Crash Avoidance Space

How to maintain a space cushion around our vehicle ? Read more ..

Every year,approximately 1.5 lakh people die on India roads, which translate, on an average, into 1130 accidents and 422 deaths every day or 47 accidents and 18 deaths every hour.

70-80% of them are due to driver errors,which are avoidable.

In most cases,drivers end up driving too fast, reducing the time required to react and no space to escape. Space and Time are very critical and a defensive driver manages it very well to prevent close calls, near misses and accidents.

Navigating emergency situations on the road requires skill and is often referred to as "experience." However, consistently putting ourselves in emergency situations indicates a serious lack of observational skills, which can be improved through training and enhancing driving techniques.

This is where knowledge of Hazard Perception, Crash Avoidance Space becomes critical.

Space Around our Vehicle :

Every car has the space around them which can be divided into 6 zones. To have an accident,another vehicle has to come into any of those 6 zones and come into contact with our car. The farther away we are from other vehicles,the less chance of accidents due to other vehicles.

If another driver makes a mistake while driving ,it becomes essential for us to keep the space cushion around us free always as it gives us the time to react quickly.

For Area 1 : keep a safe following distance from vehicles in front. It's covered here.

For Area 6 : We cannot expect the tailgaters to keep a safe following distance from our back.

Strategies:

• Maintain speed and avoid sudden brakes or turns.

• If possible,change lanes.

• If there is a lot of free space in front, slow down and encourage him to overtake you.

Assume, we are keeping a 3 second following distance from the vehicle infront and the tailgater is keeping a 1 second following distance from us.

We can try to reduce our speed and make it a 5 second following distance and this encourages the tailgater to use the huge gap infront of us and he might overtakes us.

To allow that to happen, we shouldn’t drive parallel to other vehicles on the road as it keeps a lane free for him to overtake us.

Area 2 and 3 :

This area becomes critical when you are driving on a multi lane highway parallel to vehicles in other lanes.

Strategies: avoid driving parallel to vehicles for a long time.

Area 4 and 5 :

These areas are our blindspots and always check before making lane changes or Turning.

Other Tips :

1. Avoid vehicles going in groups,if any of them make a mistake,it can trigger a chain reaction. These are called clusters and will be covered in a separate post.

2. Know the blindspots of other vehicles and get away from them quickly.

3. Don't drive parallel to other vehicles.

4. In city roads,always maintain one door length gap from parked cars to avoid hitting if they open door.

Maintain the space around on all sides for safety. It's difficult to maintain space on the sides on city roads due to traffic density, however ensure you have enough on front and rear and wherever possible,have space on sides. On highways, have on all sides,to have an escape route.