Episode #4 - Space Management

Coach and Miss Misty chat about a little Alaska and the importance of managing your space 360 degrees around your vehicle.

Transcript

L2D Better - Episode #4 - Space Management

 [00:00:00] Okay. And we want to welcome our to, , learn to drive better, , , presented by the Alaska driving Academy. I am coach Chris and I am miss Misty. And, , how's it going today? Very good, actually. Yeah, it's a pretty nice day out today. It did turn out to be a nice day. It was raining a little bit earlier.

Yep. , so, , as we said a couple of, uh, episodes ago, we are back in Alaska. We're done with our, , our little adventure down in the lower 48, and we're back in [00:01:00] Alaska now for a couple weeks. We're in spring, so it's, , it's beautiful today. , we were at our shop. We call it, , Camelot Camelot.

And we were out there doing some work today. , it's a Sunday. So we're out there working, , just tidying some stuff up and, , taking care of some business out there. And we noticed when we were getting in the vehicle that we could, , hear the birds, the songbirds are starting to come back to Alaska.

They are. And it was very nice. Yeah, the sun was poking out of the clouds and it was just kind of one of those perfect moments, , the, the birds are chirping , and we're in spring and it's nice to be, , outside again. Yep. Nice to be out and about. Yep. Cause winter, , we kind of coop ourselves up here in the winter time.

We're going to talk a little bit about where we're from. , we're in Alaska, obviously. And that's where , we live for the majority of the time. And, , Miss Misty and I both used to live in Anchorage for a very long time. , I came up to Anchorage and, , the mid seventies, my parents were in the military and, , lived up there for very, very long time.

, Misty, [00:02:00] same thing. She's military brat. , her parents came up and, , Mid 80s actually. Mid 80s. Just a decade behind you. Yep. We pretty much, , have lived majority of our lives, , in the Anchorage Bowl area. That's what they call it, the Anchorage Bowl. And, , if you guys don't know where that's located in Alaska, that's located in South Central.

So it's in the middle of the state, but at the southern, , part of it, , just as we get to, , , the Gulf of Alaska. You know, the Pacific Ocean, that's where Anchorage is located. Now, just south of Anchorage is a peninsula. There's a very large peninsula. And just south of that peninsula is a very large Island.

The Island is called Kodiak. That's Kodiak Island. A lot of people have heard about Kodiak Island because of our brown bears, our brown bears, right? Largest brown bears in North America come from Kodiak. And, , So we live just north of Kodiak on the Kenai Peninsula. And just to give you an idea of size, the Kenai Peninsula is equivalent [00:03:00] in land size to the state of West Virginia.

That's how big Alaska is. We can take just a peninsula, just a small peninsula of ours, and it is the size of an entire state down in the lower 48. Now in that, , in that landmass of West Virginia that we live in, the Kenai Peninsula. There are only about 60, 000 people that live in those communities down there and we only have about five or six major communities We have the port city of Seward.

Yes, which is a prominent fishing town and Tourism is very big there. Yes so , we have Seward that is on the east side of the peninsula. And other than that, , Moose Pass, yeah, Moose Pass, which has got less than a hundred people that live there. Very small town. , other than that, that's pretty much all on the Eastern side of the peninsula.

There's a mountain range called the Kenai mountain range. [00:04:00] And West of the Kenai mountain range is what we call , the Western peninsula. And that's where the majority of the, of the population is. We have Cooper landing, which is maybe a hundred people that live in Cooper landing. It's pretty small community.

I would say a little bit more. , yeah, maybe. It's pretty small. It's just, it's in a very beautiful area. It is. But it's pretty isolated. , it's kind of in the middle of nowhere, but it is very beautiful. It is. Yes. , and then if you keep continuing going west, , you come into our largest community on the Kenai Peninsula, which is Sterling.

Yes. Which is about 5, 600 people that live in Sterling. That's what they say, yes. They say, I would say about half of them are vacationists, meaning that we have people that live down here that own property and have cabins. have homes, but they vacate those homes in the wintertime and they go back to Anchorage or they go back to the lower 48.

