Recently I’ve been getting asked a lot why I started Driving in the Real World and if there was any singular incident (like an accident or loss) that made me want to change the way people drive.

Although I have known a couple of people who were killed in auto accidents, their fate is not what’s feeding my passion. My motivations are much more simple, and I’m reminded of it every time I get behind the wheel: I am simply tired of sharing the road with so many bad drivers who endanger me and others every day. And I feel like I can and should do something about it.

But I have no illusions of how long and difficult a task this will be, because at least 80 percent of our population feels that they’re already good drivers. To effect any real change in our lackadaisical attitude toward driving on a national scale is going to take a systematic, persistent, and collaborative approach over many decades and across numerous channels of media, products, services, and campaigns to multiple age groups. It may take at least 30 or 40 years to see its cumulative effects, and it may not even be fully accomplished in my lifetime. But by steadily partnering with others and chipping away at this massive task little by little, I do believe that we can start changing life on the road. The role of Driving in the Real World is to make bad driving as socially unacceptable as drinking and driving.

I’ve been asked about my plans to make this website a larger one, and when that will take place. That is still a ways out yet, possibly a year or more. My vision for DITRW is enormous and long-term. Ultimately it will include the following:

• Apps for mobile phones and tablets relating to driver information/feedback
• Training tools for teens, parents, immigrants, and the elderly
• Ad campaigns across all media
• Online driver forums that cater to the unique navigation and safety needs of different communities
• Road safety/driving concept games for children as young as kindergarten all the way to high-school age
• Fun products that promote better driving
• Intensive curricula for driving schools and instructors

I hope to build DITRW over the years into a major player that has some sway in state legislation, laws, and licensing. I’d also like to see it involved in the creation of a national driving safety center, similar to the one in Teesdorf, Austria, that has nationally reduced beginner accidents by 17 percent and young driver fatalities by 34 percent.

This is all horrendously ambitious, given the current American cultural attitude toward driving. But I still think it is not totally impossible if enough dedicated stakeholders chip away at it in effective, intensive ways over time. With strong leadership and consistent vision, I believe we can innovate driver and road safety education in ways that make people not only want to learn the right way, but even have fun doing it, and remember and use what they’ve learned for the rest of their lives.

I must acknowledge that hundreds of entities, from private citizens to government agencies, are already devoted to these causes, and their good intent, hard work, and often passionate fervor should be recognized. The problem is that very few are willing to tackle our completely broken system of driver-focused road safety consistently and over the long term by its true root causes. An alarming fatality statistic is cited here, a call to end distracted driving is shouted from another mountaintop there, and everywhere there is emotional hand-wringing.

But too often these are small disparate elements that are isolated from why our collective driving skills are so bad:

• Little acknowledgement of the huge role of cognitive science and driver personality influencing behavior behind the wheel
• A lack of truly good driving training available in America
• A severe shortage of in-car time spent learning superior technique and good habits
• The very weak knowledge and testing standards that enable us to get a license
• Our own huge underestimation of driving’s complexities and overconfidence in our abilities
• A deterioration of our social conduct in general
• The very low sense of priority we place on driving safety
• The subsequent lack of money assigned to doing something about it, whether it is a parent investing in good driver education for their teen or a government agency running a graduated licensing program

Until these larger issues are addressed in meaningful, substantial ways, US roads will continue to be dangerous places, ranked well below other developed nations when it comes to traffic fatalities and accidents.

What are your thoughts? Do you have ideas? What do you think is necessary to change our driving culture? Do you have experience in it? I would love to hear from you.

For many people, the beginning of a year often means a chance to start anew, to improve a longstanding issue of some sort. Getting in shape and shedding extra pounds are the most common resolutions, but some people decide they need to save more money, quit smoking, reduce stress, or get a more fulfilling job.

How about drive smarter?

Consider this: Driving is an activity that many of us do almost every day. And like everything that we do almost every day, we do it so much that we don’t think about how we do it anymore (unless someone cuts us off or we have a near-accident). But unlike brushing your teeth or answering email, the consequences of not driving well can be annoying, dangerous, or deadly.

