HIGHLIGHTS - Live Q & A - do you have fear around driving on the highway. Watch the video.
HIGHLIGHTS—Live - Highway Driving, Passing A Road Test, or Starting a CDL Career :: Smart Sunday #16
Closed Caption
Introduction
let's see if it starts... Hi there smart drivers. Rick with Smart Drive Test. Welcome back to take two of the livestream.
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You are most welcome Riley. And thank you for your compliment. I really appreciate that. My name's Rick August for those of you who don't know me - those of you who are new to the live feed. I do have a PhD. I've been a driving instructor since 1997. Most of my driving instruction career has been with CDL vehicles - mostly trucks and buses. However I have done a lot of work with new drivers working with cars, as you can tell by the number of videos on the YouTube channel. As well, I've been a driver rehabilitation specialist and have worked with people who have debilitating injuries from crashes - you know a stroke, brain injury, or those types of things. And these driver were trying to return to driving.
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So one of the things that I did on the YouTube channel was put a new playlist yesterday. This is a final days road test preparation playlist. So for smart drivers who are coming up to there road test with a few days this playlist is something that you should review. There's some fundamental information that you should go back.
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Yunoeso - do you have to use the parking brake every time you park during your road test. Yes, you do. Every time that you park the vehicle make sure that you put the vehicle into a forward gear if you're driving a manual transmission. If you're driving an automatic, put it in park and apply the parking brake. Because the examiner thinks that you're gonna leave the vehicle. And it needs to be secure. And you should get in the habit of using the parking brake anyway regardless of whether you're driving an automatic or manual transmission. It's a really good habit to get into because it's hard on your transmission when you just put it into park and have it held with the transmission. It's just a nice backup if you have that parking brake on.
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And for many of us who are a little bit older maybe, and you know all of the smart drivers as well, I would posit...Road trips - we all have memorable road trips that we took with our parents when we were kids. You went to Disneyland, you went to the Swiss Alps, you went to other Uluru in Australia, you drove somewhere with your family. And we went on these great trips with our family.
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Edgar- give me some tips on maintaining speed. There is a video here Edgar on controlling speed on the YouTube channel, and Cory may find that for you. Have a look and that.
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Faster speeds - with these following distance becomes paramount. You have to manage your following distance.
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Mark - yes it is really live.
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Shoulder checking - it is paramount that you shoulder check and continue to do this after you get your driver's license.
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Alright, passing - when you're out on highways and roadways you're gonna have to pass because there's obviously other traffic that's not going to be going as fast as you. Make sure that you have lots and lots of room to pass another vehicle when you're out on the highways or freeways, especially if you have to go into the opposing lane of traffic, ok.
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Carlos what if there is no passing lanes on a highway. Carlos, there's almost always a passing lane. And one of the reasons they put passing lanes up is because they learned 20 or 30 years ago that passing was one of the most dangerous maneuvers that drivers could execute.
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Predicting road user behavior - and I talked about this with bridges and overpasses. When you're driving on a freeways, there's going to be a bridge or overpass and that's where traffic is going to be coming onto the highway or freeway. And they're going to be getting off and on the highway or freeway.
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If you're driving out on the roadway figure out how to use cruise control. It's going to be like me learning with my new computer and going through some of the technical challenges at the beginning. It's going to be a little bit weird using cruise control, however cruise control is going to eliminate and reduce distracted driving. And it's going to reduce fatigue because you don't have to monitor your speed.
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If I was on the Autobahn. {LAUGHING] Man if I was on the Autobahn I'd be going fast. Yeah, even though I'm a driving instructor, there's one thing that I like...I like speed.
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Latvia - how to brake smoothly. Okay Latvia, one of the things you want to do to learn how to brake smoothly is you want to start braking earlier. And that way, by braking earlier you're not going to have to brake as hard. So just know that that's one of the things is you want to start earlier so that we have more time to work and you have more time to be able to brake smoothly.
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Good luck to all of the people taking a road test this week. and we look forward to talking to you on the comments there in the YouTube channel. and over on Facebook. Good luck on your road test. And remember pick the best answer not necessarily the right answer. Have a good night. Bye now.
