Hazard perception, defensive driving and emergency handling
Hazard perception, defensive driving and emergency handling
This domain tests whether you see the hazard before it becomes an emergency, and whether your reaction in the first two seconds is the correct one.
Scanning and space
- Look 12–15 seconds ahead, roughly a kilometre at highway speed, and sweep mirrors every 5–8 seconds.
- Keep a space cushion around the vehicle, with an escape route planned at every junction and crest.
- Expect the specific Saudi hazards: camels and livestock at dawn and dusk, unlit or slow trucks in the right lane, sandstorms cutting visibility to metres, flash flooding in wadis, and drivers making sudden U-turns on divided roads.
Emergency procedures
- Front tyre blowout: grip the wheel firmly, keep the vehicle straight, ease off the accelerator, avoid hard braking, and let speed fall before steering to the shoulder.
- Brake failure: downshift through the gears, use engine braking, pump the service brake, apply the parking brake gradually, and use an escape route or run-off if one exists.
- Trailer swing or jackknife: release the brakes to let the wheels roll, steer to follow the trailer, and avoid full-lock correction.
- Fire: stop, switch off, evacuate, keep upwind, call 998; do not open a burning engine cover fully.
Worked example
A front tyre blows at 90 km/h on a highway. The natural reaction is to brake hard and steer off. Reasoning: hard braking transfers weight forward onto the failed tyre and pulls the vehicle toward it; steering sharply at speed risks a rollover. The correct sequence is firm grip, straight line, throttle off, gentle deceleration, then a controlled move to the shoulder once speed has dropped.
Traps that cost marks
- Fixating on the hazard instead of the escape route.
- Braking hard in a blowout or a skid, which is exactly what turns an incident into a crash.
- Assuming a lorry that signals will actually turn, or that a gap will stay open.