Knowledge in the Driver’s Seat

I had absolutely no control over the vehicle. My wife and my sleeping one-year-old son were seated in the back of the car while I gripped the steering wheel as tightly as I could, holding it firmly to prevent the car from spinning as it skidded to halt on the wet asphalt road. How did we end up in this situation?

The genesis of this incident is not clear to me but what I do know was that it had been raining before we began our journey to visit a relative of ours. As I cleared a bend, I came across the front bumper of a vehicle sitting in the middle of the road. My instinct prompted me to brake and swerve to the left (we drive on the left in Jamaica) to avoid the object; that was when the car began to skid. As the lights on my dashboard began to flash, it was becoming more difficult to manually maneuver the vehicle, yet I needed to find a way to because, on the current trajectory, a pedestrian would have been hit badly. I was able to get one more turn away from the bystander, but that was all I could manage. At this point, I could sense that another attempt to fight the steering wheel would leave me and my family spinning. All I thought I could do was to sink the brake and hold the steering wheel firm until the car came to a stop.

It turned out that seconds before I approached the corner, another driver had lost control of his vehicle, hit a fence nearby, and ended up in the bushes by the side of the road. In fact, he was still in the car when I pulled mine completely off the street and proceeded to remove the obstacle from the road so that no one else would have to make the decisions I just made. Fortunately, the driver of the written-off car was ok and did not need the help of myself and the other drivers who pulled over to assist him out of the wreckage.

Hydroplanes are dangerous road hazards. They occur when enough water exists between the road’s surface and the tires of a vehicle, such that there is not enough friction to allow the vehicle to move as directed by the driver. Instead, the vehicle skids along the surface of the road. Hydroplanes are particularly hazardous when vehicles are progressing too quickly along a wet surface. I happened to have been taught this concept by a colleague of mine who is a more experienced driver than I am years before I even got my license to drive. Consider how many drivers there are on the road who do not know about this concept and how many accidents may have been caused and lives lost because of lack of knowledge about it. Then, think about how many of those accidents could have been avoided and lives saved if more drivers were aware of hydroplanes. That number you imagined represents the importance of driver education in preventing road fatalities.

Beyond learning how to drive, it is a driver’s responsibility to learn how to avoid motor vehicular accidents and deaths. An awareness of the leading causes of accidents especially along the thoroughfares we frequent, as well as the factors within our control to prevent these accidents directly impact lessening the occurrences of driving related deaths and accidents. Knowing about hydroplanes, how they occur and what to do if they occur could be the difference between saving yours and the lives of others on the road. Let us explore some specific ways in which education could help in this regard.

Multi-tasking is a difficult and dangerous thing when driving. As drivers, we sometimes operate in a utopian reality where we are so good at driving, we cannot imagine making a mistake simply because we texted while driving. In fact, our excuse sometimes is that we may be texting, but we are convinced that we are being attentive to the road. However, being attentive, and being as attentive as we need to be, are two different things. The truth is, we are not conscious of how long our eyes were fixed on the screen of our phones when we took them off the road to send a text. It could have been five, three or two seconds; we might be tempted to think that surely nothing drastic could happen within that time.

Assume we were traveling at a speed of 80 km (approximately 50 miles) per hour. That means that we could cover close to 22 m (0.01 miles) in a single second. How far is that? Well, if the average car is 4.5 m in length then looking at the phone while driving at that speed meant we would have traveled the length of approximately 10 cars with our eyes closed for that meagre 2 seconds. So yes, something drastic could happen in the space of 2 seconds of being distracted.

To prevent this from happening, we should not text and drive, or at the very least use hands-free devices that allow us to keep our eyes on the road. We should take whatever steps are necessary, no matter how seemingly excessive, to limit the possibility of being distracted while driving. Someone once shared with me that if he were in an argument with a passenger while driving, he would prefer to pull over, ask them to leave and then he would complete his journey without them. This he said, though seemingly unnecessary, is in fact necessary considering a simple thing as an argument could cause a driver to be distracted enough to make an error that could prove fatal. Unfortunately, I am aware of one such case in which about two children were killed when the driver lost control of their vehicle while driving in an argument with their partner.

Following the vehicle manufacturer’s maintenance instructions is also a way in which drivers can control the possibility of accidents and deaths. Worn tires and brake disc pads do contribute to retarded control over the motor vehicle. That is why knowing when they need to be replaced and replacing them is recommended in the owner’s manuals. Engine and transmission checks are also important to road safety. I have personally witnessed a driver unintentionally crash into a parked vehicle because of a faulty transmission; her van went backward instead of forward as she struggled to switch the gear.

Moreover, being a good driver for the sake of other drivers helps as well. When two or more drivers are driving recklessly in the same area, the chances of them colliding or causing an accident is much higher than a case where one driver is being reckless and the other is more cautious. This is because reckless driving and excessive speeding reduces reaction time, thus making it more difficult to adjust or drive defensively in the face of an accident. But the driver who abides by the speed limit and the road code has far greater reaction time as well as spatial options to avoid an impending accident. In fact, it was this good will towards others that prompted me to ensure my vehicle was completely off the road when I regained control, and quickly remove the hazardous object from the street so that what I had just experienced would not happen to someone else. And it worked! No other drivers were in a difficult situation at the corner during that time.

What if I was speeding that afternoon? Then I certainly would have lost the little control I had over the vehicle when it began to skid. Perhaps myself and my family would have ended up in the bushes badly hurt or even dead. In fact, according to the pedestrian I narrowly avoided, the other driver was driving with some amount of excessive speed considering the road conditions and the fact that it was a curb. That may have been the reason he crashed. Moreover, perhaps if I had learned more about defensive driving and what to do in that situation, I could have made different decisions and more effectively avoided an accident. What if I had not considered the safety of other drivers and left the bumper in the road? There is a possibility that more accidents would have occurred shortly thereafter.

Knowledge is powerful and lifesaving when it is sitting in the driver’s seat.