They snowbird south. So even though it is our [00:05:00] largest community, those that live here, we know that those numbers don't really, it's not a true reflection of our population. Exactly. . Well spoken. It's not true reflection., it's actually, it feels very small. Yeah, most of the time. Saldatna is the community we feel like is the larger community.

, even though our population here is less than 3, 000. , And Saldatna, , we have a couple of outskirt communities like Funny River and Ridgeway and, uh, K Beach. So it's all part of Saldatna, but we're really spread out. And we have these micro communities connected to us. And then North of us is Kenai, the city of Kenai, which is what the peninsula is named after.

It's actually named after the Kenaitze tribe, which is a native, , group that we have that, , inhabited the area many, many moons ago. We still have some Canisie people that, , still live in the region. [00:06:00] And North of that, we have a community called Nikiski. Yes. And then we have a community called Homer, which is at the Southwest, , portion of the Kenai peninsula.

Now there are a few little communities between here and Homer. , but they're all very small. , like we have, , Kasilof Yes. Which is about 700 people. We have Anchor Point, , nilch Nilch. Mm-Hmm. , uh, clam Gulch. Oh, yes. , Coho is actually a, a little mini micro community. Yeah. So there's, there's some smaller communities between here and there.

, very spread out and. In comparison, I would say, like going to the Midwest where Misty and I spend a lot of our time, it's very similar to a lot of the smaller communities you see in Kansas and Nebraska and in Oklahoma, , where you have your larger towns and then you have. , the little, , communities in between , [00:07:00] that are very small, , most of those are farming communities that you see in the lower 48 up here, they're mostly, , fishing communities or tourist communities.

, so even though our town is around 3000 people here in Saldana, we have some. , we have McDonald's and Arby's and Taco Bell and two major grocery stores and Walmart and Sportsman's Warehouse and Home Depot. And we do see some of the larger, , box stores down here because of our tourism.

And you can hear in Misty's voice that she's not excited about. No, only because I am excited because of what it brings to the community, but I'm also not excited because of what it brings to the community because I'm out there teaching the younger generation how to drive in it. So, Right. And we're trying to live.

Yes. Right. So, , Prior to 2012, 13, [00:08:00] 2013, my, my bad. , we lived in Anchorage and, , we decided to relocate after many decades of living in that community. , Anchorage is getting pretty big. It's starting to turn into a large metropolitan. , and we wanted to raise our kids in a different kind of, , community kind of area.

We've had a property down here since, , the early 2000s and, , we built a cabin on it and we decided to vacate out of Anchorage and come down to the peninsula and live down here full time. And, , it is, it's like living in the country. It is completely different than living in Anchorage. Yes. , and some of the things that I really love about living down here.

And it has taken a little bit to get used to is living in a small community, we know a lot of people, right? You live in Anchorage and , you think, you know, a lot of people, but you, I mean, community wise, you might know a lot of people like at your work, but in the community, you really, we really didn't [00:09:00] true down here, you know, obviously we know the people that we work with, but.

, , we're located in the Peninsula Center Mall. It's a shopping center and, , , we know a lot of the business owners, , and we've gotten to know them and their employees and. , other businesses in the community because we're all kind of depending on each other, , this is how we survive, , we need each other.

It's like a symbiote, , relationship between us all. And, , it's important to the community that, you know, all of our restaurants stay open and all of our small businesses stay open and people have jobs , and, , that we're all surviving. So we have our, our tourism season coming up. Yes, we do.

Yeah. So. , April and May, what we see is a flood of our snowbirds coming back. Yes. Right? So the term snowbird is like with any other, , bird, right? In the wintertime they fly south where it's nice and warm and when things start warming up they migrate back [00:10:00] to the northern areas, right? So we're starting to see our like retirement community, , they're starting to come back.

They're coming back in their motor homes. They're coming back to open up their homes and their cabins. And so we're seeing a little bit of a population growth right now. Nothing, , drastic, but we're seeing a little bit of some growth here in the community. But come June 11th, , the season for fishing opens up on the Russian river.

