What if motorcyclists were as oblivious to others are many drivers are to them?

What makes driving so dangerous for motorcyclists — aside from the riders who confuse showing off with riding responsibly — is that their smaller size makes them harder to see. Which is why its so important for drivers in “four-wheelers” to be more careful about looking for them.

When your looking around, let your gaze linger a bit longer in each direction, long enough to see the motorcycle’s movement even if the cycle itself got lost in the background.

And expect to see motorcycles every where you look. This will re-train your brain to actually look for them, instead of noticing only pedestrians and other cars. If you’re expecting a motorcycle all the time, they can never take you by surprise.

Finally, make things quieter inside your car. One reason for making motorcycles louder than necessary is for safety: since they’re harder to see, they should be easier to hear. Your ears can often help you detect them better than your eyes can, but not if your phone, music, or conversation makes it impossible to hear anything else.

On Twitter today, @thejustinbenson introduced us to this photo which he called “worst driver award.”

Yeah, that seems like a good name for it.

Incidentally, this guy is one of the way-too-many reasons we have a blog category called “Uh, don’t do this.”

Discussing this in the Comedy Guys office, we’ve decided that this guy
hit the concrete block holding the light pole because there was
literally nothing else to hit in the parking lot. If only there’d
been a Scion or two, that light pole would still be standing.

Feeling nostalgic? Here’s a Chevrolet safe driving video from 1954, featuring actress Gale Storm and her real-life husband and three sons taking what the video calls “that wonderful American institution of going new places and doing new things.” Assuming, I guess, that no one in other countries ever takes vacations.

Gale Storm, by the way, was a Texas girl. Born in Bloomington in Victoria County, the  popular singer and actress starred in two television series in the 1950s, making her a contemporary of Lucille Ball.

There’s a lot in this short film that seems naive and nostalgic now — the utter lack of passenger safety, for example — but much of the travel advice is still useful to anyone making a road trip, either with or without the family.

At the very least, you’ll wish that today’s infomercials were this sweet.

Found via the National Safety Commission website

New Year’s weekend is a bad time for a lot of drivers.

There are more cars on the road than usual, and more drivers who are rushing to get somewhere by a certain time. And, sadly, more drivers on the road who’ve had too much to drink and aren’t as “good to go” as they think they are.

All across Texas this weekend, police officers and highway patrol officers will be out in force, protecting us all from stupidity and carelessness. Both our own and those of other drivers.

And for those of you who get pulled over who are tempted to get angry or frustrated, Comedy Guys Defensive Driving has two words of advice: grow up.

The men and women sitting by the side of the road in those patrol cars this weekend probably don’t want to be there. It’s a holiday weekend for them, too, and like the rest of us they’d rather be with their friends and family, having a good time and celebrating the beginning of another new year.

But instead, they’re at work, giving up yet another holiday to make the roads safer for the rest of us. Letting their families celebrate without them one more time so they can do their job. So instead of giving them some rude attitude, remember that they’re sacrificing their holiday for the benefit of you and everyone else on the road.

You might even want to say “thank you” for their service.

Pay attention now, because there are a lot of states involved here.

On August 10, two Colorado police officers were driving through Goshen County, Wyoming on their way to a funeral for two officers recently killed in the line of duty in South Dakota. A volunteer fireman spotted the car, which was reportedly speeding, driving erratically, and using its emergency lights to pass other vehicles.

Goshen County Sheriff’s Capt. Brian Morehouse said he clocked the car going 57 mph in a 40 mph zone. After pulling them over, he smelled alcohol and found beer in a cooler inside the car. The officer driving was charged careless driving and speeding. His breathalyzer test revealed a BAC of .07, just under the legal limit of .08. As a result of this, he was charged with the misdemeanor DWUI instead of DUI.

Check out the local news coverage here.

On occasion, people complain that Comedy Guys dedicates so much time in its defensive driving classes to the dangerous combination of alcohol and moving vehicles. Well, law enforcement people hear about this more than you’ll hear in ten defensive driving classes, and still they can forget the risks and take stupid chances with their own and others’ lives and safety.

An Open Letter
to the Young Woman with Big Round Glasses
who was following me this morning
on Walnut Street in Dallas:

You were tailgating.

I appreciate that you were probably in a great hurry, but the speed limit through there is 40mph. Pretty reasonable, considering that we have a residential neighborhood on one side, a college on the other, and at least one nursery school where little kids are getting walked to class. If you’re worried about being late somewhere, my best suggestion is to leave earlier.

