If you’ve ever been involved in a car accident, even one without injuries, you know just how traumatic they can be. If you’ve never been in an accident, consider yourself lucky.

Continue reading for some tips to improve your driving skills and hopefully avoid accidents involving catastrophic injuries.

Drive Defensively

One of the best ways to stay safe behind the wheel is by utilizing defensive driving techniques. These methods are widely known to reduce the number and severity of collisions.

The following are some defensive driving practices:

• Be aware of your surroundings.
  • This is, by far, the most important aspect of driving. You won’t be able to react to changing road conditions if you’re not aware of what’s going on around you. Keep your eyes on the road and your hands on the wheel at all times.
• Don’t rely on others.
  • Be thoughtful of others, but take care of yourself first. Don’t expect others to get out of your way when you need to merge or change lanes. Move around other vehicles with extreme caution.
• Leave adequate space.
  • A good rule to follow is to leave at least one car length for every 10 miles per hour (mph) of your speed. For instance, if you’re driving down the highway going 60 mph, you’ll want to leave a minimum of 6 car lengths between your car and the one ahead of you. That way, you have plenty of time to slow down, should the car in front of you come to a panic stop.
• Always avoid speeding.
  • Speeding is the number one cause of fatal accidents in the U.S. Driving at safe speeds is one of the easiest and most effective ways to avoid car accidents.
• Leave yourself a way out.
  • No matter what type of road you’re driving on, you should always leave yourself a way out. For instance, if the car ahead of you runs over debris on the road, you’ll want to make sure you have an escape route to avoid hitting the object in the road.