GMC 2003 Sierra - Manual (Page 283)

Your Driving, the Road, and
Your Vehicle
Defensive Driving
The hesi advice anyone can give about drtving is.^ Drive
defensively.
Please start ^ilh a very iinportant saEeSy davioa in your
vBiiicfe; BucWe up. See Ssfety Beits: They Are for
Eyeryone oh pags P-iO
Defensive driving reafly means “Ije ready for anything."
On city Streets, rumi roads or freeways, it means
^'always evpect the uneKpactad.”
Assume that pedestriairTs or other drivers are going to
be i^reless and make mistakes. Anticipate whal
ihey might do. Be ready ior their mistakes.
ReaT’-andonllisions are about tile most prevenlable of
accidertls. Vgt they are oornmon. Allow enough foltawing
distance. It'S Ihe best defensive driving rt1aneuveí^ In t>Oth
cily and rurai driving, Voif never know when Ihe vehicle in
front of you is going to brake Of lum suddenly.
Defensive driving requires that a driver concentrale on
Ihe driving task. Anything that distracts from the
driving task — such as concenfrating on a cellular
telephone call, reading, or reaching for someihing on
Ihe fioor — makes proper defensive rfrlvirig more diificult
and can even cause a collision, with resuUing irtjury.
Ask a passenger to help do things like this, or pull off
lh
0 road in a sale place to do them yaurself. The&a
simple defensive driving techniques could save your life.
Drunken Driving
Death ar>d injury associated with drinking and driving is
a national tragedy. It's the number one coniribulor 1 o
the highway death toll, claiming thousands of victims
every year,
AJcoho! affects four Ihings that anyone needs to drive a
vehicle:
• Judgment
• Muscular Coordination
• Vision
• Attentiveness.
Police records show that almost half of afl motor
vehicle-related deaths involve gicohqi. in mosi cases,
Iheso deaths are the result o! someone who was
drinking and driving, in recent years, more than
16,000 annual motor vehicle-reiated deaths have been
associated with the use of atcchol, with more than
3Û0.0ÛQ people injured.
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