, , And for those that, that don't know, , fishing is a very popular sport here in Alaska. and we have two major rivers that most of our, , red salmon come out of on the Kenai Peninsula community, which is the Kenai River and the Russian River. And the Russian River actually is connected to the Kenai, it's a tributary.

, but the reds open up in the Russian River starting on June 11th every year. , Mother's Day, which is next weekend, people are going to start coming down, opening up their [00:11:00] cabins, getting their motorhomes ready to go. , Memorial Day weekend will be the first weekend. We start seeing people kind of just come down here and just camp, , and camp and yeah, school's out and they'll come down here and camp and everything.

And then June 11th, the fishing season starts. And if you want to Google something very interesting, Google images. Of fishing on the Russian river, just like Russia, the country, the Russian river, and you will see the true term of combat fishing. Yes. You will see thousands of people that are literally fishing shoulder to shoulder.

Yes. And it is absolutely ridiculous. I don't see how that's a sport. most of us locals down here don't participate in that. , but yeah, , if you're interested in Googling, , something, Google Russian river combat fishing, and then, , go to your images and look at, and those are not, , , [00:12:00] Photoshopped, , images.

Those are real pictures. Yup. So. , it's a very popular sport and in the month of June and the month of July, as the numbers of fish start to increase, the number of tourists will start to increase. And we will see, , probably on some weekends up to, I would say 40, 50, 000 people down here. Oh, easy. Yes.

Yeah. I would say by the middle of July, you're looking at a hundred thousand just, yeah. And it's weird because our community. We have some, , things like grocery stores and some box stores to accommodate them and they get overwhelmed. But our town is not like our highway transportation system. We only have like five stoplights in the keneisel.

no communities combined. We don't have, , roadways to accommodate that much traffic. So we go from, [00:13:00] you can go out on the road at any time. Okay. , when we don't have tourism season and even during peak hours, four or five o'clock in the afternoon, you can get right out on the roads and you're not having to deal with traffic jams and whatnot.

, During June and July at no point, can you, I mean, it's like rush hour traffic all day long, starting at like nine o'clock in the morning until 10 o'clock. Yeah. Once everybody's awake, it is bumper to bumper traffic the entire time. So just to give you guys a little background of where we're from and the challenges that we have to deal with, with living in our community, I would say the biggest challenge for me is.

, having summer here and being excited about summer and having all these people at the same time. And sometimes it, I don't know, you get selfish and you're like, man, I really wish we could enjoy this community without all the extra people. True. But the extra people help the community. So we're kind of in a.

Yeah, it's why we exist. It's why we, yeah, it's where, , it's where our money comes from. So, and there are a lot of [00:14:00] businesses that survive all year long on the two or three months that we have all these tourists down here. so yeah, , , if you're interested in Alaska and different communities and whatnot, , that, that's the Kenai Peninsula.

 So today we're going to get to it. , we are going to talk about space management.

Yes. Yes. So the reason we're here, the reason we have a podcast, I know we kind of got off track there, but a lot of people ask us all the time about Alaska and what it's like, and, and if you ever have an opportunity in your lifetime to take a cruise or take a trip to Alaska, it is definitely something that you need to do.

, we've had a lot of relatives and friends of ours that have come up here and I think if you live here your whole life, you don't get to enjoy the beauty as much as somebody that's never seen it before in their entire life. So we look at it as this is what we see every day, , and I think we get kind of complacent .

, but we're going to get to learn to drive better podcast.

And we're going to talk about space management today. So [00:15:00] a lot of these podcasts are designed for, , people, especially young drivers that are just getting going. These are all really important skills for them to learn, but it's also for everybody. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. , nobody's, , So perfect that they can't learn or develop a new skill when it comes to driving.

Or just be reminded, sometimes we forget. Exactly. So, , one of the things I would like to encourage from our listeners, if you have youngsters that are driving, , they're inexperienced, I would say inexperienced to me is like your first five years of driving. You're still developing those skills.

If you have one of them, you really need to plug them into these podcasts. I don't care where you live in the U. S. This is an excellent podcast for those individuals. And if you have been driving for decades, these are great podcasts just to revisit the skills that you're supposed to be using out there.

