Automatic Driving Lessons In Raheny-Reaction To Hazards
To follow up on my last reaction to hazard blog, I have put together 3 small videos to help explain the reasons why you could be getting marked for reaction to hazards. This is a very important topic when it comes to learning how to drive and I usually cover this in EDT 6 and EDT 7 Sharing The Road.
First of all, what is a hazard? A hazard is something that makes you change speed, change course or change direction and there is also 3 types of hazard, a stationary hazard, a moving hazard and an environmental hazard.
A stationary hazard that would make you change speed would be a speed bump, a red traffic light or even a zebra crossing. That would be something that doesn’t move but would make you slow or stop. A moving hazard that would make you slow would be a pedestrian crossing the road in front of you, a car pulling out in front of you or anything that is moving in front of you. See my reaction to hazard video below to learn more about this.
Next we will take about a stationary hazard that would make you change course. This could be a parked car on the left, roadworks at the side of the road or overtaking a cyclist or bus. There is a lot of confusion when it comes to signalling around parked cars and there is no exact way of doing this. Some instructors say signal around every car but I think that is a bit much. I usually tell students that if you feel the need to signal around a parked car just do it but more importantly, move out. The trick is reaction now rather than later. Please see my video below where I explain this in more detail.
Another common mistake I see students make is when approaching the broken speed bumps and they are not sure which bump to take. What I generally tell people is that to try take the bump that takes the least amount of steering. We want to avoid swinging in and out to straddle these bumps. Straddle means to drive over the bump with your wheels on each side of the bump. When we straddle the bump, there is no really need to slow down too much. If we go really slowly over these bumps and then we are slow back on the accelerator we could be marked for reaction to hazards and then also progress on the straight. Please see my video below on which speed bump to take.
The third type of hazard I mentioned was environmental. This would be driving in snow or ice, dense fog, heavy rain etc. all these conditions would make you slow down. Imagine driving on a motorway at 120kmph and the road was icy. You could imagine how scary that would be if you were to spin out of control. In bad weather we always want to match our speed to the road conditions. That is a video for another day.
So I hope you like this mini series of reaction to hazards. I make these videos to help as many people as I can. All I ask is that you watch my videos and if you like them, please hit the thumbs up and subscribe. If you have any videos you might like to see, please comment on the youtube page. Thank you
