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by Senarath Wanigasekara

To make our roads safer, we should become good drivers. Acquiring the technique of driving a motor vehicle is a simple, fast and easy thing. But being skilful in driving is a long and tedious process. Four things must be mastered to be a skilful driver. They are:

(1) Ability; (2) Concentration; (3) Anticipation; (4) Consideration.

(1) Ability is the easy, fast and simple part. You have to learn the basic things such as starting the car, engaging in the proper gear, releasing the hand brake, moving and stopping as required. Some can learn this in 15 minutes. Many takes more time, may be days or weeks. Then you have to indicate to other road users your intentions such as turning right or left, stopping etc. To become a good skilful driver you got to master the next 3 steps.

(2) Concentration is very important. You should not think or act about anything not directly connected to the job at hand, that is driving the vehicle. Traffic police statistics show that nearly 80 per cent of all accidents (i.e., 4 out of every 5) occur due to driver error. Lord Buddha has preached, when we are doing something, we should think only about it.

This is also called Samma Sathi. It is a pity that in a Buddhist country such as Sri Lanka, majority of drivers are behaving in an un-Buddhist way. Once we close the door, fasten the seat belt, start the car, we are in a different world. We should not think about anything else, but driving the vehicle. When you do so, you become aware of many things, that you may not notice otherwise. May be your car is making a strange noise or behaving in a strange manner, you can find the cause for it and avoid trouble or expense.

(3) Anticipation is the next logical step. A pedestrian may jump to your path suddenly or another vehicle may come towards you from nowhere. But if you are concentrating well, you will have the foresight of what other road users might do next. Say you are driving behind a CTB bus. They are notorious to fail to signal, besides not having brake lights or signal lights. Even if the bus driver signals, his hand is hardly visible when you are too close to the bus.

You can find when the bus is trying to take a right turn. How? The bus slows and shifts to lower gear giving a puff of dark smoke from the exhaust pipe. He starts moving towards the centre of the road. If you noticed the above 2 steps you can safely guess that the bus is turning right. Say when you are coming towards a bend, the people in the right hand side of you, near the bend gets agitated and signals for something to stop. Assume that a bus is coming towards you from the blind side of the bend. If the bus stops, you will have less space to negotiate the bend or if it doesn't stop, you will have time to take evasive action. Overtaking becomes easy when you anticipate.

Look at the road ahead and oncoming traffic well. Watch your rear-view mirror and if all is well, signal that you are overtaking. Overtake the vehicle in a smooth move. Then you don't have to brake afterwards. When you concentrate well you can anticipate what the other road user may do. Don't do anything that may upset other road users.

They may panic and do an unexpected thing endangering both. When you can anticipate well you will be able to avoid accidents that causes injury, death and property damage. You don't have to hang around police stations and courts in addition. Also by avoiding emergency braking and hard swerving you will save on fuel bill, tire mileage and on spare parts too.

(4) Consideration is a practice fast disappearing, especially among the under-40 driver generation. They were not used to drive older vehicles with less power. They don't know how difficult is to drive uphill for a heavy vehicle. Consideration may be described as giving some margin, for other road users, errors. Before making any move, consider its effect on other road users. Before stopping in a slippery road tap the brake pedal twice. That will warn the one behind. The drivers in Sri Lanka don't behave in a Buddhist way while driving, but in a Jewish way.

They want an eye for eye, tooth for tooth and tit for tat. When we encounter a bad and rude driver, we will act in a rude way to the next driver we meet. He may repeat it and an epidemic of bad driving will start. When we meet a bad driver and react similarly, we will get angry, tired and fatigued. A tired and fatigued driver is a danger to other road users and himself. So when you meet a rude driver forget it and be extra polite to the driver you meet next. You may start an epidemic of polite drivers, perhaps you will meet one very soon.

The result will be less accidents. Less accidents means many lives will be saved, many will not get injured or maimed for life and less cost to the national economy. This is two-fold. People will be working at their workplaces instead of wasting time in hospitals and the vehicles imported at great cost to the country can make full use of the investment made. Treating a disabled victim is a very heart-breaking, costly and time consuming thing, both for the family and the state.