As for the tailgating, at times you looked to be about 20 feet behind me. You must not realize how dangerous that is.

If I, for some reason, had had to slam on my brakes AND you had immediately noticed this and slammed on your brakes AND everyone’s brakes were working perfectly, you still wouldn’t have been able to stop before you hit me. Cars travel at roughly 1.5 feet per second time their speed. At 40mph, you were going about 60 feet per second, which is three times the amount of distance between our bumpers. If you’d seen my brakes and responded immediately, your car still would have hit mine before your brakes could do their job.

That’s why a safe following distance is so important.

Keep at least three seconds between you and the car ahead of you, meaning that when I passed one of those green light poles, you should have been able to say “1-one thousand, 1-one thousand, 3-one thousand” before you passed the same pole.

Remember: three seconds following distance. It will seem like a lot, but any less and you’re not giving your brakes adequate room to bring your car to a stop. Three seconds when driving conditions are good. More if it’s dark or there’s traffic or if the roads are wet. A lot more if the roads are icy.

This isn’t that big a neighborhood, so the odds of me being on the same road at the same time of day as you are probably pretty good. Hopefully the next time we run into each other, we won’t run into each other.

— Wes Williams

Tomorrow night is New Year’s Eve, the most dangerous night of the year for getting killed in a collision caused by drinking and driving. According to AAA, “an average of 80 people a year are killed in alcohol-related crashes on New Year ’s Day—almost two and a half times as many as on the same day of the week in other weeks around New Year’s.”

And, of course, drunk drivers don’t just kill themselves. Very often they take some of the rest of us with you.

Drive Sober Tomorrow Night

Well, and every other night, too. Alcohol affects your brain in many ways, which means your judgement will be affected.  When the party’s winding down tomorrow night is not the time to be decide what to do because you may not be thinking clearly. The best plan is to decide what you’ll do before you take that first drink.

Pick a designated driver. This means that someone may miss out on some of the fun at the party, but they’ll also miss the fun of trips to the emergency room or the funeral home later.

Switch to non-alcoholic drinks long before the party ends. It takes your liver one hour to clean out one drink’s worth of alcohol (typically the same for a 12oz. beer, a 5oz. glass of wine, or a 1.5oz. shot of the hard stuff), so time your drinking to make sure that your liver has time to do its stuff.

Protect Yourself from Drunk Drivers

If you’re on the road tomorrow night,  look out for other drivers who aren’t quite as sober as yourself. Watch for cars that are weaving among lanes or going either dangerously fast or alarmingly slowly. Maintain a careful speed yourself, and increase your following distance so that you can avoid becoming part of someone else’s collision.

AAA projects the number of Americans traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday will increase 11.4 percent from 2009. Last year 37.9 million Americans traveled the Thanksgiving weekend. This year expect some 42.2 million travelers taking a trip at least 50 miles away from home.

AAA President and CEO Robert L. Darbelnet credits part of this increase on an improved economy: “This improvement, along with a strong desire to spend time with friends and family, is expected to propel a significant increase in Thanksgiving travel.”

Thanksgiving is not just a long weekend with lots of people on the roads; it’s the first of three holidays that come in quick succession, making it the start of prolonged period of increased traffic. But with some good planning and carefully driving, you can make yourself, your family, and everyone sharing the road with you a bit safer this holiday season.

AVOIDING DELAYS

Driving gives you control over your schedule. Leave when you want, travel as long as you want, and stop whenever you want along the way. No waiting in airports. No showing up two hours early. No getting really acquainted with TSA personnel without getting dinner first.

But you don’t have any control over traffic, so plan accordingly. Be prepared for increased traffic especially on the Wednesday before or the Sunday after. And there are still a lot of people who believe you have to shop on Black Friday, and stores lure them out with all kinds special offers; they contribute to traffic problems, too.

Avoid some of the hassle by leaving early. If you think it will take two hours to get there, leave two and half hours earlier. You’ll have extra time for any surprises or delays, and you won’t arrive feeling so stressed from the road.

Most people travel on Wednesday and Thursday, and many people taking long trips for the weekend will return on Sunday. So if your schedule lets you, leave on Tuesday and come back on Friday or Saturday.

TRAVELING SAFELY

Schedule most of your driving during daylight hours when visibility is best. Darkness comes early and stays later this time of year, and Texas weather is more unpredictable than usual in the fall. Driving in daylight will help keep you safer.

Make sure your car is ready for the trip. Check tire pressure, battery life, and all the various fluids in the car. Prepare for winter weather with new wiper blades and even tires, if necessary. Get a winter road kit if you don’t have one, and check yours if you do. If you’re going to be relying on your car for an extended travel this weekend, check the engine or get some qualified person to do so.