And just as a reminder to make sure [00:16:00] that you're using them and maybe give you a couple little tips on things that can make it easier. Okay. Or even tips to help you with your youngster that you're trying to teach how to drive. There you go. Yeah. There you go. So, , space management, the importance of space management.

I always talk about space management as, breaking management. And , when I teach truck drivers, we talk about all the time, we're really sensitive to our space management, but it's important in whatever vehicle that you're driving. But I always refer to it as braking management because that space that you're supposed to have around your vehicle, 360 degrees, is important so that we don't come in contact with other things.

Yes. Right? Whether it's a pothole, whether it's an animal, whether it's another vehicle, or a pedestrian, or a hundred other things that are on the roadway that catch us off guard. We want to make sure that we have enough space so we can get stopped. True. Yes. So we don't hit them. So let's talk [00:17:00] about to start off with the space between us and the vehicle in front of us.

Let's talk about that space first. Okay. So we have a little equation that we use when it comes to managing that space. Okay. Now there's a lot of rules out there and a lot of, , different, , techniques on managing that space in front of us. And that space in front of us is the easiest to manage because.

We can see it the easiest. Yeah. We're looking at it all the time in front of us. Yeah. It's right in front of us. So , we don't have to, , work to, , look at it. , we're looking at it already naturally. So that space between us and the vehicle in front, that's, we're going to focus on right now.

So like I said, there's a bunch of techniques. We have found that this technique works the best and it's easiest to remember. So rule number one, you need to take the vehicle that you're driving. And you need to account for how long that vehicle is. The longer the vehicle, the longer it's going to take to [00:18:00] shut it down.

Hence a little compact car is going to take less space to slow down and stop than a tractor trailer that 60 feet long. So as a rule of thumb, I always tell our young students that most vehicles are anywhere between 15 and 20 feet long. So if we use that as a baseline, Let's just say 20. Okay. We'll just use 20.

We always go with the bigger number. Yes. Okay. So if our vehicle is 20 feet long, we want to take one second of falling distance for every 10 feet. Our vehicle is in length. So we're at two seconds right now. Yes. So if our vehicle is 20 feet long, that means there are two 10 foot sections. Okay. I'm still with you.

And we're using one second for each 10 feet. So we are at. Two seconds, right? So with our truck drivers, our tractor trailers are 60 feet long. So the number we use is six, six, we have six, [00:19:00] 10 foot sections. So we're at six seconds with those guys. So we're talking about normal driving with, you know, class D licenses.

So we're going to start with the 20 number. So 20 feet. Two seconds. That's the first number we need to remember. Second number we need to remember is that you need to have two additional seconds for thinking react time. Okay. So here's what we're talking about. Biologically scientifically. Okay. We're getting a little science here in biology. Okay. Winner. I. Gathers an image when it sees something on the road, it sees something, a moose.

All right. That image is going to be transferred into our nerves. Our nerves are going to relay that message to the brain. Now that brain needs to relay that message to our foot. Because if we see a moose near the roadway, what's the first thing we need to do? Slow down. Slow down. Excellent. And [00:20:00] it's a perfect answer.

 Anytime we see any hazard, the first thing we need to do is slow down, right? And moose are very unpredictable. So I see a moose. I have no idea what they're going to do. There's a bunch of different things that they can do between me and getting there. So anytime I see one, I'm going to Slow down.

There you go. So, the image is transferred to our eye, to the brain. From the brain to our foot. Our foot needs to come off the accelerator, move over, and apply the brake. That process takes two full seconds to happen. So, we have our first number, which was? Two. We have our second number now, which is? Two.

Okay. And that number doesn't change that number. It doesn't matter what vehicle you're driving. It's always going to be two seconds. So we're at a total of how many seconds right now? Four, four seconds. Okay. Now, a lot of you guys probably heard about the four second rule, but we go beyond the four second rule.

We do actually. Yes. Cause we're about safety and we want to make sure people are safe out there. So we always [00:21:00] add two additional seconds for that. Unexpected or that inexperience. Okay. So if you have kids out there or people that are just getting their license that are under five years, they especially want to use that two seconds to their advantage.

