Allow Yourself Plenty Of Time To React

It goes without saying that not paying close attention to other cars on the road while you’re driving can lead to accidents and other incidents that you should want to avoid. One of the most important parts of defensive driving is maintaining awareness of your surroundings. This includes not just your fellow drivers but any road work or signage that might indicate a detour.

When you’re driving in congested traffic, it doesn’t take much for there to be a sudden halting of the cars in front of you and often, you won’t even know why. All you’ll see is the car in front of you getting closer and closer while you’re surrounded by flashing brake lights. If you’re not focused on the task at hand, these car bunches can catch you off guard. This can lead to cars rear ending each other, typically in chain reaction fashion.

For example, if you’re not watching the cars ahead of you and then notice once it’s too late that you need to slam on your brakes, then you’ll have also given the car behind you little time to react and brake as well. And then the car behind them has the same limited reaction window and before you know it, there’s been a multi car accident. You should always be vigilant of what’s happening around you but even more so when the traffic is tight and cars are following each other closely. You want to give yourself and the cars behind you adequate opportunity to stop when needed.