.Augusto's view on Health & General Safety

Created: 1999-02-18
Last edited: 2001-08-08

Driving Safety

Prepared 1999 FEB 18
Rev. 0.
Author: Augusto Mendoza-Martinez.

Nowadays driving a car is so common we tend to assume it as a natural ability and many injures deaths and economical loss, drivers could have prevented, continue damaging people.

Accidents occur because you or someone else did not perform a safety routine of prevention. That is a true in almost 90 or more percent of cases.

Fine!
That means you can prevent accident only if you do or do not do something.
Main problem is WHAT.

Follows a set of statements, information notes, rules and advice items, that can help you going by a little more safely, for yourself or others benefit. Rules without knowledge of reasons can become useless. Safety like moral is better if based on comprehension not in faith. If you know reasons you can set your own personal safety rules, if you make legal rules you can improve them instead of believe in them as magic protection items to be fulfilled even useless.

Spend some time reading and thinking about is written here, a beloved son, daughter or family member can be saved. If you find this information useful please include a link in your page, If you use it please include the author name and the author’s page address or link.

Aspects:

• Risk nature.
• Perception – Reaction – Safe.
• Driver training.
• Vision.
• Physiological driver conditions.
• Alert driving.
• Special cultures risk.
• Learn from others errors.
• Road design.
  
  If you find this information useful please include a link in your page, If you use it please include the author name and the author’s page address or link.

RISK NATURE.

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• Imagine yourself on a comfortable seat, some nice music, ... What is different if at home or on a moving vehicle [train, bus, and car? .... On a moving vehicle you are really moving at the same speed the vehicle is going.

• If vehicle stops suddenly or even in a certain very short time, your body will continue moving at the same speed to be stopped by car body, wind shield, etc.

• The impact you will suffer, depending on the speed the car was moving is like falling from a certain high.

• Let us try some rough numerical data:

• 15 km/h [9,4 MPH] like falling from 1 m;
• 50 km/h [31,3 MPH] like falling 10 m, same as a four floor building;
• 80 km/h [50 MPH] like falling 25 m same of an eight floor building;
• 110 km/h [69 MPH] like falling 47 m, same as from 19^th. Floor.

• What could happen to a child you have on your lap at the abrupt stop? Would you jump on your child from one table?

• Would you left a solid toy, screwdriver or so fall on your head from a 4^th floor? No? , Well an object on a car moving at 50 km/h will hit your head the same in an accident.

• Hitting your car on other car or people means more or less, leaving the weight your car has falling on other from a high very similar to what above is given for different speed.

• If your car is back hit by another car, the impact and effects will be greater as the difference between the speed of your car and that of the other car. After the impact your car changes of position and can become very unstable, turn violently towards other lanes or outside the road; in many cases you still can have control possibilities that if not used correctly can lead to greater damages and danger. One of worst events is when the unstable car turns and start rolling.

• Some day you will have to stop to change a wheel at roadside, to wait for help because a car failure, take a landscape picture, or any other reason. If other drivers do not see you easily and from enough distance they can collide your car and besides run over you or your passengers.

• Some places are dangerous to stop because of rock falling, easy falling tree branches, wild animals, bandits and so on.

• Air inside the car can become poisonous in case of some bad working conditions of exhaust and ventilation system.

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PERCEPTION – REACTION - SAFE.

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• 80 km/h [50 MPH] is not a high speed; how many times and where you drive that speed?

• And 110 km/h [68,8 MPH]?

• The length of road you pass at 110 km/h in half a second [the time you spend to say "one"] is 15,28 m [50,1 ft ].

• Suppose you are driving that speed and you can see an obstacle 100 m [304 ft ] ahead, how many seconds and space need you to stop the car?

• From perception to decide what to do you can use some 0,9 seconds if you are trained; muscle reaction to put your foot on brake and push it down to work, if you are alert and in normal conditions, takes about 0,8 sec. In that time of 1,7 sec., you run over 51,9 m. [170,3 ft]. Now is when car begins to stop.

• At 110 km/h the distance a normal 5 passenger car run, from applying all brakes power to complete stop is about 170 m [558 ft] on dry not sandy pavement, good tires and brake condition. You will pass over the obstacle or stop against it at let us said 78,9 km/h [49,3 MPH]; same as falling from a tenth floor. To stop just in front the obstacle you should have perceived it from 221,9 m [728 ft].

• Now suppose you look to your right [left if you are driving in England], speaking or listening your wife, and spend without seen the road and perceiving the obstacle a time that could range from 2 Sec if a glance, to 4 Sec if not so short. You could have driven over 61 m to 122 m without seen the obstacle. You will hit the obstacle without even have driven the brake pedal down. Have you thought on this fact before?

