Being emotionally fine

The possibility of having an accident depends, especially, on the emotional conditions and attitudes when driving.

Some people think that, when they have already learned how to drive and have a lot of years of experience, they are already safe drivers. However, it is not always like that. It’s true that experience given by lots of hours in front of the steering wheel increases skills and helps drive better. In fact, in the first four years of driving, people tend to have more crashes than after this time. However, experienced drivers also have serious accidents.

All the driving process -since the driver pays attention to the traffic situation selectively, the way he perceives it, the way he interprets it and evaluates the facts, until the moment he decides how to act and acts- is influenced by his/her personality, emotional state, self-confidence, concerns, his/her attitudes facing risk, and so on.

Because of this, it is important to recognize in oneself  those vital situations or circumstances that may, for emotional reasons, be prejudicial to a safe performance in the traffic system. Also, it is important to be alert to detect these problems in the problematic behaviours of the other road users, to act consequently and prevent accidents.

Aggressive drivers

A lot of times, we come across immature or aggressive drivers and the can be the cause of an accident which involves us.

Being ready  to react properly can prevent it. Some tips are:

• Don’t provoke neither cutting them off when you are overtaking them, driving slower through the left lane, driving extremely close of the rear part of another vehicle nor making obscene gestures.
• Don’t get hooked on. An angry driver can’t start a fight unless the other gets hooked on. You can protect yourself from aggressive drivers by avoiding getting angry with them. Don’t answer back to a provocation. Don’t provoke them with your way of looking. If you think that the other driver is following you or trying to start a fight, ask for help, stopping the car in a place where there are people.
• Keep a distance. Give angry drivers a lot of space in the road..
• Don’t take it as a personal problem. Keep calm and don’t interpret actions of other drivers as something personal against you. Think that the other person may have a serious problem that leads him/her to behave like this.
• Don’t compete with the other drivers. You don’t need to show anyone your value or reason. Your greatest success consists on arriving safe and sound.
• Try to keep calm.