Driven to distraction

We, a backwater people, are pretty new at dealing with serious traffic congestion.

So it's understandable we tend to be a bit sleepy at the wheel when it comes to promoting traffic flow - me included; this is not meant to be a sermon.

So how do we get better at being more alert and creative drivers who take pride in the art of helping to keep the traffic flowing?

First, the topic needs to get some airtime.

Sure, we talk and whinge a lot about traffic snarls and what governments should be doing about it.

But rarely do we talk about the smart-driving skills we could all deploy to make an immediate difference.

For the most part of our driving history, which began in the late 1890s, it's been easy to get about the place.

We're generally careful, obedient and well versed in the don'ts.

Don't speed, don't drive inebriated, don't skylark and don't run into things.

So, we have been able to feel that if we stuck to the limit, stayed in our lane and arrived home collision free, our job had been done.

We could call ourselves a good driver.

But in many parts of the world, where drivers have grown up with high-density traffic, such an approach would be considered job only half done.

In such environments, there are myriad dos that drivers enact intuitively to help to keep fellow road users moving along smoothly.

It's also part of civic responsibility because congestion is so costly.

Jammed traffic robs recreation and family time, sucks fuel, emits CO{-2}, pollutes, causes illness, wears out vehicles, slows deliveries, raises prices, frays nerves and causes societies to spend billions of dollars on transport projects to try to ease it.

Here in WA dozy driving is not the only reason for the Perth metropolitan area's latter-day traffic snarls.

We also can blame 1000- person-per-week population growth, temporarily disruptive projects such as Elizabeth Quay, our car dependency and inadequate public transport.

But we can empower ourselves immediately by becoming a smarter driver.

In the adjoining article, I list seven skills guaranteed to aid traffic flow.

The common theme in them is developing our most underused sense - the eyes in the back of our head.

This means expanding our traffic awareness to 360 degrees because the traffic congestion we cause is mainly out of sight - behind us.

The canny driver is constantly aware that their road positioning at a red light could help or hinder following road users.

So they bunch up close, stay out of left-turn green-arrow lanes if going straight on and prepare for a prompt response to the green light. It's not rocket science, just a change in mindset.

Being more alert also has safety spin-offs, with inattention being a major cause of accidents.

Putting the seven one-per-centers into practice can be fun, and try to keep it that way.

Feeling frustration about dozy drivers is understandable but venting it antisocially is unacceptable.

Angry tailgaters are terrible drivers.

SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE DRIVERS

1. BUNCH UP

At a red light just keep a safe distance. Drivers who leave an Olympic-swimming-pool-sized gap are blissfully unaware contributors to the congestion problem. If they opened the eyes in the backs of their heads, they would see the impacts of their road positioning: a car blocked from getting into the turning lane, a car unable to enter from a side road, a car that won’t make it through the green light.

2. MOVE OFF SMARTLY

OK, we don’t want a car to launch itself at the lights. Always look laterally then move off and get up to cruising speed promptly. The car behind should do likewise and so on. Again, it’s all a courtesy to the drivers behind you.

3. KEEP IT EVEN

If conditions allow, drive at the speed limit and maintain it. Drivers who drop off speed then suddenly speed up again cause a concertina of jerky driving behind them, slowing progress.

4. MEASURE THE SPACE

If everyone had adaptive cruise control, which locks to the speed of the car ahead, the traffic would flow better. So try to drive like that, always trying to maintain the correct safe distance to the car ahead.

5. KEEP LEFT

Most of the time, there’s not a valid excuse for hanging out in the right-hand lane; needing to turn right in 2km doesn’t wash.

6. POSITION, POSITION, POSITION

Stop lines on the road can be wide enough for as many as three cars: to turn right, go ahead and turn left. But some people hog the right-turn space when intending to go straight, which only holds people up.

7. READ THE ROUNDABOUT
These are not stop signs but aids to traffic flow. Where visibility allows, get an early read on the traffic and try to blend in rather than having a look once you’ve arrived there.