Excessive speed is where a driver exceeds the posted speed limit. For example, if the limit is 50km/h and the driver drives at 60km/h, this is excessive speed. Inappropriate speed is where the driver drives within the speed limit, but…
A blackout, syncope or fainting is where your body experiences a sudden, temporary loss of oxygen to the brain causing a brief loss of consciousness. It can be caused by low blood pressure, hypotension, diabetes, dehydration and a multitude of…
Choosing speed limits for a country is a balancing act based on a number of competing pressures related to road design, accident rate and fuel economy. This article outlines some factors that are directly considered when designing roads, some that…
If your engine delivers too much power to your wheels and it overcomes the friction between the tyres and the road, you get wheelspin. Traction control is a method that stops this from happening and it has great safety benefits.…
Dashed or broken white centre line A dashed or broken white line indicates lanes of a road where there are no overtaking restrictions and the road is not considered to have any unusual or dangerous features. On standard roads these…
There are two main types of gearbox: manual and automatic. In a manual gearbox you will make the decisions 100% of the time when to change up or down a gear. However, manual gearboxes are becoming less and less common,…
Most skills have two components: the knowledge of how to do something plus the ability to physically do it. Unless you want to make a lot of mistakes (i.e. learning by trial and error), it’s best to learn how the…
Every year, many drivers get injured due to getting out of and into their vehicles unsafely. If you jump from your cab, when you hit the ground, you’ll generate almost twice your bodyweight in force through your knees. It’s in…
There’s no law that says you are not allowed to wear headphones while driving a car or truck or riding a motorbike. However, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Driver distraction comes in many forms and one of them…
All brakes have a limited life span due to the extreme conditions under which they operate. They’re essentially small disks of metal responsible for stopping the rotation of wheels connected to 1500kg or more of moving metal. They have to…
There are no reliable figures for the overall number of non-injury accidents, but they are factored into our insurance costs. Insurance is expensive for these reasons: Newer vehicles tend to have more complex parts Some parts can’t be repaired or reused…
It doesn’t take long after you first pick your car up from the dealer for it to start getting grubby in the interior. An assortment of discarded parking tickets, chocolate bar wrappers and plastic water bottles always seem to end…
Potholes are holes in the road surface that are bigger than 7cm in diameter but not more than a metre square in area or more than 5 cm deep. They’re part of a group of definitions for damage to the…
Vehicle tyres have three measurements which are expressed like this: 225/45R17 The first measurement, e.g. 225, is the width of the tyre in millimeters. The second measurement is the sidewall height as a percentage to the overall width (also called…
How long is a tunnel? How long does a tunnel need to be before it’s called a tunnel? For example, when you go under a bridge, is it just a short tunnel? What if the bridge is only a metre…
If you drive a car with a manual gearbox you will need to change gear frequently, but there are also times you need to change gear manually when you are using an automatic gearbox. Let’s deal with a manual gearbox…
While New Zealand has nowhere near the number of prominent road tunnels that some European countries have, we still have significant ones like the Waterview tunnel. Driving in a tunnel tends to be at least as safe as driving on…
Rental car companies have plenty of avenues to rip you off if they are unscrupulous. We had a particularly bad experience with Avis in Italy who charged over $610 for ‘damage’ that already existed without providing any evidence of what the…
Remote immobilisers or GPS immobilisers, when used on company vehicles, are an excellent way of preventing your vehicles being stolen or, if they have been stolen, to prevent them from getting too far away. Currently, there are no regulations or even…
Driving instructors tend to deal with younger people. Where are younger people these days? Actually, where is almost everyone these days? They’re looking for things online. Let’s assume you already have a website because, if you don’t, well, you’re probably…