I call it the, the old crap factor, right? You see something and sometimes you go, Oh crap. And then you have to do all the things that you're supposed to, right? So you need that extra two seconds. Yeah. We need that extra two seconds for being off guard. And granted having five years or less experience is more likely to catch you off guard because it might be the first time that you've had to deal with that situation.

Right. But even with that said, I know a driver like me. There are times when I get caught off guard by something happens on the road and I have that momentary lapse of like, Oh, what do I need to do? And then I hit [00:22:00] the brake, right? So we want that extra two seconds to make sure that we don't have that moment of regret.

Right. Right. I always say that moment of regret. If you've ever been in an accident, you know what I'm talking about. Where your moment happened. Right. You're sitting there on the curb, looking at your vehicle, looking at the situation and you start going, I shoulda, coulda, woulda done this to not be in the situation I am right now.

So let's eliminate the. Coulda, shoulda, wouldas by adding two more seconds of following distance, which now puts us at a total of what? Six seconds. Six seconds. So let's review. Two seconds for our vehicle length. Yes. Two seconds for our think and react time. Yes. And two additional seconds for the unknowns, our inexperience or being caught off guard, which now puts us at six seconds.

Yes. With that said, a [00:23:00] lot of people are like, well, I know the number now, but what does that mean to me? Six seconds means what? So, what we're talking about is we need to have six seconds of distance between our bumper and the bumper of the vehicle immediately in front of us. Yes. At minimum. At minimum. So, how do we measure this distance?

Well, the minute the vehicle in front of us passes a stationary object, It could be a sign on the side of the road, a mailbox, a parked car, , an intersection where there's the pedestrian line. It could even be a shadow of a tree. As long as whatever you're using as your baseline doesn't move. So the minute the vehicle in front passes that stationary object, you start counting to yourself.

Right. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Right. And when your front bumper gets to [00:24:00] that object. that you're using as a reference point, you now know what you're following distances. So if we count and we have four seconds of falling distance between us and the vehicle in front, what's the first thing that tells us?

We probably need to slow down, right? Because we are a little too close. We're too close. So we need to open up that space and we need to add Two more seconds, two more seconds. Good. So we do that by slowing down. We build our speed back up. So if we're going 55, right, we slow down to 53. We build a little space.

We get back up to 55 now and we find another object and we count again. And we keep doing that until we get to our magic number, which is six seconds. Minimum. Minimum. Yes. . Can you have more than that? Yes, you sure can. And it's suggested in certain situations. Right. Now, I'm, , I'm going to be honest with you.

I'm an eight to nine second kind of guy. , I've had, I've been driving for a long time and I've had a lot of situations that have happened in front of me. [00:25:00] And just through the natural process, I've learned that having more space between me and the vehicle in front. Is going to make me safer. Yes. So I'm like an eight to nine second kind of guy.

I like having that buffer. I don't like having that person in front of me dictate my safety. Between where I'm starting and where I'm going. Okay. , I would suggest that you, , learn to be more patient with your driving. And focus more on that space that you have between you and the vehicle in front and give yourself , that safety zone.

Yes. Right. Now, a lot of people are tailgaters. Yeah. And a lot of people feel that tailgating is a result of people that are what? In a hurry. In a hurry. That is the perception. [00:26:00] And that perception comes from the person driving in front. Yes. Right? They look in their mirror and they see a tailgater. Right?

So their perception is, this guy is in a hurry. So what do you think most drivers are compelled to do when they see that there's a tailgater? They try to speed up. Right. They try to speed up to accommodate him. Well, two things, one, now you're violating the law. And two, those speed limits are designed in point for your safety, meaning the road only allows for a certain speed to travel on it to make sure that you're safe.

So most people have that perception that the person behind you is tailgating you because they're in a hurry. But the reality is most tailgaters tailgate as a result of. Improper visual search, which is the second podcast that we covered where our eyes are supposed to be. So if people are [00:27:00] not trained properly on where they're supposed to look, their natural tendency sometimes, is to look at the vehicle in front and that's what they lock in on.

