Produced by Donald Asa and www.truksafeamerica.com,
TrukSafe America, Inc.
Teen Driving Tips 4
Look before you get in. Look before you get out. Sounds simple, doesn't
it? But since it's done quite often, it could be an expensive mistake, even
a deadly mistake. Opening a door, as an example, that's 40 inches wide into
traffic that is driving within 3 foot of your machine, could cost you a door, an
arm, other grievous injuries, including your life –and that is expensive.
Gauges, gauges, gauges –failing to check these before you move the vehicle
can indeed be expensive.
Tire pressure –and failing to check your tires can not only be very expensive,
it can be dangerous.
We are talking now about expenses.
Why you stay back (see their tire on the pavement) that 10 or 12 feet gives you
a cushion. If you pull up to close, their car is perhaps in the crosswalk.
They back up, bang into you; you're going to have a bad day. If you need to
pull around them, you have room to go around without backing up yourself.
If however, you are close to a vehicle that stops in the crosswalk, now that driver
decides to back his vehicle up and bangs into you, that person could well blame
you for banging into his car. The cops are generally very smart but you can
point out that if someone backs into you while your foot is on the brake, a skid
mark is going to be in front of your tires. If you hit someone with your foot
on the brake, the skid marks would be behind the tires. Take pictures.
If there is any glass or debris from someone backing into you, the debris will go
toward your car. If you hit somebody from behind, the debris, such as glass,
will go toward their car. It's essential no matter what the problem –to
stay calm and quiet.
People get hurt, die, and are generally redirected because of shortcuts. This
means, wanting to save a few seconds. Imagine if you will driving 45 in a
35 to get to the next light only to arrive at the light just as it turns red, but
you're too close and too fast to stop before the intersection and a person going
the opposite direction is timing the light and gets into the intersection and you
collide. Generally, trying to save time can be extremely costly. Therefore,
your onboard computer (your brain) needs to be constantly alert as to how you can
be a better driver than the dumb-and dumber who wants to be a time saver.
Since time is related to expense, here are a few figures that you absolutely need
your computer to analyze.
The shortcut, speed, is only one of the shortcuts that will cut short a person's
lifestyle (injury or death.)
Breaking the law is another lifestyle changing activity, the least of which could
be a flattening of the pocketbook.
Saving what? Theoretically, time for what purpose? There is no purpose
so important that your life or anyone else's worth the time saving decision.
Lives are lost. As a driver your responsibility is to the people in around
your machine. If you're taking a chance, one of those lives is yours.
Injuries developed could well be injuries sustained that are not only life threatening
by injuries that could affect yourself as well as many other people.
Lives changed – equipment damaged, and much, much time lost.
For what? Nothing. Traveling at 10 mph above the speed limit is moving
at 15 feet per second faster. Thus in a city block (500 feet) say you'll have
traveled about 7.5 seconds, whereas obeying the law at the speed limit of 35 (52
FPS) 9.5 seconds. So, the short cut that produced an accident by driver (speedball)
saved 2 seconds in time and became a victim, created other victims, the people that
obey the law and were passed by speedball now are spectators.
What would you have done with the 2 seconds gained? Nothing. What did
you risk? Everything.
You can apologize for being late. You can't for being dead or killing someone.
Some words to think on:
"My lane" –you don't own a lane. The lanes are everyone's.
"Anger" –towards what end? Only clouds judgment. Anger
and stupidity are synonymous.
"Observant" –the more observant you are, the more you learn, the
more knowledgeable you become, the safer you are and the more observant you become.
Bike rider in a bike lane going the same direction, coming to an intersection.
Green light for the bike, green for your car. You're doing 35, bike is doing
20. You pass the bike in the middle of the block, then realize you're going
to turn at the intersection. Where is the bike? You need to know.
All part of observation.
"Fault" What difference does it make who's at fault if your dead
or you've killed someone?
Cop car, two officers roll up and stop behind your car at a stop sign. Your
hands begin to sweat, you're nervous and wondering why they're behind your car.
If you've checked everything before starting out, then no worries.
- You know your insurance papers are there.
- You know your registration is there.
- You know your brake lights work.
- You know your turn signals work.
- You know your tires are aired up.
- You know you're strapped in.
- You know your passengers are.
- You know your tail lights work.
- You know your license plate is there and lit up.
If your habit is to check everything before you move the machine, then don't worry.
To own a car or drive a car and be able to have the freedom to drive in this great
country, is indeed a privilege. There are however, responsibilities as part
of the package of having the freedom to drive where you please. The responsibilities
include learning, developing knowledge –not only for the love of the car that
gives you personal freedom but for the love of yourself and the realization that
you have the knowledge to operate and take care of a vehicle safely. Part
of that knowledge has to do with the economics of the vehicle and so here is information
that helps you understand the economics involved in the privilege of operating automobiles.
The costs of operating an automobile
The tables A & B shos the fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile
for 15,000 miles per year. Say you drive a lot more than 15,000 per year;
if you drive 45,000 annually then multiply the highlighted total costs by 3 to calculate
what it would have cost to operate your vehicle in the past.
The variable costs to operate a car are comprised of the following components:
- Gasoline and oil
- Maintenance
- Tires
The average cost per mile for these components are labeled lines 1, 2, and 3 in
blue.
The fixed costs are highlighted in red on the following table. Fixed costs include
the following:
- Insurance
- License
- Registration
- Taxes
- Depreciation
- Finance charges
Fixed costs are ownership costs.
