Driving,’ all about my way of teaching driving. How you have to think about driving when you’re not in the car. How you have to be the busy bee. How you have to shift gear, steer, signal, look, go.” That was what that “ GSSLG ” on his dashboard meant. “How you have to dream about driving to drive well. How do you write a book like that?”

Writing a book seemed as mysterious a process to him, one as much in need of elaborate advance and afterthought, as driving a car was to me. The secret to both—that, really, you sort of just do it—seemed as inadequate an answer to his question as it would have been to any of mine. I stumbled out something about making an outline, thinking through what you wanted to say, making sure that your sentences on the page sounded a little like your voice in life.

“You sort of get better at it the more you write,” I said. “You have to just keep writing and then, I promise, it will start to feel easier as you do it.”

He paused. “You become the noodle?” he said.

Yes, I agreed. You have to become the noodle to write a book. For the only moment in our time together, he didn’t say anything at all.

The day of the road test arrived at last, and I drove all the way to Bronxville, Arturo in the seat beside me, to collect Luke. The tests were being given in a residential neighborhood not far from there.

Any prospect for father-son bonding in road anxiety was quickly dispelled by Luke. “I’m just glad I’m not going to have to come back here after I get my license,” he said. There was no doubt at all in his mind that he was going to get it.

I took the exam first. The examiner got into the car beside me. She was a tiny African-American woman, who sank down into the seat, barely coming up to the level of the windshield. She told me briefly to pull out and make a left turn. I did.

“Why are you so nervous?” she asked me impatiently. “What’s making you nervous?”

My soul sank. Was it that obvious? This was getting off to a terrible start.

“The circumstance,” I answered, dry-mouthed.

“ What circumstance? Make a left turn at the light.”

“The circumstance of taking a test,” I said.

Oddly, that seemed to please her. “Well,” she said. Then: “How can you not have a license? How can you never have had a license? Where did you grow up?”

I guided the car at what I hoped was the right pace along the streets, and gave her the whole story. She had me park, and do the three-point turn. Then she had me pull over.

“What are you going to do with a license?” she demanded.

I smiled weakly. “Take my kids to the ocean,” I said at last.

“What ocean? You’re going to the damned Hamptons ?” Her tone was one of amused disdain: she could see right through me to the other side of the street.

“No,” I said. “Cape Cod.”

“Cape Cod! I like Martha’s Vineyard.”

“Why?” I came back. I sensed that she wanted me to.

“Why?” she answered. “It reminds me of down South.”

“Yes, it does,” I said sapiently. “There’s a certain resemblance in the foliage . . .”

“When have you ever been down South?”

I smiled weakly again. She asked me what I did for a living. I told her I wrote.

“I could write a book,” she said.

“What about?”

“This!” It was so obvious. “What people do on driving tests.”

“Well, tell me one good story that would go in a book,” I said. She wanted a little resistance, I felt, some nerve shown from the student.

“There’s a million,” she said, and she began to work her little handheld computer. After a while, she asked, again, “What are you going to do with this license?”

My heart leaped as I realized that she was going to give it to me. I was going to be a licensed driver! But her puzzlement was real. Her tone was that of a bureaucrat being asked to provide a marriage certificate to a hospice patient; she could supply the paper, but she could not really see the point.

“I’m going to drive home,” I said at last.

She snorted. There was an odd mixture of hostility and good humor in her conversation—with enough class and race and sexual politics implicit in it to supply several seminar rooms at Luke’s liberal-arts college. She had taken my measure within the first ten seconds: no great shakes as a driver, but desperately eager to do well; responsible, if a little ridiculous; no danger on the road to the good people of New York State. It turned out that I had made two mistakes on the road test—taken too wide a left turn, and not signalled when I pulled out from my parallel-parking space. Still, if I was willing to be deferential, she was prepared to be decently tolerant of my absurdity. If I would be the noodle, she would be the sauce.

When I got out of the car, clutching my little piece of paper, Arturo embraced me, and we jumped up and down like a pitcher and catcher after the last out of the World Series. “I knew you could do it! I knew it! I knew it!” He seemed almost as excited as I was.

I called my dad, in Canada. (Luke, of course, got his license one-two-three, just like that.) He was pleased, but didn’t seem particularly impressed. “The important thing is that now you know how to drive,” he said. “I’m seventy-nine, and I got my license when I was sixteen and I’ve never had an accident.”

