Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine Rear-end collisions are about the most preventable of accidents. Yet they
are common. Allow enough following distance. It’s the best defensive
driving maneuver, in both city and rural driving. You never know when the
vehicle in front of you is going to brake or
turn suddenly.
Drunken Driving
Death and injury associated with drinking and driving is a national tragedy.
It’s the number one contributor to the highway death toll, claiming
thousands
of victims every year.
Alcohol affects four things that anyone needs to drive a vehicle:
0 Judgment
Muscular Coordination
Vision
Attentiveness
Police records show that almost half of all motor vehicle-related deaths
involve alcohol. In most cases, these deaths are the result of someone who
was drinking and driving. In recent years, some
18,000 annual motor
vehicle-related deaths have been associated with the use
of alcohol, with
more than
300,000 people injured.
Many adults
- by some estimates, nearly half the adult population -
choose never to drink alcohol, so they never drive after drinking. For
persons under
21, it’s against the law in every U.S. state to drink alcohol.
There are good medical, psychological and developmental reasons for these
laws.
The obvious way to solve this highway safety problem is for people never to
drink alcohol and then
drive. But what if people do? How much is “too
much”
if the driver plans to drive? It’s a lot less than many might think.
Although it depends on each person and situation, here is some general
information on the problem.
The Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) of someone
who is drinking
depends upon four things:
0 How much alcohol consumed
The drinker’s body weight
0 The amount of food that is consumed before and during drinking
0 The length of time it’s taken the drinker to consume the alcohol
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Downloaded from www.Manualslib.com manuals search engine Q: Are there some things I should not do when driving down a hill?
A: Yes? These are important because if you ignore them you could lose
control and have a serious accident.
When driving downhill, avoid turns that take you across the incline of
the hill.
A hill that’s not too steep to drive down may be too steep to
drive across. You could roll over if
you don’t drive straight down.
Never go downhill with the transmission in NEUTRAL (N), or with the
clutch pedal depressed in a manual shift. This is called
“free-wheeling.” Your brakes will have to do all the work and could
overheat and fade.
Q: Am I likely to stall when going downhill?
A: It’s much more likely to happen going uphill. But if it happens going
downhill, here’s what to do.
0 Stop your vehicle by applying the regular brakes. Apply the parking
0 Shift to PARK (P) (or to Neutral with the manual transmission) and,
brake.
while still braking, restart the engine.
0 Shift back to a low gear, release the parking brake, and drive straight
down.
0 If the engine won’t start, get out and get help.
Driving Across an Incline
Sooner or later, an off-road trail will probably go across the incline of a hill.
If this happens,
you have to decide whether to try to drive across the incline.
Here are some things to consider:
0 A hill that can be driven straight up or down may be too steep to drive
across. When you
go straight up or down a hill, the length of the wheel
base (the distance from the front wheels to the rear wheels) reduces the
likelihood the vehicle will tumble end over end. But when
you drive
across an incline, the much more narrow track width (the distance
between the left and right wheels) may not prevent the vehicle from
tilting and rolling over. Also, driving across
an incline puts more
weight
on the downhill wheels. This could cause a downhill slide or a
rollover.
0 Surface conditions can be a problem when you drive across a hill.
Loose graveI, muddy
spots, or even wet grass can cause your tires to
slip sideways, downhill.
If the vehicle slips sideways, it can hit
something that will trip it (a rock,
a rut, etc.) and roll over.
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