Safety Awareness, Hazard Perception and Defensive Driving
Defensive driving means assuming other road users may make mistakes and leaving yourself a way out. Hazard perception is the skill of reading a scene early: identify the potential hazard, decide what it might do, and act before it becomes an emergency. Typical hazards in Angola include pedestrians stepping between stopped vehicles, motorcycles filtering, informal sellers at junctions, animals on rural roads, and unlit vehicles at night.
The system of car control - approach, position, speed, gear, look, then act - gives you a repeatable method at every hazard. Ask: what can I see, what can I not see, and what is the worst realistic thing that could happen? Cover the brake when passing parked cars, children or junctions. Leave a space cushion around the vehicle: ahead, behind and to the sides.
Traps in questions: confusing "priority" with "safety" - you may have right of way and still must give way to avoid a collision. Another trap is treating a hazard as resolved too early, for example assuming a pedestrian who has paused will not step out. Fatigue, alcohol and phone use all lengthen reaction time; recognise the symptoms and stop rather than push on.
Worked example: a ball rolls into the road ahead. The correct response is to slow immediately and cover the brake, expecting a child to follow, not to swerve or maintain speed because nothing is visible yet.