Defensive Driving- Page 189

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Defensive Driving

The best advice anyone can give about driving is: 
Drive defensively.

Please start with a very important safety device in your
vehicle: Buckle up. (See “Safety Belts” in the Index.)

Defensive driving really means “be ready for anything.”
On city streets, rural roads or freeways, it means
“always expect the unexpected.”

Assume that pedestrians or other drivers are going to be
careless and make mistakes. Anticipate what they might
do. Be ready for their mistakes.

Rear

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end collisions are about the most preventable of

accidents. Yet they are common. Allow enough
following distance. It’s the best defensive driving
maneuver, in both city and rural driving. You never
know when the vehicle in front of you is going to brake
or turn suddenly.

Defensive driving requires that a driver concentrate on
the driving task. Anything that distracts from the driving
task 

--

 such as concentrating on a cellular telephone call,

reading, or reaching for something on the floor 

--

 makes

proper defensive driving more difficult and can even
cause a collision, with resulting injury. Ask a passenger to
help do things like this, or pull off the road in a safe place
to do them yourself. These simple defensive driving
techniques could save your life.