What Does Defensive Driving Mean?

What is defensive driving and how do you become a defensive driver? Defensive driving is a set of skills that help you to be a safer driver. Defensive driving protects you from other drivers, the weather and bad habits. Defensive driving is a technique to help you be better aware of your surroundings and how to react to situations you deal with while driving.

It sounds very obvious, but you can only control your own actions behind the wheel. Even if you are driving perfect, there are things outside your control that pose a risk. Defensive driving helps you to build the awareness to minimize those risks. How you react to situations can save yourself, passengers and other drivers from accidents and injury.

Between 94% & 96% of accidents are caused by a human error.

Human error can be avoided by the person being aware of the mistakes they’re making. Defensive driving helps you lower the amount of errors you make, as well as mitigate the risks of errors that drivers around you. For example, giving yourself a “space cushion” on all sides of your vehicle allows you to quickly move over to avoid a crash. But what if the car behind you is tailgating and you have cars on both sides of you? If you’re driving defensively, you will either accelerate, decelerate or make a lane change as soon as it is safe to make sure you keep a space cushion.

So when we talk about defensive driving, we’re talking about being a safer driver for yourself and others around you. Driver Safety Courses (defensive driving) are all about providing you with tools to keep yourself and others safe. The lessons you learn in defensive driving have a butterfly effect on the whole world around you. Putting the lessons into practice on the road saves lives. So much so that insurance companies frequently will give a discount if you’ve taken a defensive driving course, even if it was because of a speeding ticket. What is meant by defensive driving is saving lives. Defensive driving is the difference between driving home safely and being in a crash on your drive home. It won’t make you invincible, but it could be the difference between getting home safe and being in an accident.