Don’t overdo it. Sure, you may be trying to make a lot of miles in one day, but pushing yourself to long and hard is a great way to not get there at all. Plan the trip realistically, and don’t try to go further in one drive than you can handle. Stop every two hours, whether you think you need it or not, and take a short break from driving. Get something to eat, or just walk around the car a few times. Anything that doesn’t involve staring down the road will refresh your attention span.

When you drive, drive. Concentrate on the road ahead and the traffic around you. Instead of looking for local traffic reports on the radio or reaching for food in the back seat, have a passenger do it: that’s why you brought them along after all. Stay off the phone, and don’t even think about sending a text message. (Remember: there are three kinds of driving distraction, and texting creates all three.)

Finally, the real American passtime of overeating will make you sleepy, and if we’re talking about foods with tryptophan like turkey and milk the effect is intensified. Just like every other day of the year, don’t get on the road if you’re not alert enough to be driving. And trying to “tough it out” and drive when you’re not ready isn’t manly; it’s just stupid.

DEAL KINDLY WITH OFFICERS

If you do get pulled over, don’t take your frustration or embarrassment out on the officer. Not only are they doing their job — an important job, by the way, which is keeping you safe — but it’s Thanksgiving for them too. These officers are giving up part of their holiday weekend to protect you and your family.

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No driver wants to be in a crash, of course.

Okay, maybe demolition derby guys, but that’s more controlled and less dangerous than you might think. Certainly less dangerous than the surprise crashes that occur on the road every day.

When you’re faced with a collision on the road, get out of it if you can. And if you can’t,  find a way to minimize the damage.

Always have an “Out”

The most basic concept of defensive driving is to think about your driving as you drive: pay attention to what’s going on; keep a relatively clear space around your car, and be as prepared for surprises as you can be. And an important part of that is to plan an “out” or escape route in case of trouble ahead.

For example, if the car right in front of you were to rear-end the car ahead of it, what would you do to avoid becoming part of a multi-car collision. Could you stop in time, or would you veer to the right or the left? What’s your out?

Driving around a collision is certainly better than driving into it.

But this won’t be possible – especially in heavy traffic – unless you make it possible. As you drive, be aware of traffic and road conditions around you and keep adjusting your place in traffic to keep at least one “out” open to you if you can.

If a Crash is Unavoidable

If you don’t have a way to drive around the obstacles ahead of you. Maybe you do have to hit that other car. Or maybe you can steer around the car, but that just means that you’ll have to hit something else.

A safer driver can make both of these situations work to their advantage to minimize the damage to themselves, their car, and everyone else involved.

Slow Your Car Down

Get off of the gas and hit the brakes. Even if you won’t be able to stop completely, any reduction in speed is good for you.

The physics of a collision comes down to force of impact, which is basically a multiplication problem: speed times weight equals damage. If you have half a second before you hit that car, any reduction in speed can mean a big reduction in damage.

Aim Carefully

If you can’t escape hitting another car, do what you can to control where and how you hit it. Modern cars aren’t the heavy metal boxes that our grandparents drove around in. Construction-wise, they’re basically upholstered seats inside a concealed steel safety cage which is surrounded by “crumple zones.” These are front and back ends of cars that are designed to fold up accordian-style if they’re hit hard enough.

And it’s better to clip another car than hit it head on. If you’re forced into a situation where you have to rear-end someone, point your hood ornament at one of their tail lights instead of their license plate. Let the corner of their car absorb your force of impact: it will be a lot less damaging than throwing it at a stronger part of the car.

If you’re looking at a T-bone collision, where you’re headed straight into their car doors, steer a bit to the side and try to hit them in the trunk or engine compartment. You’ll both get less damage that way because the crumple zones will absorb so much of the impact force.

The deadliest kind of crash involving two cars is the head-on collision. If you’re forced into crashing into someone head on, your best option is to veer to the right – basically to aim your driver’s side headlight at their driver’s side headlight. This means that only some of your force-of-impact will collide with some of theirs, minimizing as much of the damage as possible. And by veering to the right instead of the left, you should be aiming yourself toward your side of the road, putting you at less risk from oncoming traffic.

Path of Least Resistance

If you can steer around the car but only by hitting something else, do it but make smart decisions about what to hit.

