Transporting A Vehicle Yourself - Tips For Being A Safe Driver

After going through the tiring and exhaustive process of planning a move, transporting your vehicle by yourself, and finally arriving at your new home, the last thing you would want is to damage your car as the result of careless driving. Follow these tips to ensure that your car remains healthy and fully operational.

Follow this periodic safety check:

Always Check Your Vehicle’s Components

• Turn your lights on and off to make sure they function properly. You don’t want to be stuck on a dark road when you learn that your headlights are not fully operational.
• Check your tire pressure. If you are traveling a long distance or have a long daily commute, the chance of your tires losing air faster is more certain. If you don’t check the pressure often enough, your tires may become too weak and might even cause a blowout. Low-pressure tires are also more susceptible to damage from road debris, which can cause a flat tire.
• Check your mirrors. On your side mirrors, you should be able to see the side of your car as well as the road next to it.
• Check your brakes. If you ever feel like they are getting faulty, be sure to take your car in for inspection right away.

Avoid Human Error

You may have heard this statistic before, and even though it sounds overly dramatic, it’s true: 90% of all road accidents are caused by human error. Often, when a dangerous or unpredictable situation presents itself, we simply do not know how to react. Here’s what not to do:

• Maintain proper following distance. Tailgating a car is a great way of increasing the chances of rear-ending the vehicle in front of you. Try following the four-second rule: use some sort of a marker (such as a tree or overpass) and start counting how many seconds it takes after the car in front of you passes it before you do as well. It should be about four seconds in between your car and the car in front of you.
• Don’tspeed. Yes, we all know not to speed, but it’s certainly tempting to do, especially when we’re running late. Speeding leaves you less time to react to any unexpected situation, and this makes the margin of error significantly smaller. The rate at which you increase your speed while driving is indirectly proportional to the rate at which you'll need to decrease it to slow down.
• Do not text and drive. This is becoming an increasingly common cause of road accidents. Reading a text takes about five seconds, which is enough time to travel the length of a football field. If that doesn’t get the message across to you, just watch this PSA.
• Don’t drive while impaired. This can mean everything from alcohol impairment to sleep impairment. You are just too vulnerable during these times to be okay to get behind the wheel.

Make sure to follow the rules of the road and stay careful while driving.