The Car Talk guys have a discussion going on their Website, asking people to contribute their best summer driving tips.

If you — like a lot of us — have any kind of road trip ahead of you, check it out. See what tips others have provided and leave a few of your own.

If, however, your plans involve more commuting than traveling, you might make better use of Automoblog’s “Trivial Traffic Travels,” good advice to make your drive to work more pleasant. Or just more tolerable.

And forget the old saying: sometimes free advice is worth more than you pay for it.

Three-day holiday weekends can be dangerous times to be on the road, mostly because so many of us are on the road. More people driving, and driving longer distances over often unfamiliar roads.

But there are things you can do to keep yourself and your family safer.

PREPARE YOUR VEHICLE. Keep it in good shape. Check your tire pressure, oil, and coolant. You know your car better than anyone, so if you suspect it may need certain fluids or replacement belts, take them along.

Pack the vehicle carefully and securely. Clean out the interior as much as you can: in the event of a crash, you and your passengers may be strapped in, but all the loose objects become projectile weapons.

PREPARE YOUR ROUTE. If you’ll be traveling roads you’ve used before, check the traffic conditions beforehand. You can get a lot of useful traffic information from the Texas Department of Transportation. If your trip will take you down a new path, study the route on a good map before hand. Know which roads you’ll need and make a rough plan of when and where you’ll stop along the way. A GPS navigation system is a useful thing, but will you be ready if something goes wrong with it?

PREPARE FOR CONDITIONS. Monitor the upcoming weather along your route, and adjust your travel time to avoid anything nasty. If your route takes you through a metropolitan area, either time your trip to avoid heavy traffic or allow for it in your planning. The Texas DoT website can alert you to construction projects and road conditions in advance.

PREPARE YOURSELF. Be well rested and alert before you belt yourself in behind the wheel. And do belt yourself in: safety belts are more than a legal requirement; they’re a great idea for keeping yourself safe.

Monitor the posted speed limits on the way, and don’t speed. Not only will the flashing lights be out in full force for a holiday weekend, going over the limit — especially on long trips — won’t gain you that much time and places you in risk of greater damage in the event of a crash.

Take breaks along the way to relieve the “highway hypnosis.” If your trip is a long one, pull over and walk around at least every two hours. Pull over to get yourself food or drink, too. Or get a passenger to open something and hand it to you. Too many crashes occur because the driver was reaching for something or needed both hands to get a bag of chips open.

Before driving, avoid alcohol, of course, and avoid the kind of overeating that many of us indulge in on holidays. Too much food can make you sleepy and sluggish, unable to react the way a good driver should.

At Comedy Guys Defensive Driving, our number one concern is to make Texas drivers safer, on Memorial Day and all the time. Enjoy the holiday weekend and come home safely.

If you think potholes, pedestrians, and stray cats make residential driving a challenge, just wait ‘til you have to drive among the height-challenged ghosts and goblins that will be out this week for Halloween.

Trick-or-treating is one of those things kids look forward to all year, but all that walking from house to house can be very dangerous. Four times as dangerous as any other night of the year, according to statistics collected by the Center for Disease Control.

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

• 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.

Simple practical tips like these are often all it takes to turn a good driver into a safer driver, and they are a big part of our driving safety classes. Whether you take our class online or a live class in one of the more than thirty locations in and around Dallas, Ft. Worth, Houston, and Tyler, we can promise you’ll have a good time and learn things that will make your driving safer.