Value of learning how to drive safely

Most people want the freedom to go where they want to, when they want to go. If you have your own car or can use someone else’s car, you will need to know how to drive it responsibly. Every driver is responsible for his own safety as well as the safety of other users of the transportation system: pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcycles, other cars, trucks and busses. If you only know how to operate a car you will not be able to fulfill your responsibility as a driver in the transportation system of Thailand. Learning how to drive safely will help you to protect yourself and others from accidents.

What you will get from learning how to drive safely?

Learning how to drive safely helps make you a defensive and conscientious driver. You learn to examine and negotiate driving situations successfully. 

• Understanding your own attitudes, emotions and carefulness when driving as well as those of other road users
• Understanding what it means to drive professionally.
• Fully controlling vehicle is essential in order to reduce your risk when driving in different situations.
• Understanding the effects of alcohol and drugs used when driving
• Understanding traffic rules, road customs and manners, road signs, signals and road marks
• Knowing how to buy the right car to suit your needs
• Knowing how to insure your car
• Knowing how to plan your trip
• Understanding vehicle technical systems, vehicle maintenance and emergency prevention
• Knowing what to do incase of an accident to help yourself and others.

 

How do you control visual management, timing and spacing? 

Learning how to drive will improve your focus when driving. You will have a better understanding of the circumstances around you. You will be taught how to manage and discipline your attention so that you see what is happening around you. You will be better able to manage timing and spacing.

You will learn more about your own safety and the safety of your passengers, other drivers and pedestrians.  You will learn how to make better decisions and reduce risks by means of planning in advance for any hazardous event that might happen.

What factors affect driving skill? 

Being defensive and safe driver requires good driving skills, but you also need to understand other factors that can interfere with your driving:

• The feeling that your risk is low will lead you to believe you are not wrong when there is a crash. You must be vigilant.
• Illness or drug use
• Emotions
• Alcohol and drugs

The knowledge you get from learning how to drive will develop your decision-making skills; however, any made decision is dependent on the mental condition of the person who decides it.

How do you plan a trip? 

Before you get in your car to go somewhere, you need to know where you are going and how to get there. By learning to drive you will also learn how to read a street or highway map. This will show you how to get there. But you also need to consider the traffic situation on the roads that will take you to your destination. The good driver will plan his route carefully before leaving and assure that he has sufficient time to drive at a responsible speed to arrive on time.