Every driver should know about “the Bubble?” It’s one of the simplest and most useful principles of defensive driving. The Bubble is simply the airspace that you maintain on all sides of your car by keeping other cars at a safe distance. It’s a good idea if you are planning to enroll yourself or a loved one in driving school to ask, “Does this here little old driving school teach the Bubble?” Of course only ask like that if you are a Southern Belle.
A member of a prestigious social club once arrived late for a meeting, distraught because someone had rear-ended her car once again and she couldn’t understand why this kept happening to her. Conversation with her sympathetic friends soon revealed to everyone but her that she had been tailgating. When the car ahead of her stopped abruptly she slammed on her brakes and stopped too.
The woman told her friends that since she did not hit the car in front of her she obviously had not been tailgating. Unfortunately the woman did not understand that her sudden stop which prevented her from hitting the car in front deprived the car behind of enough time to avoid hitting her. If she had only known, a bigger space in front of her could have saved her behind.
The ideal situation on a freeway is to be driving at a safe, comfortable, legal speed with the cars in front of you many car lengths ahead, no vehicles to ether side and none behind you.
Unfortunately, moments like this are rare as traffic behind you catches up and passes, eager to catch up with the cars ahead who are all slowing down for some known or unknown reason.
But, drivers who know and use the Bubble realize that there is more to it than just surrounding your car with open space whenever it’s easy to do so. Your Bubble may change size and shape sometimes but a good driver will always be alert and aware of where spaces are as well as where other vehicles are and what their drivers are doing.
If a car is coming up too fast behind you, where do you think he is planning to go? If a car in the right lane ahead of you is approaching the truck in front of it too quickly where is the driver going to go when he reaches the truck? If it looks like there is nowhere for him to go but in front of you perhaps you might slow your own speed a little to make sure that he has room to move over when he suddenly realizes what he is going to have to do.
Of course you don’t want to. You would much rather see the jerk get what’s coming to him. But, since that would necessarily involve your safety and that of others you demonstrate what an alert, well-trained driver you are and prevent a collision. You then have the satisfaction of thinking how fortunate the other driver was that he pulled that stunt in front of you and not someone with a death wish. And then you silently ask that other driver, “Why doesn’t your driving school teach the Bubble?”.
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