• If you were driving at 80 km/h [50 MPH], from brake action to stop you pass over 84 m. [262,5 ft]; at 50 km/h [31,3 MPH] you need 28 m [92 ft].

• Rule to Driving Safely: To drive at 110 km/h [68,8 MPH] you must have at least clear visibility of road not less of 222 m [728 ft] in front of you on dry not sandy pavement, in a good condition not heavier than 5 passengers car. If you are a smoker, have a cold, slow because age, slow reacting people, etc. you must not drive such speed.

• At highway traffic, you have usually to drive in a line of cars; you have one car in front and another behind. You must be sure to have time and space enough to drive to a safe position or stop, in case something happens in front of you. Are you sure the car driver behind of you has the space and time to drive correctly without hitting you?

• Different recommendations set safety distances to maintain from a car in front of you at different driving speed. 25 m [82ft] is a very general guide no very wise, At 110 km/h if the car you follows suddenly applies brake and stops as written above 170 m ahead, you have to perceive, react and apply your own brake in less than 818 milliseconds to not stop against the other car and as seen before that is not possible.

• To be sure of having a reaction-action time of 1,7 sec with a factor of distraction of 1,5 sec you should maintain a distance equivalent to the space you run at the driving speed during 3,2 sec. 98 m at 110 km/h, 71 m at 80 km/h, 44,4 m at 50 km/h. If you drive alert you can use 51 m, 38 m, and 24 m respectively.

• Probability that someone apply brake suddenly, with no reason you can also perceive, is very low; but what will you do if you see a cobra coming from down the car panel? Is that nice girl you see driving in front of you prepared to react wisely if she feel a cockroach walking up her leg?

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DRIVER TRAINING.

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• Unless you are a racing pilot, you are not trained enough if you do not drive at least 100 km per day, one day of two and have accumulated not less than 60 hours of driving the same car. Race pilots have some advantages because all others are trained drivers.

• You do not need wait to experience each possible kind of situation by yourself to learn some techniques to control you car on special circumstances like driving on a muddy road, get out with your car from a sand terrain instead of making a hole down each wheel by accelerating, etc. Some driver manuals as book, video, and CD collect and show advice on what to do and what thing you should include in your emergency car kit.

• Some wise people practice to change a wheel just to be prepared when it is needed and learn some ways to solve common failures of his car. Some others have seen burn his car even having a fire extinctor mean at hand, because cannot use it appropriately or cannot find it below the many tings in the car.

• Every time you drive a new car or different car you usually use, it is necessary to get familiar with that car driving it very carefully and using all its devices for at least some 30 minutes. Many emergency actions must be performed in an automatic way to be effective.

• Train yourself to practice planning of every trip you have to do. That includes route, alternate routes, check of safety devices spares and tools. Even your daily trip to and from work site. Safety starts maintaining your car in perfect condition.

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VISION.

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• To initiate action to avoid obstacle or collision you must see clearly the object or situation-representing hazard.

• There are some physiological deficiencies that made seeing difficult, there are some other circumstances that even with a normal vision, make perception less efficient.

• Glare. Receiving light directly or reflected from somewhere cause your eye diaphragm reduce entrance of light, in such a condition you cannot see enough other things and time is needed your eye recover to perceive information from the visual field. During seconds, you drive blind.

• Darkness. With poor light is difficult perceive obstacles on a road [sunrise or sun set] your eyes have diaphragm set to open field and sky light, so light from your car beans have no effect on road obstacle perception. At night your eyes, adapted to darkness, can use the light send to the road from your car beans reflected on objects on the road.

• Adaptation of vision. At day light when driving in a building parking, your eyes set to outdoors light become non effective to see at the entrance until some seconds pass, if not properly lighted entrance. When approaching a tunnel your eyes adapted to daylight outdoors could not perceive obstacles in the tunnel interior, if there were not a well designed lighting system to give a very high lighting at entrance in order to permit your eyes perceive from enough distance to stop if needed. This effect sometimes can occur down bridges, underpass etc.

• Contrast Background to Object. You cannot see a white spot on a white paper; you can see a white car on a snowfield only if car projects some shades. Human eyes see because of differences in light coming reflected from objects and background field. Keep this in mind; you must be perceived by others as well that others must be perceived by you.

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PHYSIOLOGICAL DRIVER CONDITIONS.

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• All effects on driver physiology related to vision, listening, smelling, alertness of mind and muscle reaction, have great importance on driving safety.

• Under strong emotional situations you can overreact or become slow reacting; both can lead to danger when driving.