And when they lock in on that vehicle, , they don't realize it, but they start closing that space, right? They're aiming for it without realizing they're aiming for it and they end up there. And I always say when you drive, whatever you're looking at is where you're going. So if you are , in a dire situation and you're looking at the ditch, guess where you're going?

You're going to the ditch. You're going in the ditch. So if you're staring at the vehicle in front. You're going to naturally find yourself closing that distance in. So I always tell drivers that if you have a tailgater, . You should slow down. You should slow down. If anything, slowing down, we'll do two things.

Majority of the time, they're not in a hurry. So if you slow down. They will realize that distance is closing. And they will [00:28:00] start realizing, oh, I'm starting to get too close to this vehicle and they'll start to back off. And believe it or not, that's what happens most of the time when you have a tailgater.

Okay. You slow down and they start backing that distance off. Okay. And if I'm wrong and you have a tailgater that's in a hurry and we slow down, what are they going to do? They usually go around you. They go around us. And as we learned earlier with visual search, where do you want a distracted driver? You want them in front of you.

You want them in front of us so we can manage them. So if they're in a hurry and they're a hazard to us, right, then let's have them in front. That way I can monitor them. I don't want to be driving down the road, looking at my mirror, trying to monitor this tailgater. ? And here's another reason you want to slow down.

If I slow down, I'll build more space between me and the vehicle in front. [00:29:00] The thing that we're always worried about with having a tailgater is that if I slam on my brakes, what's going to happen? They'll hit you. We're gonna have a collision. Yes. . So if I slow down, I will build space between me and the vehicle in front, which means even if they slam their brakes on, I'll have so much space I won't have to slam my brakes on.

. And I'll actually be managing the space for the person behind me at the same time to make sure that they don't have a collision with me. Mm-Hmm. . Okay. So that space in front of us is super important. Okay. And we can control that space, but we can't control the space behind us, but we can help them manage it or maybe, yeah, and make them realize hopefully what they're doing.

. And if I'm managing my space for both of us, then I can keep both of us out of trouble. Yes. Right. And if they're that inpatient driver, they go around and now I can monitor them and they're on their way and they're not my problem . True. So that kind of covers managing space in front and to the rear.

What's [00:30:00] a, what's another space that we need to manage? Lane alignment. Lane alignment. Yes. Okay. We need to manage our space , between the lines. Yes. Okay. So with young drivers, this is a big one. This is a big issue that we see. We see that lane alignment. Is an issue that they're dealing with because when they start focusing on other driving skills, and they're not focusing on that one, we start to drift in and out of our lane.

So we have a couple of things that we, , teach young drivers to help them manage this space. Number one, don't focus on the lines on the road. Or the hood of the car. Or the hood of the car. Focus on the horizon. Focus on the horizon. Kind of like riding a bike for the first time. If you look at your front tire and you start getting closer to the curb, you turn away from the curb.

If you start getting too far out in the street, you start coming back towards the side of the road and then you land up swerving within your way. You're all over the place because that's all you're focused [00:31:00] on. If you're staring at your front tire, what are you not looking at? Up ahead. Right. We're not managing the space in front of us now, right?

So if we look at the horizon and pick a point on the horizon and we aim for that, that's where the car is going to go and we'll find that it will travel in a straight line. One of the things that people have a hard time with lane alignment, especially young drivers because of where we sit in the car.

If we were sitting in the middle of the vehicle, it would be so much easier to make sure the vehicle is right in the middle of the lane because our body would travel right in the middle, right down the middle. Yes. It would travel right down the middle, so I wouldn't have to focus on where I am. It's like walking down the hallway.

If I want to walk and make sure I don't hit the walls, I walk down the middle of the hallway. I can feel that. I always tell young drivers, you have to feel where you're at on the road, and a lot of it is where am I traveling? And it would be so much easier if vehicles were designed where the [00:32:00] driver was right in the middle of the vehicle, but we're not.

