I'm with the "he should have braked earlier" contingent.
Head on a metaphorical swivel. Assume the other driver is an idiot.
I'm with the "he should have braked earlier" contingent.
Head on a metaphorical swivel. Assume the other driver is an idiot.
Which does not excuse the idiot in the truck. He should lose his license.
Definitely the truck driver broke the rules and should be stopped from driving.
That is not a safe way to operate a large and heavy vehicle.
Even after it happened he drove off, either didn't even notice or wanted to get away. But should have stopped and checked the other person was ok.
And especially stuff merging onto roads - most of the time, it's idiot mergers causing the problems anyway.
I'm the guy who has his foot hovering over the brake, having already checked my escape route, if there is a car turning from a parking lot anywhere ahead of me. Especially if they are crossing traffic and even more especially if there is an empty lane between opposing traffic.
One of the tenets of defensive driving is to constantly assume that the other driver is going to do something wrong, something unpredictable, something dangerous. I start coasting to stops if I can see that I won't make it through, and it sorta signals to the driver behind me that I am not accelerating. You'd be surprised how many get within inches of my bumper before slowing down. And i'm watching them, estimating my ability to accelerate through the light, and devising an escape route at the same time. I don't get the "race to a stop" mentality.
The standard for getting a license needs to be raised. Significantly
I'm not sure that is defensive driving so much as just being realistic.
I could be confused.
Anyway, I'd only slam on the brakes that hard if I know I can safely stop on the road. If I'm swerving off road, I won't continue to slam the brakes like that. I think that guy was lucky that he didn't lose control braking like that. (When one side of the car is on a totally different kind of surface than the other) Or maybe his car is equipped with ABS so that saved him.
Sometimes defensive driving requires one to speed away rather than always hit the brakes. There was a center 'red' lane that the truck initially pull into... so I had time and space to squeeze pass him I think. If not, I'd rather drive partiallly onto the grass than brake on the grass. I dunno. That's just what I'd do I think.
Of course, if I did see that truck not slowing properly thru peripheral vision, most likely I'd also brake much earlier.
Last edited by Crazed_Insanity; February 27th, 2015 at 10:16 AM.