1997 Pontiac Firebird Owner's Manual - Page 167

Defensive Driving Assume that pedestrians or other drivers aregoing to be careless and make mistakes. Anticipate what they might do. Be ready €or their mistakes. Rear-end collisionsare about the most preventable of accidents. Yet they are common. Allow enough following distance. It's the best defensive driving maneuver, both in city and rural driving.You never know when the vehicle in front of you is going to brakeor turn suddenly. Drunken Driving Death and injury associated withdnnking and dnving is a national tragedy. It's the number one contributor to the highway death toll, claiming thousands of victims every year. Alcohol affects four things that anyone needs to drive a vehicle: Judgment 0 MUSGU~W Coordination Vision Attentiveness. Police records show that almost half of all motor vehiclle-related deaths involve alcohol. In most cases, these deaths are the result someone who was drinking of and driving. In recent years, some 17,000 annual motor vehicle-related deaths have been associated with the use of alcohol, with more than 300,000 people injured. The best advice anyone can give about driving is: Drive defensively. Please start with a very important safety device in your Pontiac: Buckle up. (See "Safety Belts" in the Index.) Defensive driving really means "be ready for anything." On city streets, rural roads or freeways, it means "always expect the unexpected."