1998 Oldsmobile Achieva Owner's Manuals

Rear Window Defogger Antenna
(If Equipped)
The rear window defogger, with this option, also serves
as a radio antenna. If you have this option,
do not apply
aftermarket glass tinting. The metallic film in
some
tinting materials will interfere with or distort the
incoming radio reception.
NOTICE:
Do not try to clear frost or other material from
the inside of the rear window with a razor blade
or anything else that
is sharp. This may damage
the rear defogger grid and affect your radio’s
ability to pick up stations clearly. The repairs
wouldn’t be covered by your warranty.
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.@I) NOTES
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b NOTES
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Section 4 Your Driving and the Road
Here you’ll find information about driving on different kinds of roads and in varying weather conditions. We’ve also
included many other useful tips on driving.
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10
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4-17 Defensive Driving
Drunken Driving
Control of
a Vehicle
Braking Steering
Off-Road Recovery
Passing
Loss of Control
Driving at Night Driving in Rain and on Wet Roads 4-20
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4-33 City Driving
Freeway Driving
Before Leaving
on a Long Trip
Highway Hypnosis
Hill and Mountain Roads
Winter Driving
Recreational Vehicle Towing
Loading Your Vehicle
Towing a Trailer

Defensive Driving
The best advice anyone can give about driving is:
Drive defensively.
Please start with a very important safety device in
your Oldsmobile: Buckle up. (See “Safety Belts” in
the Index.)
Defensive driving really means
“be ready for anything.”
On city streets, rural roads or freeways, it means
“always expect the unexpected.”
Assume that pedestrians or other drivers are going to be
careless and make mistakes. Anticipate what they might
do. Be ready for their mistakes.
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.
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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:
Judgment
Muscular Coordination
0 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, over 17,000 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 2 1,
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:
The amount of alcohol consumed
0 The drinker’s body weight
The amount of food that is consumed before and
during drinking
0 The length of time it has taken the drinker to
consume the alcohol.
According to the American Medical Association,
‘a
180-lb. (82 kg) person who drinks three 12-ounce
(355 ml) bottles of beer in an hour will end up with a
BAC
of about 0.06 percent. The person would reach the
same BAC by drinking three 4-ounce (120 ml) glasses
of wine
or three mixed drinks if each had 1- 1/2 ounces
(45 ml) of a liquor like whiskey, gin or vodka.
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It’s the amount of alcohol that counts. For example, if
the same person drank three double martinis
(3 ounces
or
90 ml of liquor each) within an hour, the person’s
BAC would be close to
0.12 percent. A person who
consumes food just before or during drinking will have a
somewhat lower BAC level.
There is a gender difference,
too. Women generally have
a lower relative percentage of body water than men. Since
alcohol is carried in body water, this means that a
woman generally will reach a higher BAC level than a
man of her same body weight when each has the same
number
of drinks.
The law in many
U.S. states sets the legal limit at a BAC
of 0.10 percent. In a growing number of U.S. states, and
throughout Canada, the limit is
0.08 percent. In some
other countries, it’s even lower. The BAC limit for all
commercial drivers in the United States is
0.04 percent.
The BAC will be over 0.10 percent after three to six
drinks (in one hour).
Of course, as we’ve seen, it
depends
on how much alcohol is in the drinks, and how
quickly the person drinks them.
But
the ability to drive is affected well below a BAC of
0.10 percent. Research shows that the driving skills of
many people are impaired at a BAC approaching
0.05 percent, and that the effects are worse at night. All
drivers are impaired at BAC levels above
0.05 percent.
Statistics show that the chance
of being in a collision
increases sharply for drivers who have a BAC of
0.05 percent or above. A driver with a BAC level of
0.06 percent has doubled his or her chance of having a
collision. At a BAC level of
0.10 percent, the chance of
this driver having a collision is 12 times greater; at a
level of 0.15 percent, the chance
is 25 times greater!
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