• Using certain pharmaceutical products produce effects on vision, speed of reaction, even can lead to sleep. Because you learnt reading, please be sure you understand effects from the products you ingest or inject.

• Some diseases or pathological functionality can produce sudden lack of vision, sickness, loss of self-control. Driving under such circumstances is dangerous to yourself and others. Remember you can only perceive distance using both eyes.

• Smoking people are accident-prone because of well-explained reasons and lack of abilities.

• A big meal can cause you become sleepy. Same happens when you are tired after a day of happiness at the beach or mountain, specially if you received sun for a time or sweat hardly.

• Alcohol drinking even in very small doses, can be the difference between an accident and a simple surprise when driving.

• All kind of drug consumers are potential accident producing criminals as drivers even as passengers or pedestrian.

• Temperature over 21 centigrade [70 F] can induce sleepiness to some people; same down minus ten centigrade [14F].

• Driving long distances, more than 15 km [9,4 Miles] during usual sleep hours of driver, makes possible become sleep while driving. Non stop Driving after two hours on high-speed ways lead driver to an easy sleep condition.

• Once you become sleepy, you have high risk of become sleep without even noticing you are going to loss control of yourself. To have a serious or fatal accident you do not need more than fractions of a second.

• New vision devices, eyeglasses, etc. make your visual perception slow or inefficient because your brain is still not set to the information received from the recent lens you are using. Some aesthetic or comfort eyeglasses can cut part of your visual field. Remember lateral vision and distance evaluations are very important to safety when driving.

• Listening high volume music while driving nullifies your sound perception ability; people that usually listen high volume sounds become deaf; people exposed some time to repetitive great volume sounds show malfunction of decision process, some times irreversible.

• Very fat and very weak people are not fast reacting persons. If you are out of normal weight range, you shall take some extra precautions because your lack of muscle speed or strength you are going to need on an emergency.

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ALERT DRIVING.

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• If you train yourself to be an alert driver, you can reduce your accident probability in not less than 60 %.

• What means alert driving? If you could guess future about at road situations leading to an accident, you would act to prevent situations or circumstances in order to avoid the accident. Of cause, this is only possible in fiction. You cannot go by waiting for miracles.

• If you always make the driving task a very consciousness work, you will reduce many surprising situations that give you very short time to react appropriately. Be sure that being seat at your car driving wheel running on pavement is not the same as being seated in your static home’s sofa where you can SAFELY eat, drink, chat and see others, kiss someone you love, etc. Maintain full attention on road is only possible during a certain time different for each one depending on their physiological and brain state.

• Test yourself and find the time you can drive at full attention, to program break times when you have to drive continuously more than two hours down 60 km/h or one hour at 110 km/h or more.

• Age changes your full attention time capability. If you assign 100% at 25 years you must reduce that time by a factor of about 0,90 per each five years you get older, If you have two hour of full attention at 25 years, you will have only 0,9 x 0,9 x 0,9 = 0,72 of two hour, that is 1 h 27 min when 40 years old and 57 min when you be 60.

• That does not mean you have to stop anywhere, some times stopping could introduce risks of being assaulted; introducing a short period, from 5 to 15 min, to drive at a different variable lower speed could permit you recover you capability to be concentrated again. The best, stop to refill combustible and check car, go to restroom, move your legs, this would mean an apparent loss of time you can recover in the value of safety.

• The purpose of being alert is to maintain your brain working with information you get to guess near future, to act protecting yourself.

• To get the information above mentioned you must permanently examine all possible sources of visual, sonic and smell, information, and also other symptoms of some mal function in your own car like abnormal vibration, etc.

• You must be permanent consciousness of what is going in front, behind and besides of you; You must examine the farther, your vision permits, of the road, kerb, and surroundings of the road; in an emergency you can better choose what to do and where to go.

• You can see abnormal, strange, or accident-prone situations or actions on others when driving; from this perception you can guess probable situations of danger and act to avoid them. A drunk or sleeping driver, phone speaking and smoker drivers, fat or weak aspect drivers that can fail to control their car, an unstable or slipping car, a suspicious car following you, a car with bad tires symptoms, etc.

• Try not to drive near drivers that you perceive as inexperienced, frequent lane changer, smokers and phone talking, drunk or drugged, behind you running less than a safety distance, reddish skin sun burned drivers, very young or very old drivers, other hand traffic drivers, tourists, farmers, no using safety belts. If you cannot avoid them, be alert to react. If you can alert some traffic police of some strange situation, do it; you or some one else could be in danger if you do not act as a good effective danger detector.

• Alert means also be ready to act. Spend some driving time reflecting what to do if something happens. With time, you will get the habit of previewing and planning actions that can save you.