Driving well means driving smarter. It means being careful, looking far ahead, anticipating and planning, and sharing well with others. It means being aware, paying attention, and staying focused. It means driving smoothly and steadily even through the most challenging conditions. It means knowing how to use technology to help you travel efficiently and safely—and when to ignore it.

Most of us think we drive really well. According to cognitive research studies, exactly 80 percent of us, in fact, believe we are above-average drivers. And 999 times we drive somewhere, we don’t get into an accident, or even close to it. So we’re good drivers, right?

But when was the last time you were out driving and something took you by surprise? A pedestrian stepping out from behind a parked car? A motorcycle in your blind spot? A vehicle that was entering the same lane you were changing to on the highway? An invisible patch of ice on an onramp? A red stoplight on a busy downtown street that wasn’t visible until you were already in the intersection? Another vehicle tailgating you?

If you were surprised or startled by any of these, it means there’s room for improvement. Over 90 percent of vehicular accidents are completely avoidable. An “accident” should mean a freak happening, such as a tree falling down on your car during a windstorm. Everything else is irrelevant—and preventable.

Driving smarter also means being completely honest with yourself about your abilities, personality, intent, and execution. Most of us aren’t.

The rewards of driving smarter are huge. Safety is the obvious benefit; no one wants to be in a crash or risk being injured or killed. Or worse yet, do that to someone else. But aside from that, driving smarter means you’ll be less frustrated and scared by traffic and others around you. That means you’ll be less stressed, and you’ll likely even save some time, because you know how to drive more efficiently. And when you drive smarter to your destination, you’ll have that secret inner satisfaction of having executed a job well-done in a hazardous world.

It’s not just for behind the wheel, either. The mental and physical skills to drive smarter directly improve just about everything else you do—looking far ahead, being aware of what’s going on around you, and focusing not on the mistake that just happened, but how to avoid repeating it in the future.

So try it—take a refresher course from a good driving school, join an auto club that offers car control clinics, research the Web for driving techniques (including this blog), or get one-on-one training with a professional driving instructor. Or take a single bad driving habit you have, and work deliberately on replacing it with a better one.

Driving well, really well, takes practice. Lots of it. But most of us drive everyday. What a great opportunity to get better throughout the year.

The flowers placed by the Ramp Metered Ahead When Flashing sign near the onramp still haven’t wilted yet. Day after day, their silk petals flutter in the rain, wind, and sun, as out of place as a kitten on an ice skating rink. Every time I see them, I inhale deeply for a man who no longer can.

Almost ten months ago, this man was driving his silver BMW M3 sedan westbound in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland on a beautiful summer day. A famous Google software engineer who had just celebrated his 10th wedding anniversary, he was returning home from Costco when a black Hyundai SUV hurtled from out of nowhere and slammed into his car. He died instantly.

I came upon the accident scene perhaps about a half hour after it happened. I was on a routine trip to pick up my dad and we were on our way to downtown Kirkland, but the road was blocked, forcing us to enter the freeway onramp. Weaving through the disorienting maze of emergency vehicles, flares, and police officers waving the crawling traffic by, I suddenly found myself about five feet from the silver M3.

It was mangled so badly that its driver side was smashed clear into the passenger area and the whole car was squished to less than half its original width. My heart sank. My first thought was that no driver could have possibly survived that kind of impact. My second thought was what kind of speed had to be attained to inflict that much damage, and how? The 30-mph speed limit of the surrounding streets made this improbable, even taking into account normal traffic fluctuations. 

The Washington State Patrol later determined that the SUV driver had been traveling southbound on the freeway when he perceived that another driver cut him off. Fueled by a blood alcohol level four times the legal limit, the Hyundai driver flew into a rage and started pursuing the vehicle. He exited the freeway on the eastbound 85th St offramp at high speed, lost control around a corner, crossed three eastbound lanes, hit a raised median, rolled his vehicle, and sailed across all the westbound lanes before slamming into the top of the BMW.

The drunk driver walked away from the SUV. The dead man left behind a devoted wife and two young children. The person being pursued by the drunk driver continued on the freeway and likely never even knew what happened.

