14 ESCAPES
14 ESCAPES
Whenever you get in your vehicle to go for a drive, no matter weather it is just to the corner store or a 3000 mile vacation, always remember that it is the most dangerous thing that you can do today. You’re going to be travelling at a potentially fatal speed if something happens.
Once you get familiar with your vehicle and are paying attention to the road ahead and to each side, spend some time locating escape routes for yourself. If a pedestrian stepped out in front of your car, right now, and you could not stop, could you steer your car to avoid hitting them and anything else?
Get in the habit of being constantly aware of who and what is around you and where they are and always have a place that you can go if something unexpected happens in front of you. An open lane to your right, a road shoulder or sidewalk, into a shallow ditch, an opening between cars on your left that you can swerve into and back again, if you have to, any place that you can go to avoid hitting someone or something and get stopped safely.
This takes practise and attention but, if you are continually thinking about an escape route and use it once to save a life, the time will be worth it. You will only die once but you can escape many times.
Many stories and songs have been written about truckers who have turned their wheels to avoid killing someone and lost their own lives doing it. They have become heroes, but you don’t have to die to miss killing someone; all you have to do is miss them. You can scrape a building, knock down a tree, run over a curb and flatten your tires but you and the other person will live through the minor bumps and scrapes.
An escape route may not be the smoothest place to drive or the quietest and it may dent your car some but having one will increase your chances of living longer by a big margin.
Once you have an escape route planed and someone moves into it, slow down or change your travel area to make another.
This will also increase your awareness of driving and who and what is around you and it will make you harder to hit.
Driving safely is not always driving very, very slowly but driving smarter.