Now you know how to drive—the simple monosyllables hovered in the air. Knowing how to drive is part of knowing how to live. Everyone has a role: we yield, scoot, slide, wave, nod, sigh, deny each other space and give each other license. The amazing thing is that, while it sometimes ends up in a horrible pileup, it doesn’t always end up in a horrible pileup. That’s civilization.

I put the license away in my wallet and have not had a chance to use it since. We usually expand our capacities without changing our lives. People go off to meditation retreats and come back to their Manhattan existence; on the whole, they are not more serene, but they are much more knowing about where serenity might yet be found. People go to cooking school and don’t cook more; but they know how to cook. Dr. Johnson was once asked why he always rushed to look at the spines of books in the library when he arrived at a new house. “Sir, the reason is very plain,” he said. “Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.” Almost all of our useful knowledge is potential knowledge.

The potentials may serve merely as vicarious experience, but almost all experience is vicarious: that’s why we have stories and movies and plays and pictures. It’s why we have drive-in movies in summer towns. We expand our worlds through acts of limited empathy more than through plunges into unexpected places. My father’s “Now you know how to drive” had wisdom buried in its simplicity. The highlights of life are first unbelievably intense and then absurdly commonplace. I am now a licensed driver. But almost everybody is a licensed driver. Having a child born is a religious experience. But everybody has kids. Everybody drives, and now I can, too. That’s all, and enough. Now I can drive straight across the country, without a stoplight. I don’t think I ever will. But at least I know I can.

There is a postscript to the story. My father called in early January to say that, on the eve of his eightieth birthday, he had been forced to take a driving test.

“But it wasn’t a driving test—” my mother interrupted, not for the first time in their sixty-some years together.

“I’m getting there,” he said, sounding unusually testy with her. It had been a very Canadian test, he explained, a vision examination allied to a reading test, conducted in a friendly spirit—but its dagger end was present. One of the eighty-year-olds tested had had his license taken away, never to drive again. Social life involves being sorted by a few others who have, by the rest of us, been given the power to sort. Our illusion is that it ends on graduation, from one school or another, when one teacher passes us, and then passes us on. But it never really does. We go on being driven and sorted, until at last we’re sorted out, and driven home. ♦

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How to Be a Better Driver

Last Updated: October 2, 2021 Approved

This article was co-authored by Ibrahim Onerli and by wikiHow staff writer, Eric McClure . Ibrahim Onerli is a Driving Instructor and the Manager of Revolution Driving School in New York City. His mission is to make the world a better place by teaching safe driving. Ibrahim trains and manages a team of over eight driving instructors. He specializes in teaching defensive driving and stick shift driving. There are 11 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, 97% of readers who voted found the article helpful, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 586,240 times.

Drifting around tight turns while burning rubber is definitely cool in an action movie, but in reality, being a great driver is all about avoiding the need for high-risk maneuvers. If you’re looking to become the best possible driver you can be, there are a ton of tricks, tips, and changes you can implement to improve your skills on the road. Here are a few of the bigger adjustments you can make!

Maintain a 4-second gap between other vehicles.

Adjust your mirrors so they’re actually correct.

• If you adjust your side mirrors so that you see the edge of the vehicle from the driver’s seat, you’re actually wasting part of the mirror, since a portion of each side-mirror’s view will overlap with the rearview. By adjusting the mirrors while you’re leaning to a side, you’ll maximize your field of vision. [3] X Research source
• This should also keep you from getting blinded by headlights and reflections, since the angle will be wider. [4] X Research source

Keep your head on a swivel.

• If you’re on a long stretch of highway with no turns and you’re just cruising along, just scan the road in front of you as far as you can see instead of focusing on the vehicle in front of you. [6] X Research source

Use the flip switch on the rearview.

• Some newer vehicles have a button instead of a tab. Most of the time, you just push or pull that little tab until it slides into the second position to turn the dimmer on/off.

Check your mirrors before changing lanes.

• Obviously, if there’s nobody in front of you and you really want to be 100% certain that nobody’s in your blind spot, feel free to do one of those quick head spin moves. It’s not a good idea to take your eyes off of the road in front of you, but if it’s totally clear it’s alright to do this for a second or two.

Don’t turn the wheel before you turn left.

• Also, make sure you don’t turn into the right-hand lane when they’re turning left. Not only is this inefficient from a turning perspective, but it’s usually illegal.

Pin your eyes on your target in tight situations.