Seeing the BMW shook me up terribly the rest of the day—it was so clearly a case of being literally at the wrong place at the wrong time. It wasn’t until the next day that it dawned on me that I had been running about 15 minutes late that day, all day. I’d been a little irritated at my tardiness when I picked up my dad, having come down southbound on the freeway, not my usual route but necessary that day because of an errand. I had exited eastbound on that same offramp to 85th Street, only to return westbound with my father in the front passenger seat 10 minutes later. If I’d been running on time—my usual time—the Hyundai would have been 10 minutes behind me on the freeway, and we could have been that BMW. 

No words can describe the unfairness of fate, when reckless impulse, inattention, alcohol, and road rage intersect in a single horrifying moment. Still, the silk flowers brave the ceaseless elements, their presence a reminder of randomness.

In preparing for a discussion group recently on the subject, I've been thinking about what makes a good or lousy driver. This is a topic ripe for spirited debate, and it turns out there is as much controversy about what constitutes good driving as there are factors that actually determine it. Is it progress, safety, or smoothness, or a combination of all of these? And is bad driving simply the lack thereof, or do other dynamics have a role as well?

In exploring these questions, I jotted down some notes:

__________________________________________________________________

What Makes a Good Driver

A driver who is assertive, not aggressive.

A driver who is not overly fearful.

A driver who looks ahead visually and mentally as far ahead as possible, and strategizes accordingly.

A driver who is smooth with steering, braking, and other inputs.

A driver who does not panic in an emergency situation but has the presence of mind to decide and execute the best action for that moment.

A driver who is self-aware of his/her bad habits and is constantly looking to overcome them.

A driver who knows what leads to accidents (distracting activities, visual fixation, fatigue, etc.) and is proactive about avoiding or minimizing these risks.

A driver whose brain in actively engaged in the piloting activity at hand.

A driver who practices common courtesy and cooperation with all others on the road (drivers, bicyclists, pedestrians).

A driver who knows how to breathe and relax at crucial moments to enhance brain and reflex function at the wheel.

A driver who focuses on improving the drive ahead and doesn’t fixate on mistakes of the past.

A driver who knows when to stop; i.e., knows his/her physical, mental, and emotional limits.

A driver who doesn’t have clutter in the car! (Clutter—or the presence of many loose objects piled on the dashboard, floor, seats, and rear window deck—is not only unsafe in an accident but also may be indicative of a mind that is more easily distracted or situationally unaware.)

A driver who always believes that there is something to learn.

A driver whose attitude is generally positive, not negative.

A driver who recognizes the nuances in life and that the world is in the details. The slightest easing up on the brake pedal, changes in speed, and as little steering input as possible leads to smoother, safer driving.

What Makes a Bad Driver

A driver who is aggressive, not merely assertive.

A driver who is overly confident.

A driver who focuses just on the road directly in front of him/her, and is not anticipating far down ahead.

A driver who is very fearful or overly hesitant.

A driver who is dictated by ego.

A driver who has bad habits and doesn’t even know it.

A driver who pretends he is in a hermetically sealed bubble and drives as though he is the only one on the road. (This takes many forms, from not clearing off their snowy back windows to cutting quickly in and out of traffic to get ahead at a desired speed).

A driver who allows a preoccupation with nondriving activities to override the task of driving at hand.

A driver who lets his car drive him (either through overuse of driver-assist technology or in how his car’s persona dictates how he pilots the vehicle [i.e., sports cars).

A driver who fixates on mistakes from the past.

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Do you ever wish you knew when you need new tires? Do you know how to check which fluids go in which reservoirs under the hood? Could you change your own tire in an emergency?

We women annually drive more miles in passenger vehicles than men, not only because we're working but we tend to run more errands, ferry children around, etc. Yet how many of us depend solely on male partners, friends, fathers, or brothers to take care of what needs to be done on the family car or van? In an emergency or during a road trip, would we feel comfortable performing simple tasks like checking the oil (or even know that oil needs to be checked in the first place), jumping a battery, or replacing windshield wiper blades?

Many of us (regardless of gender) don't know the most elemental basics, and this ignorance puts us at risk of a vehicle breakdown or being taken advantage of by unscrupulous mechanics when a crisis does occur. Knowledge is power, and it can make a huge difference in preventing a mechanical incident, or how to handle one.

The Pacific Northwest chapter of the Audi Club has been offering a technical session for women only for several years now, and it's a terrific way for women to get to know their cars in a non-intimidating environment. This is important because females often feel embarrassed to even ask questions for fear of being ridiculed in the often all-male, testosterone-charged domains of service garages.