In America, we are offset to the left. We're offset to the left. So now we have to align this vehicle in the center of the lane with a large space to our right, more vehicle to our right than to our left. And it's hard when we're starting off how to manage that. So I always tell Miss Misty when she has drivers that are doing this, I've taught her a little skill that she is now relaying to her students.

That if I cut the car in half, if we were only worried about half the car, are you sitting in the middle? Right? We cut the car in half and we get rid of the right side. Are we sitting in the middle of the vehicle now? Yes. Yeah. We're sitting right in the middle. I don't have a right side of the car. I have from the middle of the vehicle to my door and I'm sitting right smack in the middle.

Right. So think about that. If I'm only worried about [00:33:00] half a car, Then how much of the lane do I need to be worried about? Half the lane. Right. So if I'm focused on my body, traveling down the left side of the lane between the dark line and the middle, and the line to my left, if I'm traveling down that center portion, and I'm centered in my vehicle, Then the right side of the vehicle is going to be centered on its side too.

It centers all by themselves. I don't have to focus on that. I know that if I'm centered in that half of the lane with my half of the car, the other half of the car will take care of itself. And now we're not trying to manage that. Okay. And that does, uh, Believe it or not, a lot of young drivers, that makes a lot of sense to them, and it helps them manage while they're driving down the road.

It does, actually. And a lot of us with experience probably have never thought about that. No, because we just do it. Because we've done it. We've built that skill. Mm hmm. And if you think about it, you go, yeah, I do travel on [00:34:00] the left side of the lane. , that's where my body's at. That's how I know because I'm over here, right?

So, , if you have a young driver under five years experience and they're working on lane alignment, there's a tool that you can use for them. And if you're one of those people listening, try to use that tool to help you manage your lane alignment. Do not stare at the front of the vehicle. We learned in our visual search, that's our red zone.

I don't know if we're staring there. Are you going to see the moose way down the road? Nope, you're not going to see that moose. And if you don't see that moose, you're going to have to react to it once you do. And now you're going to have to make very precise decisions in a very short period of time, enough time to do it.

Right. Yeah. And then we get in that panic. We don't think well, when we're in a panic, we're inexperienced. So we haven't had to deal with it multiple times. Right. And like we talked about earlier wisdom. And experience, right? Experience is being able to, , go through that situation or hear [00:35:00] somebody, right?

Somebody that explains it. Hey, when you see this or you have this situation, this is how you handle it. Wisdom is having gone through that situation and have learned from the mistakes or the successes that you've had. Yes. Right. Like, Driving in a snowstorm. The first time you've driven in a snowstorm, there's a lot of stress after you've driven in 15 or 20 snowstorms, you look outside and you go, Okay, I know how to handle this.

I've had success dealing with this situation in the past, and I know the things I need to do to handle it. Okay. So that's a lot of what this podcast is about. Misty and I are trying to give our wisdom. Right. Because we've done it. Now we've tried to give our wisdom to give you that knowledge so that when you go out there and you experience it for yourself, we [00:36:00] have successes.

Okay. , our goal here guys is to make sure that every community across this great nation has people out there that are doing things correctly and we have safe drivers out there. Yes, it really is. It's our goal. , we live in Alaska, but , we do travel down the lower 48. We have a lot of the people that we work for that traveled down the lower 48.

We have family that lives down the lower 48. So if we can make the world a safer place behind the wheel, then , it's good for us all. Yes. Everybody benefits. Everybody benefits. So that's our goal is to try to take these, , lessons, these knowledge that we've gained over the last few years. , and try to, , transfer them to as many people as possible.

So I think we've covered space management for the most part. We've talked about, , the space in front, which is the most important. Yes. We talked about the space behind that we have very little control, but there are some things that we can do to manage it and the [00:37:00] space to our left and our right. Okay.

Now, one more thing before we close up, let's talk about space to our left and right. One of the things that I learned when I was really young was to give myself an out. Okay. There are a lot of situations where something happens in front of you. All the time. Okay. And I learned at a very young age that I will have a better chance swerving to avoid it than stopping to avoid it.