• This is also helpful if you’re on a winding road or handling an odd turn. Look where you want to go, not where you are. You already know how to turn the steering wheel, and the reference point you’re looking at will help you intuit how you need to turn.

Anticipate the moves of drivers around you

• Remember, you can’t control what other people do. Even if you’re the best driver possible, you still need to pay attention to what everyone else is doing!

Accelerate, brake, and turn slowly.

• Making slow, measured movements also makes it a lot easier for the drivers around you to respond to your actions on the road.

Master parallel parking with traffic cones.

• Practice doing this over and over again to see if you can do it in one attempt!

Follow the rules of the road.

• Always wear your seatbelt. Seriously, it’s one of the simplest and easiest things you can do when you get in the vehicle, and it may save your life.
• Unless you’re using a hands-free device, never use your phone while you’re driving. Not only is it almost always illegal, but it’s extremely dangerous.

Start meditating every day.

• Yoga may have also have a similar effect if you prefer to do that! [17] X Research source

Expert Q&A

• If you’ve been struggling to keep your eyes off of the phone while you drive, put it in your trunk. That way, you won’t be tempted while you’re driving. [18] X Research source Thanks Helpful 7 Not Helpful 5

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.ctvnews.ca/features/10-tips-from-the-pros-to-improve-your-driving-right-now-1.3822904
• ↑ https://www.womenonwheels.co.za/tips/10-important-tips-to-improve-your-driving-skills/
• ↑ https://www.carhistory.com.au/resources/blog/why-checking-your-blind-spot-so-important-driving
• ↑ https://www.thrillist.com/cars/10-simple-driving-skills-everyone-should-know-expert-safety-tips-to-be-a-better-driver
• ↑ http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~gdguo/driving/BlindSpot.htm
• ↑ https://kidshealth.org/en/teens/driving-safety.html
• ↑ https://www.nh.gov/dot/org/operations/highwaymaintenance/documents/winter_safe_driving_tips.pdf
• ↑ https://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/a6827/6-driving-tactics-to-save-gas-this-weekend/
• ↑ https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/handbook/california-driver-handbook/laws-and-rules-of-the-road/
• ↑ Ibrahim Onerli. Driving Instructor. Expert Interview. 18 November 2019.
• ↑ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-be-a-better-driver/

About This Article

To be a better driver, always leave a 2-4 second distance between you and the driver in front of you in case they slam on their brakes suddenly. Additionally, make sure you always use your turn signal when you're switching lanes or making a turn so other drivers are aware. You should also avoid running yellow lights since pedestrians, cyclists, and other drivers might be expecting you to stop. When you're driving in a residential area, reduce your speed and be extra vigilant since there could be children playing in the street. For more tips, like how to safely share the road with semi-trucks, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Home » Blog » 6 Good Driving Habits That Every Driver Should Develop

6 Good Driving Habits That Every Driver Should Develop

How can you stay safe on the road? To drive safely, it helps to develop good driving habits each time you get behind the wheel. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to get into bad habits while driving – but this can put the safety of yourself, your passengers, and other drivers at risk.

So what are good driving habits, exactly? Simply, these are actions, thoughts, or procedures that you follow each time you drive a car, with the aim of making your driving safe. It’s generally thought that new habits take about a month to form, so if you make an effort to practice good driving habits each day, they’ll soon become second nature.

Read on for six good driving habits that every driver should develop – plus a few that you should always avoid.

1. Focus on the Road

Wondering “How can I make my driving better?” Well, our most important driving tip is to always stay highly focused on the road. Distracted driving is the number one cause of car accidents, due to drivers paying attention to something else other than the road and what’s happening on it.

Always remain focused when behind the wheel. This means never texting or making calls while driving, listening to the radio at an appropriate volume, and keeping an eye on your mirrors and rear window, so you have a full picture of your surroundings.

If passengers, children, or pets are fussing or making noise in the car, pull over and handle the situation – but never try to calm your children or animals while still driving.

2. Check Your Mirrors

Your rearview and side mirrors are there to help you drive safely, so use them to your advantage. Whenever you get into the car, check your mirrors to see if their positioning is correct; they can easily get bumped, and you don’t want to have to adjust them while driving.

When you’re driving, especially when switching lanes, always check your mirrors first to make sure it’s safe. Keep in mind that all cars have a blind spot (an area you can’t see in your mirrors), so turn your head as well to make sure it’s absolutely safe before turning or merging.