Amanda showing how to check remaining tire tread.

This tech session is held at a Seattle Audi dealership, where service technicians demonstrate how to check and refill vital engine fluids, check for tire wear and tire pressure, and replace wiper blades. They jack up a car and show how to change a tire. They even put a car up on the lift and talk about the undercarriage, that mysterious underbelly on every vehicle that's full of strange pipes, tubes, struts, and other bits and pieces.

I first visited this two-hour workshop a couple a years ago, and I was amazed at how much some of the attendees did not know. For instance, some weren't aware of the difference between windshield washer fluid and coolant (and it is REALLY not good to pour the wrong fluid into the wrong place). Many had changed a tire before, but found it very helpful to get a demonstration on how to jack up the vehicle properly and the exact sequence of steps for safety.

Along the way, the participants asked many questions about car care: What does it mean when this light comes on in the dash? When such-and-such went wrong, I took the car to another mechanic, and he told me something different. Why does the vehicle make this noise when I've just started it? Questions begat more questions, and animated discussions ensued.

Mike demonstrating the correct way to install a wiper blade.

As braking, suspension, tires, and lights were demystified one by one, the women became visibly more relaxed, comfortable, excited, and empowered. Now they not only knew better how to care for their expensive investments, but they would hopefully feel less threatened the next time they walked into the dealer service area or talked with their mechanics. 

I wish more dealers offered sessions like these. Everyone should get to know their vehicle, ideally first by reading their owner's manual (which offers information specific to their particular vehicle), then doing some basic research on the resources nearest them. Get a copy of Auto Repair for Dummies from your local bookstore or Amazon. Ask your local dealer or reputable mechanic to schedule a session with you to go over basics on your car. And sometimes car care classes are offered at technical colleges and local service garages. Motor Trend also has a useful car care section on its website.

A huge thank-you to Carrie Stewart of the Audi Club Northwest and University Audi for the use of their photos.

These winter days can be extremely treacherous ones on the road, what with sleet, black ice, freezing rain, drifting snow, whiteouts, or any combination thereof blanketing the pavement. Starting in late fall every year, reminders pop up on the radio and news for drivers to be mindful of changing conditions, to slow down, and allow extra travel time. The Internet is suddenly peppered with articles on how to drive in snowy conditions, to steer into or out of a skid, and how to winterize your car.

During 13 years of living in Wisconsin and Minnesota, I learned to drive on snow and ice and everything nasty in between. I’ve plowed through blizzards on the Interstate and rushed to catch planes in windy winter conditions where the slightest quick move would have sent me fishtailing into the ditch along with the 14 other hapless vehicles I saw along the way. I’ve crawled home a hundred miles in black ice at night and waited out whiteout conditions under the shelter of overpasses. But the most valuable winter driving skill I ever learned was something I discovered totally by surprise a couple of years ago.

It was on an epic cross-country trek between Seattle and Wisconsin when I ran into an unexpected snowstorm in an Idaho mountain pass. Thick white flakes were swirling about and visibility was rapidly worsening. I was gingerly crawling past semi-trailer trucks to recover the space cushion between us as we shared lanes partially obscured in snow. As the trucks slowed up near the summit, I struggled to keep enough momentum to not lose total traction myself. It became apparent that conditions were really not safe to drive in, and yet it was far too dangerous to pull off to the side of the road because no good clear spot existed, nor could drivers be counted on to see a stopped vehicle, which in itself was a greater hazard. So I just had to keep going.

My heart rate was up and I was starting to feel adrenalin overloading my jittery body. A tension headache had oozed out of my knotted shoulders and seeped upward, settling painfully behind my eyes. Just out of habit, I switched on my iPod to an operatic Barbra Streisand song, and reflexively began to sing along. To my complete surprise, I discovered that I’d been holding my breath. For how long I had no idea, but as I sang I realized that the very act of deeply inhaling and exhaling to hold the notes made me instantly relax, just enough to take the edge off this supreme tension and soothe me. I loosened my death grip on the steering wheel (which again I’d had no idea I’d been doing), and as I sang, my conscious mind had somewhere to go other than whipping itself into a total frenzy of anxiety. This was the best thing I could have possibly done at this moment. 

