Essential Guide for Driving: How to Properly Avoid Danger After a Highway Accident

       How can you avoid accidents when driving? What measures should you take after an incident? To answer these questions, a reporter interviewed several traffic police officers.

　　“Many people who oppose wearing seatbelts argue that it restrains them to their seats, leaving them helpless and crushed in a collision with the vehicle in front,” said Yin Jinrui, head of the First Highway Detachment. While such cases do occur, they are extremely rare. The more common danger is that unbuckled passengers are ejected from the vehicle, dying on the road.

　　People get ejected in all kinds of ways. In Yin Jinrui’s jurisdiction, the village party secretary of a town in Lüliang was driving with six people, none of whom were wearing seatbelts. When the accident happened, police arrived to find the front and sides of the car completely undamaged. It turned out all the passengers had been ejected through the rear windshield.

　　There’s also a theory that supports wearing seatbelts on highways but opposes it in cities, “because cars just don’t go fast enough!” To this, he cautions: “Slow is relative.” A friend of his, with over 30 years of driving experience, was driving in downtown Taiyuan with his daughter in the passenger seat. At 40 km/h, a pedestrian suddenly ran a red light. He slammed on the brakes and tried to shield his daughter, but she still hit the windshield, suffering head injuries and bleeding. “If I hadn’t stopped her, she would have been launched.” “Seatbelts have saved countless lives.” Many times, when traffic police arrive at mangled car wrecks and assume no one could have survived, those wearing seatbelts are often the ones who crawl out alive. “Of course, there are cases where seatbelts cause broken ribs or internal injuries—but would you rather break a rib or be thrown out of the car?”

　　Most rear-end collisions on highways happen because the following vehicle fails to keep a safe distance from the one ahead.

　　Expert tests on dry asphalt roads show that when making an emergency stop at 100 km/h, the driver’s reaction distance is 28 meters, the braking distance is 84 meters, adding up to a total safe driving distance of 112 meters. Therefore, under normal dry conditions, drivers should generally maintain a distance of at least the numerical value of their speed in meters from the car in front.

　　The usual guideline for following distance is: at 50 km/h, stay at least 50 meters behind; at 80 km/h, at least 100 meters; at 100 km/h, 150–200 meters; and at 120 km/h, around 200 meters.

　　Secondary accidents on highways are more terrifying than the initial collision. Not long ago, on a highway in Shanxi, a couple got out of their car to push it after running out of fuel. They hadn’t gone far when, on a downhill stretch, a vehicle approaching from behind couldn’t stop in time and hit them, killing both.

　　Faced with such secondary accidents caused by ignorance, besides feeling heartache, Yin Jinrui also summarized the nearly uniform wrong actions of victims during disasters: when the first accident happens, the involved parties usually call their family first, then their friends, and then their insurance company. “By the time they remember to call the police, who knows how much time has passed—the secondary accident happens while they’re on the phone.”

　　Due to longer response times, highway traffic police have observed the psychology of many accident victims. Many who are involved in single-vehicle accidents either freeze in shock, staying inside their vehicles too scared to move, or walk sadly around their beloved car on the road. At these moments, failing to quickly leave the road puts them at grave risk—vulnerable to being hit by a following vehicle and then run over repeatedly.

　　Driving Safety Tips:

　　“Contrary to daily habits, the left hand is for the main drive, and the right hand is the assistant!” said Yin Jinrui. The right hand plays a supporting role because it’s frequently used: shifting gears, adjusting the air conditioner, changing airflow direction, controlling the stereo, etc. But after each task, the right hand must immediately return to the steering wheel to assist the left hand in driving. Most drivers, for convenience, keep their hand on the gear stick after shifting.

　　Many male drivers like to keep items like mobile phones, keys, or pens in their shirt pockets. While driving, this poses a serious safety risk.

　　In the event of a collision, the steering wheel can press against the driver’s chest, and those small objects in the pocket can be forced directly into the thoracic cavity or help the steering wheel break the driver’s ribs.

　　Try to keep the passenger area of a sedan as clutter-free as possible. In station wagons or vehicles where the passenger area connects to the trunk, avoid randomly stashing items and turning the trunk into a “junk room.”

　　The trunk at the rear of the vehicle is a “crumple zone” designed to absorb impact from rear collisions and reduce danger. If it’s filled with clutter, these items can turn into deadly projectiles during a crash.

　　High beams let you see the road clearly, but they blind drivers in oncoming or preceding vehicles. Actually, don’t assume high beams make you safer—if other drivers can’t see the road and have an accident, your vehicle might not be spared either. You might end up paying the price for your bad habit.

　　Many people think highways have no intersections, no pedestrians, wide roads, and good visibility, so they let new or unlicensed drivers practice there. Wu Xiaobiao from the Fifth Brigade of the First Highway Detachment told reporters that highways are far more dangerous than urban roads or low-speed areas. Accidents happen because of “speed.” Speed leaves drivers no time to react. Most novices struggle to judge proper following distances, and in emergencies, being too close leads to direct collisions with the car in front or the guardrail.