As soon as your pass your driving test and obtain your license, you’ll obviously want to get straight onto the highway and out onto the open road straight away.
Often, younger drivers have already bought or probably more likely, been bought, their first car before they’ve even booked their driving test. So, to keep you safe and confident in the first few weeks and months of officially passing your test and becoming a driver, here are some valuable tips for first-time drivers.
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Always Stay Under the Speed Limit
Even though you hopefully have no intention of exceeding the speed limit on purpose, as a new driver, it can be difficult to keep an eye on the speedometer as well as concentrating on remembering everything that you learned in your driving lessons.
This is why you should keep your music inside the car to a lower level than you probably will once you become more experienced and used to being behind the wheel and also to avoid driving groups of friends around regularly, especially on longer trips, as distractions can lead to speeding.
Be Sensible When Choosing Your First Car
When it comes to your very first car, forget about finding the perfect color and making your choice based on the quality of the speaker and sound system, and instead look into the following:
- Low road tax & auto insurance
- As few miles on the clock as possible
- A small, therefore easy-to-manage engine capacity
- A new or fairly new set of tires
- Enough storage space to accommodate what you need
Furthermore, if the car that you eventually decide is the one for you is across state, look into a competitive car haulage quote that will take the stress and expense of collecting your car further away from where you live.
Never Tailgate the Car in Front
By far the leading cause of motor accidents on the highways and smaller roads up and down the country is due to what’s commonly referred to as tailgating.
Essentially, tailgating is when a driver stays far too close to the rear of the car in front, perhaps as they’re simply unaware of what a safe amount of space is, or even due to impatience on the part of the driver who feels the car in front is traveling too slowly.
Then, as a general rule, remember the simple three-second rule, which involves choosing a simple and stationary object at the side of the road (but in your direct line of vision, of course) and counting three seconds between the car in front passing the object and you doing the same thing.
Always Check the Weather Ahead of Your Journey
Now, if you’re only intending on simply driving around the block to the local store for some milk, then there’s less of a reason why you should pay close attention to what the weather is doing.
However, for longer journeys and especially for those routes which you’ve never traveled before, make sure that you check the weather and remember that snow, rain, and wind can all have significant impacts on braking times and other key elements of driving.
For the first few weeks and even months, then, it would be far safer for you only to be driving in fair weather conditions.