The sign posts indicate the speed limits, but you may exceed it if the traffic conditions allow. The sign indicates only the higher limit allowed. Very slow vehicles such as bullock carts also travels in roads where very powerful vehicles driven by impatient drivers travel. When this happens impatience, irritation and danger occurs. I think the best thing is for the driver to decide his speed.

The distance between Colombo and Galle is 116 km. An intercity express bus that travels at break-neck speeds takes two and a half hours to make it. That means even if he has touched speeds around 80-100 kph, he has averaged at 46.4 kph!. Make it 50 per cent higher, that is 69.6 kph which is a very sensible speed. You need not exceed 75 kph in majority of roads.

Then of course you have to make suitable allowance for condition of vehicle, traffic condition, weather and most important your mood. When you travel at a sensible speed you don't have to make panic stops or to swerve hard, which causes wastage of fuel, tire, engine and transmission parts. In addition you are less tired.

Less worries as you don't have to hand around police stations and hospitals. In short you have peace of mind and economy in running your vehicle when you travel in a sensible speed.

If you want to improve your clutch performance try this. Fix a fingerbowl on the floorboard of your car. Put a ping pong ball in to it and drive for half an hour without spilling the ball from the edge. If you can master it, replace the fingerbowl with a smaller one. Replace ping pong ball with a marble and try again. This will teach you not only of clutch use, but how to negotiate bends and how to brake safely. If you could refine your driving thus, you will soon notice petrol consumption has improved, tires are lasting longer, less damages due to accidents and you are not as tense as you used to be after driving.

The best drivers in Sri Lanka are ladies. They signal well in advance and normally travel within speed limits. May be they don't like to hang around police stations for traffic law violations. Less than 1 per cent of fatal accidents are credited to women drivers.

3 wheeler driver and private bus drivers break majority of traffic laws most of the time, yet motor cyclists, car drivers and van drivers are singled out most of the time for traffic law violations. Something is wrong somewhere.

The traffic offenders are not dealt in a sensible way. They are treated only for enhanced revenue collection. Giving a spot-fine sheet is good for revenue collection. Increase the fine and give a book in addition to the charge sheet. This book should include traffic rules, tips for good driving etc. This also should include graphic colour pictures of vehicles damaged by road accidents, mutilated bodies of accident victims both dead and living and people disabled for life after accidents. A short descriptions of how some accidents occurred will be very useful. The Insurance companies can print these books as a social service.

When a driver has met with a bad accident he is produced in court. If he pleads guilty he is imposed a fine and sent away to drive as he was used to. This should change. First he must be referred to a driver training. This driver training should include a counselling in how to control your aggressive behaviour and meditation. He should pay for the training also, and must produce the receipt to the courts. Then the court should impose a fitting fine. If the court can send him to a simulator training it is still better. I don't know if there are simulators in our country. If not we must get them soon.

These are very costly things but financing for them could not become a problem. We can cajole insurance companies to foot the bill as they are the principal beneficiaries. Simulator is like a video game but once inside it, you feel as you are really driving a car.

You are surrounded by TV screens and the chair you sit on give you the feeling that you are on a real car seat. It is shaking, tilting, pushing and moving up and down all the time. If you brake hard it will give a jolt to your back. Harder the break, harder the jolt. When you work an hour inside a simulator you come out of it sweating and shaken. You can learn how to negotiate a skid in a simulator without any danger to you or your car. After training in a simulator you become a better driver.

Better drivers cause less accidents. Less accidents means less amount is paid as compensation. Who else but the insurance companies are benefited most. They should donate Driving Simulators, one for each province is still better. We should try to rehabilitate the driver first, as he may be the sole breadwinner of the family, before we suspend or cancel his driving licence, his livelihood.

Only as a last resort should you cancel driving licence, perhaps you can restrict it to a lower class. Anyway this has to be done after careful consideration. Reckless and drunk drivers should be dealt severely.

Alcohol and smoking is another problem. Alcohol make one aggressive but retards his reactions. So he is out of phase with road conditions. His chance of making errors gets high. A highway is a place where the margin of error is less or non-existent. So don't drink and drive but if you have to drive, drive at 65 per cent of your normal speed. Smoking also retards your reactions.

Use of cellphones are more dangerous than driving after liquor. You have to give more attention to your conversation than to your driving.

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