1993 Oldsmobile Achieva Owner's Manual - Page 140

Your Driving and the Road Deknsive Driving The best advice anyone can give about driving is: Drive defensively. Please start with a very important safety device in your Oldsmobile: Buckle up. (See theIndex under Safety Belts.) Defensive driving really means "be ready for anything." On city streets, rural roads, or freeways, it means "always expect the unexpected." Assume that pedestriansor other drivers are going to be careless and make mistakes. Anticipate what they might do. Be ready for their mistakes. Expect children to dashout from behind parked cars, often followed by other children. Expect occupants in parked cars to open doors into traffic. Watch for movement in parked cars-someone may be about to open a door. Expect other drivers to run stop signs when you are on a through street. Be ready to brake if necessary as you go through intersections. You may not have to use the brake, but if do, you will you be ready. If you're driving through a shopping center parking lot where there are wellmarked lanes, directional arrows, and designated parking areas, expect some drivers to ignore all these markings and dash straight toward one part the lot. of Pedestrians can be careless. Watch for them. In general, you must give way to pedestrians even if you knowyou have the right of way. Rear-end collisions are aboutthe most preventable of accidents. Yet they are common. Allow enough following distance. It's the best defensive driving maneuver, in both city and rural driving. You never know when the vehicle in frontof you is going to brake or turn suddenly. Here's a final bitof information about defensive driving. The most dangerous time for driving inthe U.S. is very early on Sunday morning. In fact, GM Research studies show that the most and the least dangerous times for driving, every week, fall on the same day. That day is Sunday. The most dangerous time is Sunday from 3 a.m. to 4 a.m. The safest time is Sunday from 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. Driving the same distance on a 1 Sunday at 3 a.m. isn't a little more just dangerous than it is at 10 a.m. It's about 134 times more dangerous! That leads to the next section.