In our defensive driving classes, we call this “the path of least resistance.” The basic idea is simple: if you must hit something, pick the thing that will do the least damageTrash cans, mail boxes, and shrubs are all less of a danger to your car than another car would be, so aim at them if you can. If your only alternatives are brick walls or trees, you might be better off hitting the other car after all. Trees don’t come with crumple zones.

Giving Yourself More Time

Of course, all of this decision making has to be done in fractions of a second. But you even have some control over that aspect of driving.

By paying attention to your driving instead of your cell phone, you’ll see the danger earlier and have more time to react. In good driving conditions, a good driver will usually spot a need to stop in about three-quarters of a second. That’s not much time to react, of course, but it’s much more time than you’ll have if you’re looking at a text message or picking a radio station when the critical moment comes. If you’re not paying attention, you could actually kill someone before you even lay eyes on them.

By driving a bit more slowly and following at a safe distance, you will have more time to decide what to do and get it done before that nasty crashing sound takes your options away. The two-second-or-more rule is designed not so much to give you time to stop before a crash, but to give you time to steer around a crash.

Halloween driving has its own dangers.

Around dusk — when daylight is the most problematic for human vision anyway — residential streets will be populated by diminutive monsters and superheroes, going from house to house and gathering the stuff that makes kids and dentists happy. Later on, the roads may be filled party-goers, driving home from gatherings and possibly not entirely chemically fit to drive.

According to statistics from the CDCC, driving on Halloween is four times as dangerous as any other night of the year.

But Halloween can be made much safer with some simple, common sense driving tips.

Driving among Trick-or-Treaters

• There’s extra danger, so be extra careful. There will be more pedestrians out and more of them will be young and excited and not thinking about the dangers. Some may even be in costumes that make it harder for them to see or hear. Increase your caution to compensate for their lack of it.
• Increase your reaction time by slowing down. This will give you more time to see Spiderman dart across the street between parked cars and more time for him to see you.
• Focus on your driving. During Halloween especially is not the time to cruise your neighborhood will the cell phone at your ear and your thoughts miles away. Let it ring and call them back later.
• Don’t pass vehicles stopped in the roadway. They could be dropping off kids, and who knows which way the kids may run once they escape the car. Just wait a bit and follow the car when it moves on.
• Never assume a pedestrian approaching the roadway will yield for you. Children concentrating on which houses they’ve gone to won’t be concentrating on you, and some of them may actually be new to crossing the street on their own.
• 4 to 8pm are the peak trick-or-treating hours, but the added danger doesn’t end when Darth Vader and the Fairy Princess go to bed. A lot of adults will be celebrating Halloween as well, and some of them will be driving home later under the influence of more than candy. Out in traffic, look out for and avoid the drivers who are erratic or racing dangerously fast.

What about the Older Partygoers
For those of you who’ll be driving home from parties, make sure that you’re fit to drive before getting behind the wheel.

If you’re too tired or have had too much drink, don’t get behind the wheel. Decide before you get to the party who’s going to be the designated driver. If no one in your group leaps at the chance, volunteer yourself. It’s one thing to dress up as a superhero for Halloween. Being the designated driver gives you the chance to actually be the hero.

If you’re the host, make sure that your guests don’t hit the road if they’re not good to go. If you expect your party to break up about, say, 1am, then slow down on serving drinks a couple of hours before that, and suggest coffee instead of other drinks. Of course, coffee won’t get the alcohol out of a person’s system, but drinking coffee will mean they’re not drinking something else and give the liver time to do its thing.

Above all, do whatever it takes to keep drunken guests from driving away from your house. Get their keys. Convince them to stay the night. Trick them into sitting on the couch to “talk” until they fall asleep. Whatever it takes.

For the past few days, Texas has seen some serious rainfall, and already stories are coming in of people missing in flood waters.

Almost every year Texas leads the nation in flood-related deaths. Our size and geography make us uniquely prone to flooding conditions, being hit by both hurricanes and tropical storms on the Gulf Coast and cool air masses from the Rocky Mountains. The area known as “flood alley” — a curved area along the Balcones Escarpment, stretching from Dallas through Austin to San Antonio — is the location of some of the heaviest rainstorms in the country.

But because so much of Texas is dry so much of the time, it’s easy for people to forget just how dangerous rain can be to the average driver. When the rain starts, we turn on our wipers but too many of us don’t adjust our driving to the conditions, taking foolish chances because we underestimate the danger.

So as we move into fall, it’s a good time to review driving practices for wet or flooded driving conditions.

