Boyd Autobody & Glass Articles

Among safe driving educators, it is easy to point the finger at young drivers as being the unsafest drivers

The combination of inexperience and peer pressure to occasionally do dangerous things is not a good combination when someone is behind the wheel.

However, that doesn't mean seasoned drivers are necessarily safer. Seasoned drivers can still be unsafe drivers… But for very different reasons. For seasoned drivers, it all boils down to habits. Seasoned drivers might start off with good habits but over time it is easy to become lazy and let some good driving habits disappear, or even to fail to keep up to the changing demands of driving.

Here are some of the top ways that seasoned drivers are unsafe drivers They fail to...

A lot of attention is focused on the importance of not driving drunk

Various organizations invest a lot of time, money, and effort into promoting safe and sober driving. Although there are still TOO MANY drunk drivers on the road, there has been a positive impact with many people choosing to drive responsibly.

Alcoholic inebriation is not the only reason why you shouldn't drive

You should never, ever drive drunk. But you should also never, ever drive under these other two conditions as well:

Fatigued Distracted

All three of these problems – drunkenness, fatigue, and distractedness – have exactly the same impact on our physiology and each of these three can impair us.

Each of these three conditions impair...

The commute home after work is, for most people, probably the worst 30 minutes of the day

You've had a long day at work, you're tired and hungry, everyone around you feels the same way, and the red lights are conspiring against you to keep you from getting to the only place on earth you want to be right now.

At these times, it's easy to feel road rage, to drive aggressively (and even vindictively) and to ignore the rules of the road in a desperate attempt to get home to your loved ones. This is a classic case of driving unsafely because of your mentality. You lose focus or focus on the wrong things and you can make poor driving decisions.

Here are some tips to help you change your thinking so you drive more safely and get home in a...

When traveling, there's nothing like the feeling of the wide open road before you

You might get that feeling while driving on a major road, but once you're in town, things can be different: A line-up of vehicles parked in a parking lane to your right present a huge amount of potential danger: People are pulling out; they're stopping and backing up; people are walking out from between parked vehicles; they're opening doors into your lane. The parking lane might be a convenience to others but it's a menace to anyone driving in the lane to the left!

Here's how to drive a little more safely when there's a parking lane to the right of you Look ahead to take in the full line-up of vehicles, don't just look one or two vehicle lengths ahead...

To Finance Or Lease?

If you are thinking about getting a new vehicle, one of the things you'll need to consider is whether you want to finance your vehicle or lease it.

Financing

Financing your vehicle is where you borrow the money to buy it. You pay regular payments to the lending company. Leasing your vehicle is where you borrow the vehicle and pay regular payments to the company lending it to you.

With financing, you own the car. If you cannot make payments, the lending company will repossess the car to try and sell it and recoup what they couldn't collect from you. With leasing, the dealership owns the car. If you cannot make payments, the dealership will repossess the car to try and recoup what they couldn't collect from...

Safe driving is a choice

When they get behind the wheel, safe drivers choose to drive an appropriate speed for the conditions of the road and they choose to focus on the road and anticipate proactively what other drivers are going to do. Safe drivers have a number of tools at their disposal to help them driver more safely:

Brakes. Safe drivers know the power of their brakes. They understand that the faster they go, the more work their brakes have to do to stop their vehicles (and that braking distance increases exponentially the faster a vehicle is driving). Safe drivers don't ride the brakes when they are driving and they don't stand on the brakes when they are stopping. They give themselves plenty of time to brake Gauges. Safe...

Best practices to keep in mind while driving in the rain

When you're sitting on your covered deck during a rainfall, perhaps sipping a warm coffee and enjoying the smell and sound of the rain, it's nice. But when you're driving in rain, it's a completely different story.

Turn on your lights. This will make it easier for you to see and easier for others to see you Rain reduces your visibility. The harder the rain gets, the slower you should go… even if you are relying on your wipers to keep your windows clear. Don't be afraid to pull over when the rain falls so hard that you can't see in front of you. (Just make sure that you pull far enough over so that other vehicles don't hit you because they can't see you) Rain also reduces the...

We all have heroes and we love to emulate them

After all, who wouldn't want to be a cool action star like Matt Damon from The Bourne Identity or Jason Statham from The Transporter or Angelina Jolie from Laura Croft: Tomb Raider?

Although these heroes engage our imagination and make us dream that we ourselves might be action stars, and although we can emulate them in some ways, we must never learn to drive from them.

Those heroes are fictional.

If we drove in real life like they do in the fictional world, we'd all be doomed

Action stars are somehow able to get into a vehicle and even if their character is a complete novice, they can drive expertly through crowded traffic while foiling an army of villains who are shooting at...

When automobiles were first invented, they didn't have a lot of safety features on them

As more vehicles appeared on the roads and as speed limits increased, more safety features were introduced: Seat belts, airbags, crumple zones, heads-up displays, hands-free calling, safety glass, rearview cameras, and more.

What does the future look like?

How will advancements of the future change how our vehicles keep us safe? Here are some ideas. Obviously not all of these will definitely appear in our vehicles but some of them might. Who knows, maybe someone reading this article will be inspired to make vehicles even safer.

Vehicles that shut off prior to collision: One problem with collisions is not the initial collision but the...

In Canada, we face the most extreme weather

Winter can be as low as -40 C (even colder with the wind chill) and summer can be as high as +40 C. That's an 80 degree difference, which is hard on the roads and our vehicles. It also creates new challenges for us in each season, since we have to get used to the quirks and challenges of driving during that season. In summer, we face the blazing hot and blinding sun. In the winter, we barely maintain control on snowy, icy roads.

But what about the spring?

As short of a season as it is in Canada, it still presents its own unique challenges. Here are some top tips to driving safer in springtime.

Remember the temperature differential between day and night. The day time can be sunny and warm,