Since then, I’ve come to realize that breathing properly is truly essential to good driving. This may sound a bit crazy, but think about it: If you’re holding your breath (and many of us do it all the time without being aware of it), then you’re not taking in oxygen. If you don’t get enough oxygen to your brain, you can’t think. And if you can’t think, then you won’t have the reflexes to respond properly to outside stimuli.

Professional racecar drivers profoundly know the value of breathing and relaxing. A driving coach once told me that he has gotten in the habit of taking a quick breath right before entering a freeway onramp, to ready himself. Since that Idaho snowstorm, I’ve taken to regularly singing Broadway and opera tunes in times of stressful driving, and it never fails to help. Deep breathing (whether by singing or just practicing the breathing) is definitely a safety technique that I believe should be right up there with winterizing your car and putting on your seatbelt.

Last week, US news headlines were all atwitter after the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommended a nationwide ban on the use of all portable electronic devices while driving—including handsfree cell phones.

This announcement was sparked by the NTSB’s final report on a chain-reaction accident in August 2010 in Missouri that involved a pickup truck, a semi, and two school buses, resulting in two fatalities and 35 people injured. A number of factors contributed to this pileup, including road construction and driver fixation on another vehicle parked on the side of the road, but the incident was likely first triggered by a distracted 19-year-old who had been texting.

Phone records showed that he had sent or received 11 texts in 11 minutes just prior to the crash. Since he was among the fatalities, it will never be known if he was actually typing, reaching for his phone, or reading a message at the time of impact, but it was clear that he was cognitively and physically distracted enough that he didn’t see the semi that he rear-ended.

It deeply disturbs me that it’s taken this long for a national texting ban to even be considered in the United States, and it is a testament to how we don’t take driving safety seriously in this country. The vast majority of countries and provinces in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Canada prohibit the non-emergency driver use of handheld devices when operating a vehicle. And even stricter laws apply in Germany, the UK, Japan, and India, where even handsfree devices are forbidden.

Nearly 5,500 people were killed and 450,000 injured in 2009 on American roads in distraction-related accidents, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). While the causes of driver distraction include eating, adjusting the radio, and other activities, talking and texting on cell phones are the most alarming, partly because they involve such sustained cognitive, visual, and manual attention, and because so many more drivers are engaging in them than even a year ago.

Consider these factors:

• At any given moment, 13.5 million American drivers are on handheld phones, according to the NHTSA.

• A 2009 Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study found that commercial drivers are more than 23 times likely to have a safety-critical event if they’re texting while driving.

• A 2009 Car and Driver magazine test showed that braking and reaction times when texting took two to six times longer than when intoxicated.

• Drivers who were texting drove worse than drivers high on marijuana, according to a test conducted by the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) in London.

• The same TRL study also revealed that drivers’ ability to steer while text reduced by a whopping 91 percent when compared to drivers giving their full attention to motoring.

• During a three-day Blackberry outage in October 2011, traffic accidents in Dubai dropped 20 percent compared to historical averages. In Abu Dhabi, accidents dropped by 40 percent, and zero fatalities occurred. This is remarkable when you consider that traffic accidents occur in Dubai every three minutes and fatal accidents in Abu Dhabi every two days.

• Almost 50 percent of all drivers aged 18 to 24 are texting at some point while driving. This fact is even scarier when you consider that this demographic is already the most prone to accidents because of their inexperience with road situations and overconfidence in their abilities. 

Texting and other activities on portable electronics are increasing factors not just in automobile crashes but also in other modes of transportation. In 2008, 25 people died and 135 were injured (46 of them critically) when two trains collided in Los Angeles, with one of the conductors found to have been distracted by text messages he was sending while on duty. And who can forget the 2009 incident where two Northwest Airlines pilots overshot their destination by 150 miles because they lost track of time and location while using their laptops?

Even though 30 US states have legally banned texting while driving as of July 2010, the ban has done nothing to actually change our driving behavior. In fact, a NHTSA study shows that texting while driving has increased 50 percent from just a year ago (and many of us don’t need statistics to tell us that—it’s apparent from just looking at other drivers). Traffic safety officials universally agree that unless people feel that they are at risk of being literally stopped and fined for texting, they will continue to do so.

