How to Judge a Safe Gap When Turning Right & Left

When learning to drive, judging a safe gap when turning is an essential skill that must be learned - watch the video! Get PASS ROAD TEST CHECKLIST: https://www.smartdrivetest.com/pass-r... SUBSCRIBE TODAY! ►    / smartdrivetest  

Determining a safe gap is one of the essential skills that a driver must learn to drive safely and NOT crash!

TIME TO TURN

In the city, a driver requires a gap of 5 - 10 seconds; on highways a driver requires 10 - 20 seconds.

FACTORS DETERMINING GAP

There are many factors that determine the size of the gap required to turn safely:

• speed of traffic flow;
• lines of sight (how far can you see down the road);
• driver's ability and driving experience;
• acceleration of your vehicle;
• geography (are you turning uphill or downhill);
• size of your vehicle (the larger your vehicle, the more time you require)

WORK WITH AN EXPERIENCED DRIVER

It is recommended that you work with an experienced driver or a driving instructor to learn how to judge gap correctly. It is difficult to provide practical application in a video due to the many variables required to learn this skill.

Determining a safe gap is a right-brain activity. When determining gap, you are determining spatial orientation of objects relative to each other. In other words, you are determining how far other road users are from your vehicle and in relation to other fixed objects. And the distance that other vehicles are away is measured in time - the same as following distance.

EXERCISE

If you are having difficulty determining safe gap, go out to an intersection and pick a fixed object in the distance - a sign, a building, or other road feature. When the vehicle passes the fixed object, start counting or timing the vehicle Determine what vehicles look like in the distance at different time intervals. How big is a vehicle when it's 8 seconds away as opposed to 20 seconds away. This exercise will help you to determine a safe gap into which to turn.

SMALLER IS TOUGHER

Know also that the smaller the vehicle, the more difficult it is to determine gap. And the higher the vehicles are travelling too also makes it more difficult to determine gaps.

RIGHT BRAIN ACTIVITY

Finally, the task of determining spatial relations or figuring out how far a road user is from you is a right-brain activity. The right-brain is unable to accurately determine time, which is a left-brain activity. In the video, I miscalculate time and this underscores the importance of working with an experienced driver or driving instructor to properly learn the skill of determining gap…to turn safely.

Good luck on your road test!
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