Depending on the situation. Yes. Okay. So if someone slams on my brakes, I make a quick lane change. I don't have to worry about that driver. Okay, I might have to worry about what's in front of them, but now I've created another space for myself to be able to manage that I always say to give yourself an out if you're on a roadway that has multiple lanes Heading the same way and i'm not talking about going into the other opposite lane of travel. That is not what I'm talking about right now. If you're on a [00:38:00] two lane road, meaning one is going one direction, one is going the other.

That other lane is not an out for you to avoid an emergency situation. That will actually put you into another emergency situation. What I'm talking about is if you have multiple, two, three lanes of , traffic that's heading in the same direction. Learn to manage the space to your left and to your right.

So that if that situation arises, you have an exit, which means if there's not a vehicle in the left lane to my side and there's not a vehicle in the right lane to my side, that if something happens, I can swerve to avoid it. Because I've managed that lane, meaning before that emergency situation ever happens, I make sure I'm not driving alongside other motorists.

I [00:39:00] always leave those lanes vacant. That way, there's a pothole. This has happened a hundred times. We talked about the emergency situation, right? But sometimes it's Debris in the road, right? It could be a trash bag or a pothole or a board. You know, someone's dumped a bunch of boards, right? It's not necessarily a situation that's going to cause a collision, but it might cause damage to the vehicle.

It might cause damage to tires, ? I don't want to run over an object when I don't know what that object entails, ? I see a board. It could have nails in it or whatever, or screws, ? So my goal is not to hit anything that I'm not aware of. So if that situation arises, I can make a quick lane change to avoid it because I don't want to stop at 70 miles an hour, slam on my brakes and cause collisions behind me.

Right or yeah, or get hit from behind. So a quick lane change is a really easy way to avert that situation, but you [00:40:00] can't do that if you have vehicles to your left and right. So. Manage that space as well. Make sure those drivers are not traveling directly beside you. They're traveling just ahead of you or just behind you.

So that way you always have an exit. Okay. So I think now at this point, we've covered the space in front. We've covered the space to our rear and we've covered the space to our side when it comes to lane alignment and, , having an out. Okay, making sure that if we have multiple lanes of traffic that I have a way to be able to evacuate that lane in an emergency situation.

Is that why you always travel in the middle? I do. I tried to travel in the middle. That way I have two lanes. I I'm not limiting myself to the left or to the right. I have both lanes available because , there are a million different things that can happen. And there, there's no way to, I don't have a crystal ball.

I can't predict what is going to happen and be able to come up with a game [00:41:00] plan. So having multiple options is always the best way to, , operate. , with that said, I think we can wrap up, , our episode today. , Miss Misty, how do people get ahold of us to give us opinions on our podcast, give us some input and possibly give us, , , some tips or some suggestions on different things that they've learned to be able to help motorists stay safe out there.

Or even topics to discuss. There you go. . Yes. ADA. mailbag at gmail. com. All right, so if you email us at that address, which again is ada dot mailbag@gmail.com, and, , just let us know. Let us know, , what you think of the podcast. Let us know, , what topics you want covered.

, some, like I said, just suggestions, input comments , we're welcome to 'em all. Yeah, , Hey, and like I said, , we're not gurus. We're not the experts. We [00:42:00] don't know everything. We're still learning a lot about driving. , just becoming instructors has taught me a lot about driving. It's probably made me a safer driver.

It has, , just quick story. I went through, , a formal driving program in 2013, , to learn how to drive. Tractor trailers. Um, And when I went through that program, it really changed how I , drove my personal vehicle. It made me start thinking about how complacent I was with my driving and the importance of.

Not being complacent. It's true. He has driven better. , and I, we drive a lot of miles. We probably do What 70 80, 000 miles a year between traveling and being in vehicles with? Other motorists and our teaching classes and vacation and travel so we put a lot of miles on the road and every time we go out there it puts us at risk and I I man, I got a lot to live for.

I know a lot of you guys out there, , you got [00:43:00] lot of, things in life that are unfinished, so make sure you're here for tomorrow. Yes. Okay. And make sure that you're safer. So, with that said, , we'll sign off. , this is coach Chris and miss Misty, and we're signing off. We'll see you next time.

Yep. Bye. Bye.