But from a law enforcement perspective, actually proving that someone was texting or sending an email message (as opposed to making a call or using GPS) and then stopping them for it is extremely difficult. And there are other legal obstacles; in Indiana, for instance, officers are legally not permitted to confiscate a cell phone from a driver to try to determine whether the motorist committed an illicit communications act. 

The funny thing is, everyone I’ve ever talked to about this subject unanimously agrees that texting and talking on cell phones while driving is a bad thing, and yet they almost always admit to having done it at some point themselves. So why do we do it if we know it endangers ourselves and others? The answer lies deep in the heart of human psychology, and it involves feedback/reward/brain chemical cycles, addiction, overconfidence, self-discipline, decisionmaking, and our infinite ability to behave irrationally in the face of logic and irrefutable evidence.

I myself have never texted while driving, but I was one of those people who, even as recently as a couple of years ago, felt that I was an exception and could at least talk on the phone behind the wheel and still drive safely. But after some honest self-observation, I’ve realized that I absolutely cannot be as alert talking on a cell phone (even on Bluetooth) as when I’m not on a phone. (And for that matter, I’ve discovered how distracted I can be even when talking to a front-seat passenger.)

Many people are protesting the NTSB’s proposed ban on all handheld electronic devices, and perhaps rightly so. How is the technology usage defined? (Think about iPods.) Where does it end? (Current exceptions, even for the proposed ban, are made for in-car systems and GPS technologies, for instance.) Why is law enforcement allowed to still use their devices? Will the ban apply equally to commercial drivers (i.e., truckers and their CB radios)? How will it be enforced? What monitoring/privacy issues are at stake? Upcoming blog entries will further cover these controversies, as well as the ramifications of (and solutions to) other distractions, such as eating, drinking, fiddling with sound systems, conversing with passengers, fighting with kids, and operating buttons on the dashboard.

Anything that takes away from your direct visual and mental focus on the road can be potentially lethal, but I personally feel that texting in particular is the new DUI of our modern-day road life. The sustained cognitive and physical concentration required to maintain the activity, layered atop its addictive qualities, make it extra deadly—and irresistible.

This past summer and fall turned out to be seasons of tremendous overextension for me, both personally and professionally. After May, intentions to write regularly on this blog sadly fell by the wayside like hundreds of soggy, windblown leaves on a stormy day.

I traveled a lot this year, especially road trips on an epic scale, even for my usual excessive roadtripping standards. As always, hours upon hours spent behind the wheel on the highway is where I do my best thinking, and over the thousands of miles this summer, many things crystallized for me. Among them are a much more precise vision of my upcoming book that is purpose of this blog, a plan of action for my research, and what I’d like to accomplish with my book—which is no less than changing how people drive in America on a national scale. To this end, I plan to take the next year and a half to vigorously research, interview, travel, drive, and learn.

I look forward to sharing these ideas with you in the coming entries, and happily resuming my writing here. Among the upcoming entries this winter will be reflections on learning to drive stick shift, the vagaries of navigating through traffic at Costco, how women can (and should) get more education on caring for their cars, and how singing might be a good thing to do while driving on icy roads.

As always, I would love for you to comment here on the blog, share your experiences and thoughts, and suggest ideas for future blog entries and the book, anytime. The more the merrier!

If you need to brake on an onramp, it usually means you were entering too fast in the first place.

These days when gasoline is averaging four dollars a gallon, talk is turning once again to more fuel-efficient vehicles. It takes drastic spikes in oil prices to make us even consider hybrids and electric alternatives, and in our SUV-saturated road culture, our inefficient driving habits die hard (most urban traffic congestion consists largely of single-occupant vehicles). But regardless of what you drive, you can start making a difference right now.

Just don’t brake.

This may sound insane, because of course it is necessary to stop or decelerate sometimes. We do need to brake or slow down for red and yellow traffic lights, stop signs, pedestrians, sudden obstructions, stopped traffic, parking, emergencies, steep inclines, right-angle turns, or any other situation where not doing so would clearly lead to a bad day. But outside of these situations, much of our braking is completely unnecessary, because what it really means is that we were going too fast in the first place.