• I suggest the following list of If Items.

  • Back tire suddenly deflates.
  • Front tire suddenly deflates.
  • Engine stops.
  • Windshield broken.
  • A dog or other similar animal jumps in front of you.
  • A big animal like a cow ...
  • A ball ... Could mean an advance of a child.
  • The car you follow shows fire.
  • The car you follows begin to slip.
  • The car you follows left an object fall to pavement.
  • The car back you become to slip.
  • Your car starts to slip.
  • A truck you follow has a falling load.
  • A car far ahead hit another car.
  • An aircraft is landing on the way you use.
  • Your car back is pushed or hit by another not too bigger car.
  • Your car back is pushed or hit by another bigger car.
  • Your car driver or other side is pushed or hit by another not too bigger car.
  • Your car driver or other side is pushed or hit by another bigger car.
  • Another car is trying to drive yours out of road.
  • It starts raining, hailing or snowing.
  • Wet pavement.
  • Puddle on your lane.
  • Rocks or stones on your lane.
  • Cannot see the pavement because of water.
  • Lack of visibility for some reason [rain, snow, fog, etc.]
  • Something in your car scare or frighten you.
  • When driving you feel sick as going to loss control of yourself.
  • When driving you feel great pain [arms, head, eyes, legs, stomach, etc.]
  • You become dazzle because you get sight of sun or a white surface in front of you.
  • Dazzle because of sun reflecting from the car you follows.
  • Dazzle because of sun at your back reflecting from your mirrors or some reflecting part in your car.
  • You see or detect fire in your car.
  • Your dog or pet jumps to the front seat, and difficult you driving.
  • The ball your kids play with falls below the pedals.
  • Someone tells you a door is open.
  • You realize you are sleepy.
  • Wind lateral currents make your car side deviate.
  • Trying brake you find it does not work.
  • Driving in an expressway, you find out you just pass the exit you have to follow.

• If you have to stop for any reason, you must choose as be possible the site to be free of some important risks.

• Not able to be seen by other drivers from enough distance to be safe.
• Even at roadside out the right lane if that area is possible to drive on, you must be careful because a felon driver could drive on it.
• Not rock or stone falling site.
• Not bandits or wild dangerous animals probability.
• If in slope, to change a wheel, use some appropriate mean to prevent car from moving.
• Not in trajectory of cars out of control at some street cross.
• Not where your car reduces driving space to others cars.
• Not down a sick tree that can fall on your car.
• Not beside an insecure structure, wall or pole.

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SPECIAL CULTURES RISK.

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• Well designed roads, expressways or highways, distributors, underpass, tunnels, exit and entrances with appropriate decelerating or accelerating lanes, and other traffic devices require to take into consideration special knowledge, experience, and use ingenuity to avoid or control physical situations that favor accidents.

• Some cultures does not practice risk control, neither try an accident experience be examined to extract knowledge to be applied in future to control risk. Usually the accident is seen as something coming from bad luck, or as something that had to happen anyway.

• In countries, where STATE controls everything; by politics selected authorities even try to avoid thinking on probable by State construction errors because they believe all things made by State are perfect.

• No danger signals or erratically disposed. Men working signs not retired after years and working men presence without any sign. Indication to drivers placed just in front of exits so you see them too late.

• You will find some curves without rise to compensate centrifugal force or even worse, slope towards exterior of curve.

• Tunnel lighting frequently doesn’t comply technical requirements, so at day hours you see in front of you a black hole and has to drive in it practically without seeing; if you try to slowdown speed you can be hit from you back by others. At night your eyes will be hurt by excess of light and the black hole effect will endanger drivers when going out the tunnel.

• In expressways and highways it is possible to find pedestrians crossing the pavement, level crossing of roadways, private or public parking entrances opening directly to expressway, and some other situations excluded from expressway or highway definition.

• Some exits and entrances, from a fast way to a slow way, can be so short that they do not permit decelerating at exits or accelerating at entrances to get the appropriate speed of following traffic in a safe way.

• Draining principles are not used neither drains receive maintenance; follows that when it rains, pavement is full of ponds even in expressways where you can enter into 1,7 m of water at some depressed exists whose drain become clogged.

• Pavement is full of dangerous surprises ranging from manhole and hand holes entrances without cover to a big hole where your whole car can fall. Many overpass steel bridges installed never receive maintenance of pavement and you must drive directly on the steel surface that when wet is extraordinarily slippery; Authorities do not think maintaining, repairing and signaling is their duty.

