Safe Driving Practice and Hazard Prediction
Reading the road before it happens
Hazard prediction is examined as a sequence: 認知, 判断, 操作. Marks go to candidates who name the specific hazard - a cyclist about to swing around a parked car, a child between vehicles, a right-turning car masking an oncoming motorcycle - and then state the response. "Drive carefully" earns nothing.
Distance and speed
Stopping distance is 空走距離 plus 制動距離. Reaction distance grows with speed; braking distance grows with the square of speed. A two-second gap is the minimum on dry roads, three or more in rain, and at 80 km/h on an expressway a gap of about 80 m is the working figure. A loaded medium truck brakes longer than a car, so add margin rather than matching the vehicle ahead.
Worked example
At 40 km/h (11.1 m/s) with 0.8 s reaction, 空走距離 = 8.9 m. On dry asphalt (μ≈0.7) 制動距離 = 11.1² ÷ (2 × 0.7 × 9.8) ≈ 9.0 m, total ≈ 17.9 m. In rain (μ≈0.4) the braking figure becomes ≈ 15.7 m, total ≈ 24.6 m - about a 38% increase from the same speed and the same reaction time.
Traps
Treating braking distance as proportional to speed; memorising one figure for all conditions; forgetting that a loaded truck's figure is worse than the unladen one; predicting a hazard without stating the action you would take.