Braking and accelerating are part of a cycle; every time you brake, you lose engine power, which eventually has to be made up by accelerating again. The key to smooth driving is to not brake or accelerate if you don’t have to. By doing so, you conserve both fuel and your brakes.

For instance, consider the highway onramp. When was the last time you tapped the brakes as you were entering the ramp or negotiating a particularly sinuous curve? What caused you to brake? Were you going just a touch too quickly around the curve? Afraid you might lose control of your vehicle? Was another car in front of you going around the curve at a slower speed? When you merged into traffic, did you momentarily brake because you weren’t prepared for the speeds at which faster and slower vehicles were traveling behind and in front of you?

Braking is about modulating speed. What if, instead of braking, you just slowed down enough so you could go into the curve smoothly without taking your foot off the gas? Or you factored in the speed of the car in front of you? Or looked up way ahead to see who is merging in front of or behind you and then just adjust your speed accordingly?

Here in Seattle, I often drive in congested traffic with either my foot just lightly on the gas pedal, or coasting if I am on a downward incline (but not in neutral, which is actually illegal in many states). By not having a heavy foot on the accelerator, paying attention to and anticipating traffic flow, watching out for changes in incline and grade and how they affect my momentum (which often creeps up really fast), and maintaining a safe following distance, I can easily go for miles, even in fairly heavy traffic, without having to touch the brake pedal once.

And this is especially valuable in congested highway traffic, where the braking done by a single car often triggers an accordion-like wave of braking behind it, causing drivers to halt and thus pile up. If drivers just slowed down in the first place and maintained proper following distances, traffic would keep moving (albeit slowly, but it would keep moving). Indeed, you can single-handedly prevent such a traffic backup just by not braking unnecessarily.

It starts with one driver putting on the brakes, and pretty soon it spreads like the plague.

Try this the next time you drive your typical commute. Make a game of it by seeing how few times you can brake during your drive to work or home (while being safe, of course). Modulate your speed, and lift off the accelerator more. Anticipate the traffic flow and scan the road as far ahead as possible so you’re not taken by surprise.

Driving like this takes constant attention. It is not easy to be this vigilant all the time. It may be difficult at first, but keep practicing. Before long you’ll realize how much smoother you’re driving and how much more you are “reading the road,” which is good for a lot of obvious reasons.

I estimate that on average I probably gain an extra 50 to 70 miles per tank of fuel by using these techniques, as well as saving extra wear and tear on brake pads and shoes. Depending on your vehicle and traffic conditions, you can likely increase your fuel efficiency by 10 or 20 percent just by keeping your foot off the brake and going easy on the accelerator.

Few types of motoring test one’s patience and nerves as driving in a city. If it just weren’t for those damn pedestrians and other cars, city driving would be a whole lot more fun.

Cities can be downright petrifying, because there is just so much more of everything to watch out for. A city has a completely different kind of energy, where it often seems there’s a million near-misses every day between drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians. But it is a system based on calculated risks, quick assumptions, and exquisitely honed timing that miraculously works most of the time.

Driving in such an environment obviously takes a whole different mindset than when you’re just tooling down an expressway or a rural road. The biggest thing to keep in mind is, be prepared for ANYTHING, anything to happen, at any moment.

For instance, in a city, if you are in a far left lane on a one-way street, you need to watch for —

• Cars ahead of you turning left but stopped because they are waiting for pedestrians to cross
• Pedestrians crossing at the walk signal, if you are turning left
• Double-parked delivery trucks
• Slow-moving traffic looking for parking spots
• More pedestrians
• A fast-moving car darting out of a parking spot
• Your lane suddenly becoming a left-exit lane only
• Cars quickly darting out of parking garages
• Did I mention the pedestrians?

If you are in a far right lane on a one-way street, you need to watch out for all of the above (except of course, that everything is oriented to the right), plus —

• Buses slowing down or parked at bus stops
• Cabs pulling over quickly or double-parked to pick up or drop off passengers
• Bicyclists sharing the roadway on the right side
• Cars unexpectedly parked on the right side of the street when previously it was a traveling lane

If you are in any lane, or in two-way traffic, also add these:

• Flagrant jaywalkers
• Disoriented pedestrians who just don’t give a damn, walking against the traffic walk signal
• Drivers turning left who are waiting for oncoming traffic to pass
• Police or emergency vehicles with sirens going
• Gawking or lost tourists (both on foot and in cars)
• Road construction, detours, and related crews
• Gaping potholes and wheel-bending cracks (often in serious clusters)
• Poorly timed streetlights
• Intersections that are too short, causing major congestion at rush-hour times

It’s enough to make anyone want to stay home. And this is not even including those pesky one-way streets!