3. Look After Your Car

Your car is a complex and expensive machine, so make sure it’s always running its best with regular serving and oil changes.

You might want to learn some driving basics to make things easier in an emergency. So what basic skills should all drivers have? To start, it can be helpful to know how to change a tire, how to set up flares, and how to call for help in an emergency. Otherwise, always make sure you have a roadside assistance membership so you can call for help at any time.

4. Take Frequent Breaks

Heading out on a long road trip? If so, remember to take frequent breaks. Driving when tired can lead to accidents, so stay fresh by stopping for a stretch and some fresh air every two hours or so.

Breaks can be a good opportunity to look at your map, work out where you’re going, and think about the parking situation at your destination. If you qualify for a disabled parking permit , make sure you always have it with you so it’s easy to access parking.

5. Use Your Turn Signals

It seems obvious, but many drivers neglect to use their turn signals. If you don’t use your signals before turning left or right or changing lanes, other drivers on the road don’t know what you’re planning.

This can be incredibly dangerous, so always get into the habit of indicating well before you plan to turn.

6. Slow Down

Speed can be a killer on the roads. Even if you’re running late, always drive the speed limit. If the roads are wet or visibility is poor, it’s a good idea to slow down even more.

Going the speed limit means you’ll not only avoid getting a ticket, but you’ll arrive safely at your destination.

Bad Habits to Avoid

Now that you know how to drive safely, what are some bad driving habits to avoid? Firstly, to stay safe, never text or browse on your phone while driving – it can quickly cause a crash.

You’ll also want to avoid driving while angry . If you’re already feeling mad or upset, you’re not likely to concentrate on your driving, and you might even experience aggression known as road rage. Road rage can make it easy to do something you’ll regret, such as acting negatively towards another driver or making reckless choices behind the wheel.

When driving, always avoid using alcohol, drugs, or prescription medication that you know will make you tired or groggy. If you’re in a position where you’re no longer able to drive, call a cab or rideshare service, ask a friend for a ride, or wait a few hours until it’s safe to drive.

Are you ready to improve your driving? If so, make an effort to develop good driving habits, starting with the tips outlined above. They can help you become a more confident and responsible driver, keeping you and your passengers safe, happy, and secure while on the road.

Featured image by Jan Baborak on Unsplash

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Driving — The Different Kinds of Drivers

The Different Kinds of Drivers

• Categories: Driving

About this sample

Words: 868 |

Published: Nov 26, 2019

Words: 868 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

Works Cited

• Dula, C. S., & Ballard, M. E. (2003). An investigation of behavioral adaptation to cellular phone use while driving. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 35(4), 501-513.
• Duffy, V. G., & Gugenheim, A. M. (2009). Development of a young driver crash involvement prevention model. Journal of Safety Research, 40(3), 165-172.
• Guo, F., Klauer, S. G., Fang, Y., Hankey, J. M., & Antin, J. F. (2014). Naturalistic teenage driving study: Findings and lessons learned. Journal of Safety Research, 49, 9-15.
• Lajunen, T. (2001). Can we trust self-reports of driving? Effects of impression management on driver behaviour questionnaire responses. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 4(2), 97-107.
• Luoma, J. B., & Butler, J. L. (2010). Usability evaluation of three in-vehicle information systems during driving. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 13(6), 413-423.
• Mayhew, D. R., Simpson, H. M., & Pak, A. (2003). Changes in collision rates among novice drivers during the first months of driving. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 35(5), 683-691.
• Neiger, D., Efron, R., & Hwang, M. (2017). Driver behavior and its association with traffic accidents and traffic violations among university students in Israel. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 51, 103-112.
• Park, J. K., & Lee, S. E. (2013). The effects of in-vehicle information systems on driving performance and driver distraction. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 59, 228-235.
• Pfefferbaum, B., Gurwitch, R. H., McDonald, N. B., Leftwich, M. J., Sconyers, E., & Nitiéma, P. (2020). Developmentally sensitive disaster response and recovery: Focus on adolescents and transition-age youth. Current Psychiatry Reports, 22(7), 1-10.
• Simões, A., Filipe, C., & Ferreira, P. L. (2017). The impact of road traffic noise on annoyance: A critical review and meta-analysis. Environment International, 103, 29-42.

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What Makes a Good Essay?

By stephanie whetstone.

The deadline for this year’s Princeton Writes Prize Staff Essay Contest has been set (March 1, 2020)! We hope you are already hard at work polishing your prose, but in case you are struggling to get started, let’s consider what makes a “good” essay.

