Many of the people reading this will only see real snow for a couple of days each year – or less.

This means that, despite the tail-slide that you luckily managed to recover from back in 2008, you are not an expert!

Getting ready for winter is essential for all drivers, especially salespeople and others who depend on driving to earn a living.

Whether you are covering long distances or simply making short journeys, it is worth making sure that you are fully prepared for the problems that can, and often will, arise in winter weather. In the UK, most years seem to have one or two days of ‘sudden’ cold weather.

This weather leaves many drivers stranded and sadly almost always results in one or two deaths from hypothermia.

The authorities could possibly do more but the starting point for winter safety is looking after yourself (and those around you!).

Whilst road deaths that are directly attributable to bad weather may be relatively rare, winter snow, ice, rain and fog can cause a lot of inconvenience and cost you dearly in both time and money.

Incorrect tyre pressures are a major fuel waster…

Weekly vehicle checks

Once a week you should check the following items:

Engine oil level
Engine coolant level
Brake, clutch and steering fluid levels
Screen-wash level
Battery electrolyte level*
Fan belt tension
Wiper blade condition
*Most batteries are now ‘sealed for life’ and do not require checking.

If you are unsure about how to carry out these checks you should consult your vehicle handbook or local garage.

Tyres

The small footprint of each tyre is all that is holding you on the road. Damaged or wrongly inflated tyres will simply let go in an emergency… 

You should make a detailed inspection of your tyres once a week to make sure that you stay legal (fines of up to £2,500 per wheel), stay roadworthy (tyres are a major MOT fail item – source Kwik Fit survey) and stay safe.

Incorrect tyre pressures are a major fuel waster!

Keeping your tyre pressures within the manufacturers recommended range will help save fuel, maximise braking efficiency and affect handling. Check tyres when they are cold.

Tyres must be the correct type for the vehicle (speed rating, etc.) and free from cuts and bulges. The minimum tread depth for tyres is 1.6 millimetres across the central three-quarters of the tyre and around the whole circumference. your tyres have rectangular wear indicators within the tyre (running across the tread); when the indicators are level with the tread it’s time to replace the tyre.

Front tyres will often wear quicker than rear tyres but tyres on the same axle should wear evenly; if opposite tyres wear unevenly, or a single tyre wears on one edge, you have problems…

If you are unsure about your tyres, consult a tyre specialist.

Every day you should check and clean the following items:

Windows
Mirrors
Lights
Reflectors
Indicators
Number plates
You should also check the correct operation of the:

Headlights
Parking lights
Brake-lights
Indicators
Horn
Windscreen washers
Windscreen wipers
It is illegal to drive the car with any of the items listed above inoperative.

Tyres: Make a quick visual check of the tyres. Walk around the car and look for any obvious tyre damage or pressure loss. If in doubt, check your tyres with a pressure gauge. And despite popular opinion, you can’t check tyre pressures by giving the tyres a good kick!

Brake tests

Each time you drive, perform a static and running brake test.

For the static brake test simply press the brake pedal before moving off to check for pedal pressure.

A running brake test can be done at 5 or 10 miles per hour to check that the brakes are operating correctly (note that this is not an emergency stop!).

Breakdowns are an inconvenience that can disrupt days out, a business trips or holidays and so on.

Looking after your car

If you are someone who relies on a vehicle for business, or simply to get to or from work, a breakdown is more than just an inconvenience, it means lost business or wages for the time that the vehicle is off the road, inconvenience for customers and a host of other problems. 

Imagine a breakdown during or just before a holiday, especially if you are travelling abroad! Or a breakdown ten minutes before your pupil was due to take a driving test…

The best way to avoid problems with breakdowns is to plan not to break down.

Good drivers do this by carrying out daily and weekly vehicle checks and by having their cars serviced at the regular intervals recommended by the manufacturer.

To help you get into the habit of carrying out the checks listed in this section, this programme provides you with some simple vehicle check projects, the first of which is included below.

The projects include daily and weekly car checks and ‘discovery sessions’ where you will learn a bit more about your vehicle – learning some ‘basics’ will also help when it comes to ‘car sympathy’.

From a fuel saving point of view, poor maintenance = poor economy.

Ways to lower car costs

In the current economic climate you might be wondering what, if anything, you can do to increase the money coming in, but it pays just as well to look at how to cut back on household costs. 

Most people tend to be lazy when it comes to seeking out the best deals so here’s a quick cheatsheet to cutting down on one of the most money-guzzling objects you’ll ever buy – a car.

1) Fuel costs are paramount, and with the cost of gas going up, so make sure you check out what different garages are charging. There is a difference of 13p per litre between the cheapest and most expensive unleaded petrol prices (according to petrolprices.com) – that equates to a saving of over £10 every 80 litres, which will mount up over time…

2) Watch how you drive – keeping a steady speed uses less equivalent petrol than a stop-start journey over the same distance. Also, it’s worth keeping to speed limits, and not just because you won’t be breaking the law. A driver who goes at 85mph will use 25% more fuel over the same distance as someone who keeps to 70mph. Not only are you less likely to have an accident (and hence keep down expensive insurance costs) but you’ll be saving on fuel as well. When 50 AA employees took part in an eco-driving experiment with Auto Express magazine they saved an average 10% on their weekly fuel bills, with the best achieving an incredible 33% saving.

