Are You Prepared For Driving In Heavy Traffic?

One of the things that standard driving lessons often do not have the chance to prepare you for is driving in heavy traffic.

Experience tells us that as the weather begins to improve, more and more people begin to jump in their car and the traffic on the road can become significantly busier.

Many of us learn how to drive because of the greater level of freedom driving offers, however, this also means that literally thousands of like minded people all have similar thoughts around weekends, bank holidays and summer breaks – ROAD TRIP!!

A trip anywhere in the UK can be a wonderful experience but it is essential to understand that driving in heavy traffic is a very different experience to driving with few cars on the road.

When taking your driving lessons in Guildford, heavy traffic is something you will very rarely encounter. So finding yourself in a jam of everyone heading in the same direction can often prove to be a shock to the system.

To help you get through your journey with the minimum levels of frustration, we have drawn up a list of helpful tips.

Always Plan Ahead

Without wishing to state the obvious, the best way to avoid the frustration of travelling in heavy traffic is to avoid heavy traffic altogether!

Planning your journey outside of rush hours (typically 7.00 am – 9.00 am and 4.00 pm -6.00 pm) would be a great start. Keeping up to date with the local radio travel news can also prove to be very helpful when looking to avoid traffic black spots.

Encountering Problems

Despite expert planning, sometimes some things are unavoidable and we end up being caught in heavy traffic anyway.

Below are some tips to help you through this:

Remain Calm: No-one enjoys being caught in heavy traffic and as such, tenses and frustrations can often come to a boiling point. Don’t let the red mist descend (counting to 10 is always better than being caught up by road rage!)
Leave Plenty of Room: Driving bumper to bumper only makes congestion worse, along with being highly dangerous. Leave plenty of space between you and the car in front so that you are able to react early to any signs of upcoming traffic.
Stay Vigilant: Don’t allow yourself to become complacent when driving, you need to be constantly aware of everything going on around you.
Make Sure You Are Comfortable: When setting off on a journey, there is no way that we can know exactly how long it will take. Therefore always making sure that we are in the most comfortable driving position is the only sensible option.

The final thing you should do when planning a journey is to allow yourself extra travelling time. Worrying about being late will only make you anxious and frustrated.

Further Information

If you would like any further details regarding the driving tuition available from Surrey Driving Force, please give us a call on 0845 190 2012 & we’ll be happy to answer any of your questions.