The numbers in the tables are averages across all regions of the country and for
different vehicles. However, the percentage of total costs comprised of the
gas and maintenance and tires is an indicator of how much each variable cost item
is of the total operating costs per mile.
Gasoline as a percentage of total operating costs are spiking into the range that
was experienced in the early 1990s. Unfortunately, gasoline prices are likely
not to decrease much in the future. The following graph shows the cost of
all grades of gasoline from January 2004 through December 2007 (estimated).
The previous times that gasoline exceeded $3.00 per gallon since 2004 are shown
on the graph. The dip from about August 2006 through March 2007 shouldn't
be expected to occur again.
So the variable costs of operating a car will trend upwards in the future driven
largely by gasoline prices. On the fixed cost side, insurance costs are heading
upward – the insurance companies have been hit hard since 9/11 and Katrina
with property and casualty losses. The recent California wildfires don't help.
What do these events have to do with teen age drivers? They mean that fixed
costs are going up especially if the teen driver has had an accident or has a record
that exhibits the tendency to belong to the D&D club (Dumb & Dumber club).
Table A:
Consider the next table. As a teen driver, the cost incurred by your parents
and you for 15,000 miles of driving is over $7,800. Therefore, driving is
a responsibility and privilege not to be taken lightly.
The CD set of teen age driving tips that will supply you with practical, accident
preventing (hopefully), injury and life-saving (hopefully) from the Don-Wal system
for driving and surviving. The small cost of the CD set when compared against
an annual operating cost of over $7,800 and more dramatically, the cost of an accident
in which someone (possibly yourself) is either severely injured or is a traffic
fatality is one very easy cost-effective method of preparing and protecting other
drivers and yourself when you have the privilege to drive a car.
Table B:
|
|
1990
|
1991
|
1992
|
1993
|
1994
|
1995
|
1996
|
1997
|
1998
|
1999
|
2000
|
2001
|
2002
|
2003
|
2004
|
2005
|
2006
|
|
Average total cost per mile (current ¢)
|
33.0
|
37.3
|
38.8
|
38.7
|
39.4
|
41.2
|
42.6
|
44.8
|
46.1
|
47.0
|
49.1
|
51.0
|
50.2
|
51.7
|
56.2
|
52.2
|
52.2
|
|
Gas
|
5.4
|
6.6
|
5.9
|
5.9
|
5.6
|
5.8
|
5.6
|
6.6
|
6.2
|
5.6
|
6.9
|
7.9
|
5.9
|
7.2
|
6.5
|
9.5
|
8.9
|
|
Gas as a percent of total cost
|
16.4
|
17.7
|
15.2
|
15.2
|
14.2
|
14.1
|
13.1
|
14.7
|
13.4
|
11.9
|
14.1
|
15.5
|
11.7
|
13.9
|
11.6
|
18.2
|
17.1
|
|
Maintenance
|
2.1
|
2.2
|
2.2
|
2.4
|
2.5
|
2.6
|
2.8
|
2.8
|
3.1
|
3.3
|
3.6
|
3.9
|
4.1
|
4.1
|
5.4
|
4.9
|
4.9
|
|
Tires
|
0.9
|
0.9
|
0.9
|
0.9
|
1.0
|
1.2
|
1.2
|
1.4
|
1.4
|
1.7
|
1.7
|
1.8
|
1.8
|
1.8
|
0.7
|
0.7
|
0.7
|
|
Maintenance and Tires as percent of total cost
|
0.09
|
0.08
|
0.08
|
0.09
|
0.09
|
0.09
|
0.09
|
0.09
|
0.10
|
0.11
|
0.11
|
0.11
|
0.12
|
0.11
|
0.11
|
0.11
|
0.11
|
|
Average total cost per 15,000 miles (current $)
|
4,954
|
5,601
|
5,824
|
5,804
|
5,916
|
6,185
|
6,389
|
6,723
|
6,908
|
7,050
|
7,363
|
7,654
|
7,533
|
7,754
|
8,431
|
7,834
|
7,823
|
|
Variable cost
|
1,260
|
1,455
|
1,350
|
1,380
|
1,365
|
1,440
|
1,440
|
1,620
|
1,605
|
1,590
|
1,829
|
2,040
|
1,770
|
1,965
|
1,890
|
2,265
|
2,175
|
|
Fixed cost
|
3,694
|
4,146
|
4,474
|
4,424
|
4,551
|
4,745
|
4,949
|
5,103
|
5,303
|
5,460
|
5,534
|
5,614
|
5,764
|
5,789
|
6,541
|
5,569
|
5,648
|
Finally, the following headline is humorous be also helpful in putting the price
of gasoline in the proper context. The headline reads:
If your car ran on bottled water, you'd be paying $6.40 a gallon.
Basically, people will pay willing between $1 and $1.50 or more for 20 ounces of
bottled water. Since there are 128 ounces in one US gallon, you'd pay at least
$6.40 per gallon for bottled water and upwards of $9.60 gallon (6.4 20-oz bottle
equivalents in a gallon x $1.00 per gallon or 6.4 x $1.50 per gallon).
So remember this fact the next time you have gas (priced over $3.00 per gallon)
pumped in your tank. Compared to bottled water, gasoline is still affordable.
But if you're in school or have a minimum wage job, even $3.00 per gallon gas will
impact your budget. So stay in school and drive carefully.