Dictionary.com defines the essay as “a short literary composition on a particular theme or subject, usually in prose and generally analytic, speculative, or interpretative.” This leaves a lot of room for creativity. For a personal essay, focus on the personal part. Why are you writing about this subject? Why now? How does your experience connect with your audience’s? A personal essay is not self-indulgent; rather, it is a means of connecting with others through the common experience of being human.

The winners of the Princeton Writes Prize have written about New South, travels in Japan, a timeworn stone step, and a dining room table. None of these subjects is inherently gripping, but they became so when connected to the writer’s thoughtful, heartfelt experience.

Write as specifically as you can about what is important to you, what excites you, what connects you to the world, or what you can’t seem to get off your mind. So how do you start? Think about your purpose: is it to entertain, to explain, to argue, to compare, or to reveal? It can also be a combination of these things.

At Princeton, we are lucky to have one of the great essay writers of our time, John McPhee, on faculty. In his wonderful essay, “Searching for Marvin Gardens,” McPhee has a few stories going at once: the “real time” experience of playing monopoly with a friend, his walk through the streets of Atlantic City, the history of the creation of the game of Monopoly, and a commentary about the economic and social realities of the time in which the essay was written. It begins:

“Go. I roll the dice—a six and a two. Through the air I move my token, the flatiron, to Vermont Avenue, where dog packs range.

“The dogs are moving (some are limping) through ruins, rubble, fire dam­age, open garbage. Doorways are gone. Lath is visible in the crumbling walls of the buildings. The street sparkles with shattered glass. I have never seen, anywhere, so many broken windows. A sign—”Slow, Children at Play”—has been bent backward by an automobile. At the farmhouse, the dogs turn up Pacific and disappear.”

The primary action puts the reader immediately into the world the writer has created and follows “characters” through a plot. The connecting paragraphs provide context and place the experience in the broader world. You may want to tell your story straight through or, like McPhee, stray from a linear structure—not just beginning, middle, end—moving back and forth in time.

Begin your story at the last possible moment you can without losing important information. If you are writing about the birth of a child, for example, you might want to start in the hospital in the midst of labor, rather than months before.

To shift in time, make sure you have an object or experience to “trigger” the shift, such as McPhee’s dogs. You need not be as accomplished as he to write your own essay, but reading his work and the work of other writers can provide guidance and inspiration.

Remember that an essay is a story, so even though it is nonfiction, it will benefit from the elements of a story: characters, plot, setting, dialogue, point of view, and tone. Is your story funny, sad, contemplative, nostalgic, magical, or a combination of these?

Your job as a writer is to help the reader imagine what you see in your mind’s eye. That requires sensory detail. Be sure to write about sounds, sights, smells, textures, and tastes. Remember, too, that your work will be read by a wide audience, so you need to determine how much of yourself and your intimate experience you are comfortable sharing.

Another great Princeton writer, Joyce Carol Oates, writes with exquisite sensory detail in her essay, “They All Just Went Away.”

“To push open a door into such silence: the absolute emptiness of a house whose occupants have departed. Often, the crack of broken glass underfoot. A startled buzzing of flies, hornets. The slithering, ticklish sensation of a garter snake crawling across floorboards.

“Left behind, as if in haste, were remnants of a lost household. A broken toy on the floor, a baby’s bottle. A rain-soaked sofa, looking as if it had been gutted with a hunter’s skilled knife. Strips of wallpaper like shredded skin. Smashed crockery, piles of tin cans; soda, beer, whiskey bottles. An icebox, its door yawning open. Once, on a counter, a dirt-stiffened rag that, unfolded like precious cloth, revealed itself to be a woman’s cheaply glamorous “see-through” blouse, threaded with glitter-strips of gold.”

No matter what you choose to write about, forgive your first draft if it’s terrible. You will improve it in the editing. And finally, read each draft aloud: tell the story first to yourself.

Happy writing!

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The Dangerous Habits of Drivers Essay

A good driver is a skilled and concentrated person who is responsible for one’s life, as well as the life of passengers and pedestrians. However, today drivers have many dangerous habits that can cause tragic situations and accidents. When a person becomes a witness to the accident and the pain of victims and their relatives, he often thinks about the role of a driver in this tragedy. The problem is in the fact that, in most cases, the real cause of such accidents is the irresponsible actions of a driver. Although it is possible to identify different habits and risky behaviors that are typical of many drivers, the most dangerous habits are the use of mobile phones, speeding, and alcohol abuse.

