Driving School Colchester Tips: Reversing Safely

Learning how to reverse safely is a skill that a learner driver could learn fast from driving school Colchester with a thorough practice. But you should have some basis whilst learning the safe reversing, and that’s the Highway Code of the United Kingdom (UK).

The Rule 168 of Britain’s Highway Code deals with safe reversing. To be able to do it safely, you should check for traffic and nearby pedestrians by carefully looking all around, behind and in front of you, over both in your mirrors and your shoulders.

In places where there are many small children being gathered such as playgrounds, schools, car parks, residential roads or even at your own driveway, you should take special or extra care whilst reversing your car. Remember that small children are short and you couldn’t easily see them especially at the back of your vehicle.

Bear in mind that across the UK, a lot of accidents involving children had been happening due to reckless and careless reversing. So, if you’re reversing and your view is restricted, ask for help from concerned person around. Let him or her guide you to reverse safely as he or she can see at the rear of your car so you can make sure not to hit any children at the back of your vehicle.

When reversing, you should first give way to pedestrians and other road users. If you’re reversing from a major road going to a minor road, you should wait until it is safe to do so. Slowly reverse far enough into the side of the road allowing your car to have the correct positioning on the left-hand side if you are going to rejoin the major road.

If you are reversing in darkness, you should take extra care. When you’re in doubt of the road situation and the potential hazards around, you should get out of your car and check the area in order to make sure you’ll not be hitting anything or anybody.

Remember that if you’re going to reverse your car, you must not do it from a minor road going onto a major road because it is definitely unsafe to do so. Imagine the numerous vehicles passing on the major road are running in higher speed compared to your car which is reversing in a very low speed, so the contrast already reflects potential hazard on the road being posed by you and your vehicle.

If you are in the situation of no other choice but to reverse your car from a minor road onto the major road, be patient of the inconvenience you’ve created because you should wait until the time the major road will be cleared, and worse it would rarely happen in rush hours.

Remember that reversing safely can be mastered by any driver regardless of his or her own experience behind the steering wheel but through the height of his concern for safety for himself/herself or to any road users. So, to reverse safely mostly depends on the maturity of the driver himself or herself. They are often called the safe, highly responsible and defensive motorists.