New Year resolutions

With the New Year comes resolutions that, hopefully, won’t go to waste. It’s always a fresh start, full of hope, a desire to do better and achieve milestones in our lives, be it in the areas of personal health and wealth, professional success or other worthwhile endeavors, perhaps an item off one’s bucket list.

Well, here are some motoring-related resolutions that should be beneficial not just for ourselves, but to the entire motoring public in general.

1) I will pay better attention to my driving, the road conditions, and how my car feels. Too often, people think driving is an involuntary action: they get in, start the engine, and move off.

A Japanese insurance industry study a few years back noted that most accidents occur when cars are moving off from a parked position. Motorists bump into other cars or other stationary objects such as curbs, light posts, signposts, gutters and curbs.

It’s also common for cars moving off from a parked position to bump into pedestrians, small animals and moving cars as they merge into the traffic.

All this could have been avoided if drivers paid better attention to their surroundings, did not rush, and gave a quick once-over, 360-degree look around their cars before getting in and moving off.

It takes less than half a minute to give your car a quick look in and around it. And it will be a time well spent.

2) I will stop using my mobile phone while driving, regardless of the speed. The mobile phone is an ubiquitous hand accessory which almost all people carry. Some even have multiple mobile phones. It’s a necessity indeed, as well as a fashion item and a status symbol.

But it is also a weapon of distraction: too many accidents happen when people talk on their mobile phones while driving because it forces them to lose focus on the task at hand, which is driving.

When you lose focus, you become a passenger to a speeding coffin which might as well be a large, high-speed object that can crash into other vehicles, pedestrians or private property. Focus is important. Some mobile applications such as the MMDA App or Waze can help us avoid or navigate through traffic, but we should only take quick cursory glances rather than focus on them. These apps are supposed to help you, not the main focus of your attention.

3) I will plan my trips and make a daily routine or schedule of my journeys. While traffic remains to be unpredictable, that doesn’t mean we should stop planning our daily activities.

A planned route, a time-based schedule, or a specified routine helps bring order into our oftentimes chaotic daily lives. It keeps us calm, because a schedule allows us to monitor our daily progress and helps us avoid rushing, which can make us careless and lead to accidents.

And following a routine means we are driving efficiently, avoiding crisscrossing the city in multiple trips, and getting stuck in traffic, thus wasting time and fuel, and causing wear and tear of our cars and ourselves.

4) I will religiously follow my car’s PMS schedule. Car breakdowns often occur at the worst possible time: in the middle of the night and in the middle of nowhere, when the weather is very bad, or in the midst of a massive traffic jam where our own stalled vehicle will further aggravate the traffic problem.

Car ownership and driving is not just a right, it is also a responsibility. We should religiously have our cars brought to the dealership every six months at the very least, or ideally, as per the recommended schedule on your car’s warranty booklet, every 5,000 kilometers.

And check your tires every week for proper inflation as well as condition. The one worse thing than having a breakdown in the middle of nowhere is causing an already massive traffic jam become worse! You’ll be public enemy No. 1 for a whole lot of other motorists.

5) I will strictly observe, follow, and be guided by the lines on the road and parking lot. We have too many drift drivers on the road, drivers that drift left to right, straggling/hogging two lanes at a time, which slows down traffic and aggravates motorists following them. The lines on the road exist to guide us accordingly. We need to stay well in between the lines on the road, left to right.

And when we park, we should also observe the same. If we are parallel parked, we should stay as close as we safely can to the curb to allow more space for others on the road and so as not to obstruct traffic. It’s an added hassle, but it keeps your car safer and keeps traffic flowing faster.

6) I will use the emergency/hazard lights properly. As per international traffic laws, the hazard light should only be turned on in the event of an emergency. You should be parked, stationary, or standing still when you turn on your emergency/hazard lights.

Do not drive with your hazard lights on unless it is a life and death emergency situation.

If you are driving in inclement weather, do not turn on your hazard lights. Turn on your headlights, foglamps, and high beams to improve visibility.

If you absolutely cannot see ahead of you, it is advisable, not to mention safer, to move to the side of the road and park your vehicle until the weather improves.

In case you are accidentally rearended while driving in inclement weather with your emergency/hazard lights activated, you will most likely be at fault, as activating the emergency/hazard warning lights is meant to indicate that your vehicle is standing still.