Multitasking became the main feature of modern life because many people, including drivers, try to save their time performing several activities simultaneously. The use of mobile phones while driving often leads to undesirable tragic consequences. For instance, a driver is a very busy person who uses gadgets to speak with partners without holding a mobile phone in his hand. The small device allows a driver to hold the steering wheel and focus on the road.

The problem is only in decreased concentration. However, there is also another example. A driver prefers texting or checking e-mail while standing in the traffic jam and even while driving. The concentration is decreased significantly, and this person will not notice a small boy crossing the road. While referring to these examples, it is almost impossible to overestimate the meaning of using mobile phones while driving, as well as the price of the individual’s life, and it is significant to limit the use of devices for drivers.

If the use of mobile phones is typical of modern days, speeding is the dangerous habit of drivers that is observed during decades. It seems that many young drivers are inclined to organize contests on the roads to assert themselves with the help of speeding. An important example is when a young driver having a good car intends to demonstrate all its powers on the city’s roads without remembering about other people in the streets. Such contests often result in accidents because drivers lose control over the car. However, the problem is in the fact that speeding can be characteristic of drivers of all ages and statuses because the causes of speeding include rush, affairs, or excitement. This habit is important to be addressed with the help of policies and adding the speed limiting signs on the roads.

The alcohol abuse is one of the most dramatic habits typical of drivers. It is important to state that drinking alcohol before driving is usually forbidden. However, the examples of accidents caused by drunk drivers are numerous. A person thinks that he drank only a glass of wine, and he is rather sober now. He chooses to drive home at night. His mood is high, but his concentration is limited, and he cannot assess the situation on the road.

The result of such a habit can be a car accident on the night highway. While taking alcohol, a person loses a possibility to concentrate, to assess the distances between cars, to evaluate one’s capacities realistically, and to control the car as the complex mechanism. As a result, alcohol abuse while driving remains to be one of the most significant and tragic causes of accidents.

The provided list of examples of risky behaviors characteristic of drivers can be discussed as incomplete. Nevertheless, it is important to state that the use of mobile phones and other devices for texting, speeding, and ignoring the signs, as well as taking alcohol drinks before driving, can be discussed as the most dangerous habit. The reason is that they make roads become full of threats to passengers and pedestrians.

• Chicago (A-D)
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IvyPanda. (2020, May 10). The Dangerous Habits of Drivers. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-dangerous-habits-of-drivers/

"The Dangerous Habits of Drivers." IvyPanda , 10 May 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/the-dangerous-habits-of-drivers/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'The Dangerous Habits of Drivers'. 10 May.

IvyPanda . 2020. "The Dangerous Habits of Drivers." May 10, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-dangerous-habits-of-drivers/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Dangerous Habits of Drivers." May 10, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-dangerous-habits-of-drivers/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Dangerous Habits of Drivers." May 10, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-dangerous-habits-of-drivers/.

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Guest Essay

Sometimes, to Make an Electric Car Better, You’ve Got to Make It a Little Worse

By Ezra Dyer

Mr. Dyer is a columnist for Car and Driver magazine.

We’re at an inflection point in electric-car optimism. Over the past few years, as electric vehicle sales increased substantially and car companies announced an onslaught of new battery-powered models, it seemed that electric cars were a near-term inevitability. But for all the heady promise, E.V. enthusiasm seems to be cooling.

Ford recently announced that it’s cutting production targets for the Lightning, its electric truck. Brag-and-bluster Tesla projected that sales growth in 2024 would be “notably lower” than in recent years. Hertz is selling off about a third of its electric cars and Audi is slowing its transition to E.V.s. There are plenty of obvious headwinds for E.V.s — cost, range, and charging infrastructure (or lack thereof). But there’s also a more subtle issue at play, one that won’t be easily resolved: Electric cars are too boring.

I know this seems like a preposterous complaint, and I agree. On the list of things wrong with the world, “electric cars are dull” isn’t in the Top 5. I revel in being able to charge my plug-in hybrid Chrysler Pacifica with my solar panels, and believe that E.V.s are the answer to humanity’s long-term transportation needs. However, I also believe that the anesthetic experience of driving an electric car is a real hurdle to the technology’s widespread adoption, given that nearly every potential E.V. buyer grew up with the rich sensory experience of internal combustion.