Driving in the Rain
Wet roads reduce traction between your tires and the road’s surface, so your handling ability is reduced while your stopping distance will be increased. The most basic thing to do is what we recommend for all adverse driving conditions: slow down and increase your following distance. Posted speed limits are the recommended speed for perfect conditions: if the roads are wet, you should be driving well under the posted limit. And increasing your following distance will help to adjust for the loss in stopping power that wet roads create.

Falling rain also affects visibility. To overcome your own loss of visibility as much as you can,  use your wipers and payi closer attention. Use the air conditioner, even if it’s not set to a cold temperature, to dehumidify the air and keep the windows from fogging. And cut out any distractions. Turn off that music, save your snacking ’til later, and pull off of the road before you touch that cell phone. Especially when conditions are bad, your mind needs to be focused on driving.

All the other drivers on the road will have just as difficult a time seeing, so make your car easier to see by turning on your headlights. And if your car is grey, give some serious thought to a paint job. Florescent lime green, for example, is easier to spot in the rain.

Adjust your schedule to allow for the delays that you know are going to happen. Leave early if you can, so that you have extra time to get where you’re going without a dangerous rush. And so you can sit behind someone else’s crash without stressing yourself out. Before you head home from work, call and let whomever know you’ll be late. This is definitely not the time to be making a call while you’re driving.

And stay out of the right-hand lane. Roads in Texas are crowned, built with a gentle side-to-side curve to the road’s surface. This helps the rain water to sluice off of the pavement, but it also means that the water will be deepest in the outside lane. Stay out of that lane if you can help it.

Driving on Flooded Roads
First, do not drive unless absolutely necessary, and never drive though a flooded area. If the road ahead disappears under the water, turn around and find another route. Even shallow water can hide hidden dangers, like dips in the road or even places where the road’s surface has been washed away.

Don’t underestimate the danger of water. Six inches of water is enough to reach the bottom of most passenger cars, causing possible stalling and loss of control. If your car does stall, abandon it immediately and get to higher ground. One foot of water will cause most vehicles to float, and two feet of rushing water will sweep most vehicles along with it, even SUVs and pick-ups.

Flash floods can come rapidly and unexpectedly, and you may have no warning. They can occur within a few minutes or hours of excessive rainfall, or when a dam or levee fails and even a sudden release of water held by an ice or debris jam. Be cautious during storm seasons, or any time that flooding is common in your area.

At Comedy Guys Defensive Driving, we may instill comedy into our driving safety classes, but we take our core mission very seriously. Wet or dry, we want to make Texas roads a safer place to drive.

Downshift, a podcast from Autoweek, recently had a discussion about young drivers. Starting with the new Young Driver sticker required by a New Jersey law, the conversation to driver training in general and the graduated licensing programs now in place in many states, including Texas.

The conversation also covered texting and cell phones in cars and the practicality of laws that ban them.

If you’re interested in cars and driving — or if you have a teenage driver in your house — this episode of Downshift is of interest to you.

All around us there are signs that summer is coming to an end. People are already planning their Labor Day weekend. Stores are hawking school supplies and khaki pants for the kids. Crickets are clicking away everywhere.

But don’t give up that easily. There still some summer left, and if you and the family still have time for one more road trip. And TexasEscapes.com is trying to help with their very thorough Texas Trips guide to local attractions sorted by region. It’s a wealth of day trips and weekend getaways for any part of Texas.

No matter what you’re looking for — a romantic escape for just the two of you or an interesting adventure for the kids — the Texas Trips will have it for you, and all conveniently close to home.

And if you want something a little spookier, don’t miss TexasEscapes.com’s list of Texas Ghost Towns.

Given this economy, more and more of us are vacationing by car and staying close to home this summer.

If you can’t take a massive road trip and show the kids all of the Lower 48 — or if you just don’t want to because last year there was too much kicking the back of the seat, too much “she’s looking at me!,” and one too many cans of Orange Crush spilled into the carpet — then you can have a hassle-free virtual vacation with Smashing USA‘s photo collection of Welcome Signs to 50 American States.

(Actually, they call it “Welcome Signs from 50 American States,” but that doesn’t sound right, does it? Nobody welcomes anyone from a place. You welcome them to a place, right?)

Not only is the collection a really cheap and easy road trip substitute, it’s also an interesting look at the diversity that exists across the USA. Tourism offices always try to make the best impression possible, so you can get how each state sees itself and a sense of what each state prides itself on.

And use it a kind of geography lesson for the kids. Which state calls itself “The Ocean State”? In what state was Lincoln born and where did he live as a boy? (Hint: neither of them is Illinois.) Which two states welcome visitors in both English and French?