Have you ever found yourself driving in unfamiliar territory? Whether you are suburban resident driving downtown for the first time or a snowbird from the Northeast driving in Florida, driving in unfamiliar territory can be nerve-racking. It can also be dangerous.
A 2016 study from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute determined that driver related factors were present in almost 90% of car accidents. Such factors were not necessarily the primary causes, but they certainly contributed. The same study showed that certain driver performance errors increase the risks of being in an accident by hundreds of times.
What are those driver performance errors? They are things like sudden lane changes, sudden braking, and right-of-way errors. These are the kinds of things that people do when they are not familiar with where they are driving. To know that they can increase accident risks by hundreds of times should be motivation enough to know where you are going before you leave where you are.
Not Good to Be Unsure
The challenges of driving in an unfamiliar area are only exacerbated when you are unsure of where you are going, explains the attorneys at Florida’s VG Law Group. More than one Florida car accident lawyer has litigated cases involving drivers whose unsure behavior resulted in poor decisions that led to accidents.
When you’re not sure where you are going, what do you do? You drive more slowly and you look around. That’s not necessarily a bad thing except for the fact that looking around too much can distract you from paying attention to other traffic. You might be so busy looking for that next turn that you’re not paying attention to the traffic stopped at the light ahead of you.
A lack of confidence about your surroundings can cause you to be more anxious than normal behind the wheel. And if you don’t deal well with anxiety, it could cause you to make rash decisions. Sitting at your kitchen table over coffee, you know it doesn’t make sense to slam on your brakes just so you don’t miss your exit on a busy interstate. But in your anxious state behind the wheel, it never occurs to you just how dangerous such actions are.
Map Out Your Route
Believe it or not, there is an easy way to eliminate most of the problems of driving in an unfamiliar area. What is it? It is mapping out your route before you get underway. Mapping out your route means not relying on your GPS as the sole arbiter of where you’re going. It also requires at least a basic understanding of how maps work.
The GPS is an incredibly useful tool. But GPS instructions aren’t always clear and concise. Furthermore, they cannot help you with things like identifying landmarks and knowing what to expect before you get there. Mapping out your route ahead of time can.
By mapping out your route you’ll know that you are looking for the fifth right turn after the shopping plaza, for example. Your GPS can still be helpful as you approach the turn, but simply by counting the streets after the shopping plaza you’ll know when your turn is coming up.
Another helpful thing you can do is have one of your passengers follow along with your route using a GPS or cell phone. That person can act as the navigator by following a map and looking ahead.
Driving in unfamiliar territory isn’t necessarily pleasant. But don’t make matters worse by being unsure of where you’re going. That only makes it dangerous in addition to stress-inducing.