3) Compare, compare, compare for insurance quotes. Sites like moneysupermarket.com and confused.com are a great starting point. Alternatively you can go directly to individual providers’ sites to see what premium they’ll quote.

Remember though, that the make and model of your car, your driving history, annual mileage and even small things like the colour of your car will make a difference to your premiums – a metallic colour car will cost more to repaint if there’s damage to the bodywork, hence your premiums will be slightly more expensive to reflect this.

So, bear these points in mind and you’ll soon have saved enough to upgrade to that sports car you’ve always wanted!

Wise up!

An aeroplane full of passengers is safe at 400mph in the air but if it hits the ground at that speed -everyone dies. This is why planes slow down before the runway, and make sure that the runway is clear before landing – to avoid impact. At the other end of the speed scale, a car driver who hits a toddler while reversing at 3mph in a driveway could kill.

It’s not the speed, it’s the impact! As a safe driver you will reduce the risk to yourself and others by reducing the risk of impact.

Doubling your speed quadruples the momentum – a Northern Ireland road safety advert that was banned in the rest of the UK had the tag line – the faster the speed, the bigger the mess – only watch the video on the right if you have a strong constitution.

There’s nothing wrong with speed – it often gets you there quicker on fast roads and it can be fun but…

The problem is with inappropriate speed.

By all means, go a bit quicker on the safe bits of open road*, if you can be sure that it’s clear and will remain clear* BUT slow down in towns – your average journey time will be the same, you will be more relaxed, and the kids on the street will enjoy more birthdays!

*Be aware that more people die on rural roads… See this info from RoSPA.

If you must kill something – kill your speed in town.

• Hit by a car at 20 mph, 3% of pedestrians will be killed – 97% will survive
• Hit by a car at 35 mph, 50% of pedestrians will be killed – 50% will survive
• Hit by a car at 40 mph, 90% of pedestrians will be killed – 10% will survive
• Hit by a car at 50 mph, greater than 99% of pedestrians will be killed – fewer than 1% will survive

A Utopian solution?

One solution would be to have no speed limits at all. However, limits are necessary to protect pedestrians, drivers who might be old or inexperienced, plus of course ignorant and stupid drivers. I like to drive fast, but I choose to live in, and enjoy the benefits of a collective society (the Western World). In this context, how can I justify my right to kill myself by driving too fast? Some poor bastard will have to scrape me up!

There are thousands of speed traps. We each invent our own. For many, this is a fact of driving life… Just this once or I’ll be late… If I can just pass this idiot in front… You know what yours are. All I suggest is that you become more aware of them. If you think you don’t need this advice you could find that going too fast is dead easy.

It’s your prerogative to agree or disagree with the views about speeding that are expressed here. But PLEASE REMEMBER, whoever you are and whatever you drive – that it’s not only high speed that kills… Any speed can kill.

The ‘I never drive fast in town’ trap

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeUX6LABCEA

What is fast? 5mph can kill. This brings us back to the ‘Speed Kills’ trap.

Many towns now have 20mph zones. You obviously don’t want to run over a child, but at 20mph there is a good chance that he will survive if you do (and more chance that you will avoid him!). At 35mph he will probably die.

Town and city journeys are often short. An extra 10mph will make virtually no difference to your journey time, although you might get to the next red light a bit quicker!

The ‘The speed limits are too low’ trap   

This might be a good point – I’ve often driven on roads that seem to be OK for 40 or 50mph but which are restricted to 30mph. But…

Unless you know the history of a particular area, and are an expert in making sense of such data, how do you know the limit is too low. Where is your evidence?

Being a good driver doesn’t make you psychic – the road cloud be a major accident black spot.

If you are local and you know a limit is unreasonable – gather some data, form a pressure group and fight to get it changed.

There have been cases where the accident rate has been cut when a higher limit has been imposed.

The ‘It’s a clear road’ trap  

Changes to road design in towns, on major routes and motorways have helped reduce the casualty rate, however, other roads have not seen the same level of accident reduction.

Have you ever seen a horse or a cow that has been hit by a car? Or the resultant wreckage that the driver is cut out from? There is nothing wrong with driving fast on a truly clear road, but such roads are rarely found in the UK (perhaps if you lived in Montana!).

Empty motorways can have debris on the road surface from burst truck tyres, etc. Not much of a problem at 70mph, but dangerous at 100. Country roads are rarely clear, stray animals, mud, farm vehicles, damaged surfaces, water, and ice.

Many drivers (and their passengers) are killed in single car accidents on clear roads. By all means drive fast if that is what you want to do – but do it in an intelligent way.

Any moron can end up in a field!

The ‘I’ve got a safe car’ trap  

Most vehicles, especially at the top of the range, have design capabilities far in excess of the average driver’s skill, however, this does not mean that they are safe, simply that they are safer – the driver can still panic and hit things.

When you hit things in a ‘safe’ car the secondary safety features will protect you to a degree, but what about other road users? The people you crash into? 

Secondary safety is the vehicles built in safety – crumple zones, collapsible steering columns, air bags, etc. Secondary safety might save you – as it saved the nine year old in this crash with just cuts and bruises – but a car’s safety features can’t protect you from the mental scars and post accident stress which lives with some people for a lifetime.

And… Although cars are made out of modern, impact absorbing materials, kids on bikes are still made out of what they always were, good old skin and bone with a few soft internal bits – and they don’t have built in air-bags.

Primary safety is what you do …

It doesn’t matter how safe your car is – It’s not idiot proof!