Driving, as we all knew it before the arrival of mass-market electric cars a little more than a decade ago, involved familiar rituals that carved out a place in our collective psyche. You’d turn a key or push a button, feel a rumble of vibration through the seat and steering wheel, put a transmission in gear and listen to the revs rise and fall with upshifts and downshifts. Maybe you learned to drive with a manual transmission, with your feet dancing between clutch and accelerator as you chose your gears, herky-jerky at first but eventually tilling a furrow into muscle memory. There might be smells, oil and gas or diesel, not pleasant but not entirely unpleasant, either.

For people who love cars, and even those who don’t, this flood of visceral sensory feedback becomes associated with freedom and road trips, first dates and dashes to the grocery store.

Electric cars make a clean break from all of that. Climb into an electric car, and there’s often no key to turn or start button to push — it’s just on. There’s little noise except for the legally required pedestrian warning tone, which often sounds like Trent Reznor composing a creepy-synth Nine Inch Nails tune somewhere behind the front bumper. Some of them have a “one pedal” mode that doesn’t even require touching the brake pedal most of the time. It’s like driving a sensory deprivation chamber. For passengers, it’s luxurious. For drivers, it’s dull.

Sure, some versions of the Lucid Air and Tesla Model S can hit 150 m.p.h. in less than 10 seconds , but that’s important the same way it’s important for watches to be waterproof to a depth of 1,000 feet — as a brag for tedious rich people. The Tesla Cybertruck, with its polygon-meme shape and stainless-steel skin, is essentially the world’s most visible riposte to the boring-E.V. problem. Squeeze the accelerator, though, and it behaves like every other electric car, which is to say quick and coldhearted.

Powerful acceleration used to be a thrill in its own right, but E.V.s commodified and muffled that aspect of performance. A quick electric car is as common as a sunny day in Los Angeles, a pleasant base-line normal that’s mostly taken for granted.

Perhaps it’s true that many cars are generally boring regardless of how they’re powered, deliberately inoffensive in the name of mass appeal. And griping about sound and character might sound like the futile whining of a demographic raised on muscle cars and four-speed manuals — “OK Boomer” on wheels. But I’ve got some bad news for car companies hoping that the next generation will become E.V.-native.

My kids are 11 and 13 years old and they are manifestly unexcited about electric cars. When they play Forza on Xbox, I hear the shrieks of Lamborghinis and the roar of Ford Raptors emanating from the room. I test cars for a living, and the kids’ favorite car from the past few years was the Dodge Challenger Black Ghost, an 807-horsepower resource-pillager that represents the last gasp of supercharged V-8 thunder for Dodge. It’s a stupid car, really, peak mouth-breather, screaming of wretched excess. But its analog mechanical brutality activates some primal lobe deep in our brains, the one that catalyzes noise into adrenaline. The final V-8 Challenger rolled off the line on Dec. 22 last year, another dinosaur obliterated by the E.V. asteroid.

Car companies are trying to figure out how to recapture the distinctive personalities of cars like the Black Ghost in the E.V. era. Dodge envisions a booming speaker system for its future electric muscle cars, mimicking loud exhaust. BMW is going futuristic, with a soundtrack developed by Hans Zimmer — floor the accelerator, and the iX model fills with the noise of a synth-spaceship warp. Toyota is developing a manual transmission emulator for electric cars, to return some of the driving engagement. Or so we can hope.

Building a simulated manual transmission that’s not really connected to anything might sound a little bit pathetic, but I have reason to be optimistic, because I’ve seen how quickly technology can change. Twenty years ago, I went to Michelin’s alternative-fuel vehicle conference in Shanghai, and at that point nobody saw lithium batteries and electric cars on the horizon. Now we have electric pickup trucks that are as quick as a Corvette, and wind and solar power are the fastest growing and cheapest new means of producing electricity. The Biden administration aims to hasten E.V. adoption with new rules and tax incentives. And it seems logical that, after conquering their objective goals, car companies will turn to the subjective ones, the noises and nuances that make driving fun.

Look, all I want is an E.V. that sounds like a mountain lion keening at your bedroom window, the way a Porsche 911 GT3 does at full throttle. The GT3 — and many of our favorite cars — could easily be made much quieter. But Porsche understands that sometimes, to make a car better, you’ve got to make it a little worse.

The electric future is clean, smooth and refined. But we might get there sooner if we can figure out how to rough it up a little bit.

Ezra Dyer is a columnist for Car and Driver magazine.

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