When I was taught to drive in England, my teacher taught me how to drive safely by keeping space between the cars in front and behind. “If you’re in traffic and the car behind is impatient and starts driving really close behind your car, you might be tempted to speed up to get further away from them,” he said. “In fact, that’s the worst thing to do, because it brings you closer to the car in front, and if the car in front stops suddenly, you’ll have to stop suddenly too, and then impatient car behind you will crash into the back of you. The most important thing is to have plenty of space in front of you, so if the car in front does something unexpected, you’ll have plenty of time to react.”
The key word here is unexpected. In England, almost all drivers do what is expected of them. If there’s a red light, they stop. If they’re in a right-turn only lane, they turn right. If they’re driving down a road at 30 mph with lots of cars around them, they’ll keep going straight, slow down gradually, or indicate a change of direction. Of course, sometimes someone won’t do these things, and that’s the unexpected factor. But you have to have an expected way of behaving before you can have anything unexpected…