• Because of corrupt actions of political parties many contracts of pavement replacing with not technically adequate contractors, produce a new pavement not solid that flows at tires passing making a very slippery dangerous roadway even in the absence of any water. You can detect it by the very black brilliant color and tire tracks. Drivers call them as "The Black Spot".

• Same happen with lighting installed without technical planning, using inadequate poles, support brackets and lighting fixtures, placed where they produce the worst lighting effect, many times producing even direct glare to drivers.

• Because cultural attitude drivers do not follow any safety practices at road. They go changing from lane to lane, no use safe distance between cars going some times one meter back even at 120 km/h like race competitors, use at high speed the emergency lane or laterals of pavement as if they were another lane, etc.

• If they must stop because a deflated tire you can find them just in the middle of the road or in the left lane. If they go the wrong exit, they can even drive backwards the exit to go back to the expressway. Very often they do not use any kind of signal, they use the signal not more than 3 m behind the stopped car, or as generally do truck drivers, they use some tree branches, some stones or something like that, as a signal they do not retire when left.

• In some cultural media, people enjoy hanging or sticking different objects in cars. Some of those accessories can prevent vision on some direction, either directly or through the car mirrors.

• Some cars you see have strong light beans at the back; They are used many times to dazzle you as a joke, a form of aggressiveness, or to make you stop in an assault. In this cultures, police and other authorities do not take care of this kind of aggression; worst than that many times bandits are State security men.

• Because some dislike to planning and organization, bus stops are not the only places where a bus can stop to take or let passengers descend. You can even be surprised by a passenger jumping out a running bus. Driving behind a bus is full of surprises, be alert even at an expressway, over a bridge, tunnel entrances or other very inconvenient places.

• Similar cultural traditions lead pedestrians to cross streets anywhere, anytime.

• Traffic signal lights many times do not have prevision to pedestrians cross, so pedestrians jump to start crossing when light change or traffic slows.

• At street intersections when there are light signals, you can see cars accelerating during yellow light time to not having to wait till next green light, so you can find a car still crossing in front of you, even during your green light time.

• Because bad location of traffic signs of exits from an expressway or highway, you can find a car that stops in front of you and start coming backwards to enter the exit he left behind.

• Because of not having real democracy [in spite they make many elections] many times authorities behave in a very corrupt way. You can be stopped to get money from you, even the will menace you to be charged because different important faults [from being disrespectful to authority to have some drug in your car, drug they have and as authority doesn’t need to proof anything].

• Many street crossing have no appropriate visibility because of newspaper kiosks installed anywhere without control; this situations come from county authorities that can get money from owners of kiosks, so the business is to have as many kiosks the sideways permits. Sometimes pedestrians have to walk by traffic lanes because the walkway is blocked by kiosks.

• If you drive in one of such countries, you should be prepared to compensate all additional dangers at road, street, and any other driveway. Local drivers develop a special driving ability you do not have, so be careful.

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LEARN FROM OTHERS ERROR.

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• Along your life, you are going to be able to know about accidents other people have suffered. If you get information on different situations previous to accident, and the way the driver reacted during accident development, you can think on different circumstances that could have prevented or cut the chain of events leading to accident. This analysis can be a mean to learn what to do or no to do, also to set some safety practices to use under similar conditions.

• Newspaper and similar publications should introduce some safety analysis of accidents in order the news, besides of selling paper with adds, teach readers about safety practices.

• Authorities collect huge information that becomes useless to other’s safety. Very little effort would convert all that information in a good instrument to improve people safety.

• Many authorities and police can be trained to detect and stop dangerous drivers long before they kill someone or destroy some property.

• TV programs could be an extraordinary mean to save lives and property, only if instead of making such noise and drama about the number or record of death or injured people during rush days to somewhere because no work days; reporters and creatives work every year to produce and transmit periodically intelligent teaching programs showing accidents, consequences of accident and the most important, cause analysis and different possible safety measures that could have prevented the accident.

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ROAD DESIGN AND SURVEILLANCE.

• Well-designed streets, roads, expressways and highways must guaranty drivers some facts to be safe.

• At any lane and any place driver must have non-obstructed vision of a length of way not less than the minimum to perceive obstacle or danger and be able to act to avoid the accident. This is critical in designing size of curves, rate of slope change when land imposes different levels to the road,

• Adequate rise of outer side of road at curves to compensate centrifugal force.

• Well-maintained surface of lanes, adequate drain to not having ponds of water when raining and dangerous sand when dry.

• Disposition of different direction ways and design to compensate mutual direct glare at night.

• Reliable, visible, well located traffic signs and traffic lights.

• Technically lighted when necessary.

• Reliable control of drivers behavior.

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Last Rev. 2001-08-08