I got my permit about 10 years ago at age 32. In Quebec, classes are mandatory now so I had to do them. It is absolutely insane the number of dangerous and stupid decisions I see drivers make when I go out on the road. Changing lanes while turning because you go too fast to keep in your lane, stopping in the middle of roundabouts to give priority to someone waiting to get in, taking an exit from the fast lane cutting every one without looking at the last second. Going too slow on the middle or fast lane on the highway or too fast inside school zone, not even bothering to do a rolling stop, turning full speed in residential areas onto bike lanes… Just a few…
Speed is not the main cause of accidents in my book, unpredictability is. Go at the speed of the traffic or even a bit faster but be predictable, put your fucking blinker on when you turn and when you change lanes, don’t stop in the middle of the road to be nice to someone but do stop if signage says you must and if for a reason you absolutely need to stop or slow down fast because traffic or something dangerous in front of you, put your hazards on to warn people in the back. If you go fast, take to the fast lane and do slow down when you cross people in the middle lane so that you get time to react if they do something stupid.
My driving instructor told me one thing that stuck with me. Drive as if everyone is trying to kill you. I believe it saved me from a lot of accidents and the one accident I got into was because the other driver tried to exit from the left lane while I was in the right thinking for some reason that I would stop to let him pass when we were both going 50 kph.
100% this.
I got my permit about 10 years ago at age 32. In Quebec, classes are mandatory now so I had to do them. It is absolutely insane the number of dangerous and stupid decisions I see drivers make when I go out on the road. Changing lanes while turning because you go too fast to keep in your lane, stopping in the middle of roundabouts to give priority to someone waiting to get in, taking an exit from the fast lane cutting every one without looking at the last second. Going too slow on the middle or fast lane on the highway or too fast inside school zone, not even bothering to do a rolling stop, turning full speed in residential areas onto bike lanes… Just a few…
Speed is not the main cause of accidents in my book, unpredictability is. Go at the speed of the traffic or even a bit faster but be predictable, put your fucking blinker on when you turn and when you change lanes, don’t stop in the middle of the road to be nice to someone but do stop if signage says you must and if for a reason you absolutely need to stop or slow down fast because traffic or something dangerous in front of you, put your hazards on to warn people in the back. If you go fast, take to the fast lane and do slow down when you cross people in the middle lane so that you get time to react if they do something stupid.
My driving instructor told me one thing that stuck with me. Drive as if everyone is trying to kill you. I believe it saved me from a lot of accidents and the one accident I got into was because the other driver tried to exit from the left lane while I was in the right thinking for some reason that I would stop to let him pass when we were both going 50 kph.