Friend's mom killed in car crash last night
 

I posted this in the diesel discussion area, and TangoFox was nice enough to tell me that it shouldn't have been posted there, but in the general discussion area. Here it is......

A friend's mom in a car crash, was in critical condition but died last night. It wasn't a Mercedes, but for what it's worth, some driving safety tips are in order.

After being in 3 crashes myself, I take every advantage I can get.

First, I prepare for a crash before I even drive a car. This means getting the seat back away from the steering wheel as comfortably as possible. People's ribs and midsections have been crushed by steering wheels during crashes.

Next, I have my headrest set to the right height so if my head snaps back, my neck won't go back too far. You won't believe how many people have their head rest way too low. In a crash, you're going to have serious neck snap back, and serious neck problems.

Check your car for projectiles. One guy was killed in a crash when the kleenex box he had on the rear deck hit him in the back of the head. In a crash, this could be a 40 mph projectile.

Your seatbelt is adjustable up or down on the door strut for a reason. Adjust it to where it's proper for you.

When I drive, I have my lights on, day or night.

Laugh as you may, but I stop at all stop signs or red lights. I see a lot of the teenagers give stop signs nothing but lip service, as they touch their brakes a bit and cruise through residential stop signs. Major mistake, and bad, very bad habit. Eventually, they're going to cruise through a stop sign, where oncoming traffic is moving faster than residential. Deadly mistake.

I'll leave you with what has tricked me both times, and caused 2 crashes. When you come up to a stop sign, you can see it, and you stop in time, right? Well, it's hard to explain in a text message, but I'll try to draw you a picture...

I was driving along a 4 lane road, 2 lanes in each direction. Cars were moving at 45mph, traffic wasn't thick, but brisk. I came up over a small hill, where the road in front of me then goes down and curves to the right. Some idiot further ahead, with cars coming at him at 45mph, had stopped his van to talk to a friend of his walking on the sidewalk.

I thought, surely this guy is going to move. I couldn't get over into the left because traffic was there, though I was looking for an opening in my driver's side mirror as I was getting closer and closer to this clown in the van. Surely he was going to move. As I got closer, I laid on my horn, no opening was available for me to go left, and to my amazement, this idiot was NOT going to move!!! I hit my brakes, got rear ended, and pushed into the van. Bottom line, the whole thing is a bit of an illusion. You don't expect someone to stop to talk to someone on a highway. It's as though you thought the stop sign, was going to move further out, but the guy didn't move.

Drive like you're going to be in a crash, guys.

Good advice,,, I try to drive defensively all the time. Just because you have the right of way means nothing,,, people are killed every day who have the right of way. I got into driving defensively by riding a motorcycle and it saved my butt more than one time and those lessons have carried over to driving a car. Riding in town I always used to cover my brake lever with my hand and now I do with my foot over the brake pedal,,, without touching it of course. Expect every person at an intersection to pull out in front of you and you won't be surprised when they do.

Good advice on teh headrest. I know a lot of people think that the headrest is a place to rest your neck but in reality it should be touching the little "knob" or rearmost part of the midsection of your head. Using it as a neck pillow can have deadly consequences...I surely would have been severely injured in an accident about 5 years ago if my headrest had not been adjusted properly, lucky to have gotten away with just lower back issues.