Here's a video I took driving through a particularly tricky Seattle street:

But there are some ways to make driving in a city easier and less stressful:

Try to stay in the middle lane (if there is one) if you are going to travel straight for a while. This way you won’t get stuck behind vehicles waiting for pedestrians in the crosswalk, stopped buses, and double-parked vehicles; you can avoid the cars darting out from parking spots or garages; and, for the most part, you won’t have to worry about your lane most inconveniently becoming a right- or left-turn only exit lane. If there is no middle lane, your best bet is the left lane, rather than the right one.

Be alert, and prepared to change lanes quickly if necessary. Sudden lane switching is a normal (and often necessary, unlike on the highway) part of city driving, as people move to quickly avoid obstructions. If you’re a novice driver or not used to city conditions, traffic pulling quickly in front of or behind you may seem very unnerving, but if you drive for any length of time in a city, you will soon understand why this happens.
      Pay attention and try to scan the road ahead for possible obstructions that might affect your speed and progress (such as a bus ahead that might be stopping, a driver turning left, a bicyclist, a pedestrian waiting at a crosswalk that does not have a traffic light, or a lane that suddenly exits to the right or left). Gradually you will learn, through trial and error, which lane to be in where you can travel with the least disruption. As with all driving, your goal is to drive as smoothly as possible, without sudden braking or acceleration.

Another one of those darned pedestrians holding up traffic.

If you have a GPS or in-vehicle navigation system, use it. Today’s modern navigation systems are a godsend, and few situations are handier for applying this fabulous technology than finding an unfamiliar address in a busy city. These systems tell you which lane to be in and gauge the distance until your next turn, which takes the guesswork out of which lane to be in and at what time. Some systems will even tell you what side of the street your destination will be on. Best of all, if you miss a turn, the system will automatically recalculate the route and redirect you — all without chewing you out and making a fuss.

Practice good lane hygiene. As in all sorts of driving, if you know that your presence in a specific city lane is going to hamper traffic flow in any way and you don’t need to be in it, make a point not to be there. This goes for the right lane, where drivers may be trying to merge or exit and buses may need to stop suddenly. If you know that the lane you’re traveling in will become an exit lane and you need to not be in it, move out of it well ahead of time. Don’t wait until the last minute. Always signal your intentions, especially when making a left turn. The best way to help ease congestion and avoid accidents is to drive smoothly with the flow of traffic at as even a speed as possible, without sudden braking or acceleration.

Lying in wait, emerging from the depths of the parking cave.

Concentrate on your own driving, not that of others. City driving is full of unique challenges, and it is easy to get flustered or angry with other drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians, who may seem downright reckless and rude. Sometimes we take things too personally. However, getting emotional is not productive, and it takes away from what should be our real focus — to pay attention to your own driving. Particularly if you are a novice, it is critical to go at the speed at which you’re comfortable and not feel rushed or pushed (and this can be difficult until you are more experienced and self-confident). Other drivers will go around you if they feel they need to, and that is their prerogative, as everyone has different skill levels and agendas. It is your responsibility to drive safely and watch the road, and not be a hazard yourself.

Be considerate. Be patient with others struggling to park or find their way in this busy, confusing environment. I see this all the time — drivers needlessly honking because the driver in front of them is taking a nanosecond longer to wait for the pedestrian to finish crossing the street before the light turns yellow, or because someone needs to get out of the lane that suddenly turns into an exit. Bicyclists, pedestrians, multitasking cabbies, and tourists especially bear the brunt of this impatience, which may have its root causes not so much in the driving situation itself as the cumulative stress of daily life that’s getting taken out behind the wheel. Getting to your destination two minutes quicker is not going to make that much difference in the timing of the rest of your day, but it will save a lot of unnecessary stress, aggravation, and maybe even a life.