Safe Driving and Hazard Awareness
This domain tests whether you can read a developing situation and leave yourself room. Most marks are lost on following distance, speed choice and observation rather than on obscure facts.
The two-second rule
Pick a fixed point ahead. When the vehicle in front passes it, count "one thousand and one, one thousand and two". If you reach the point before you finish counting, you are too close. Double the gap to four seconds in rain, at night, or when following a large vehicle that blocks your view of the road ahead.
Stopping distance
Total stopping distance is thinking distance plus braking distance. Thinking distance grows with speed and with fatigue or alcohol; braking distance grows with the square of speed and with wet, dirty or worn tyres. At about 50 km/h expect roughly 14 m of thinking and 23 m of braking - around 37 m in the dry, and far more on a wet road.
Hazards to scan for
- Pedestrians stepping out between parked cars; children near schools.
- Motorcyclists and cyclists filtering past queues and at roundabouts, where they disappear into your blind spot.
- Junctions hidden by walls or parked vehicles, with cars nosing out.
- Wet patches, gravel, oil at roundabout approaches, and aquaplaning on standing water: ease off the accelerator rather than braking hard.
- Fatigue and night driving: stop and rest; do not drive on.
Worked example
On a wet rural road at 80 km/h you are four seconds behind the car ahead. 80 km/h is about 22 m/s, so four seconds is roughly 89 m. The car brakes suddenly for a tractor; your gap lets you brake progressively and still stop short. Halving that gap would have made a collision almost certain.
Traps
Counting one second instead of two; believing ABS shortens stopping distance (it preserves steering, not distance); tailgating to "keep the queue moving"; braking hard in a wet bend instead of slowing before it.