Avoid North Carolina Auto Accidents by Driving Less: Part One
No one wants to get into a North Carolina auto accident.
But the more time you spend on North Carolina roads and freeways, the greater the likelihood that you will be involved in some injury crash. It’s just simple math. Obviously, hundreds of others factors are relevant, too. The safety features of the car you drive, your own skill and experience level, the time of day (or night) you drive, your familiarity with roads, whether you drive under the influence of alcohol and medications or not, etc., etc., can all be profoundly important.
But there is no getting around the math: If you drive less, you’ll reduce your overall accident risk.
Driving less can be wonderful in other ways, too. If you spend less time behind the wheel, you can spend more time doing things you actually love to do: hang out with your family, engage in your favorite hobbies, earn money at your job, or just lounge around and read a great mystery novel.
Incremental changes in how much (or how little) we drive add up over time.
For instance, if you find a way to shave just five minutes off of your daily commute by identifying a shortcut or by leaving at a time that’s more conducive to avoiding traffic, that adds up to 25 minutes a week, 100 minutes a month, and 1,200 minutes a year. That’s nearly a full day of your life you can “get back” by simply by shaving a five minutes off of your commute. Now imagine if you could shave three or four times that amount of driving from your life – that’s three or four days you “get back” every year. Over 50 years, that’s nearly 200 days you “get back” just by being slightly more economical about your driving habits.
So this process is more than just about reducing your risk of North Carolina car accidents!
Now that you understand the utility of this kind of thinking, you’re probably wondering: How CAN I start to shave down my driving times? An easy (and foolish) solution is to simply drive faster. This might save you time, but it also increases your risk of accidents. So don’t speed.
A better method is to simply track your driving habits in exquisite detail for a while.
This might seem like a pain. And it can be. But once you see how, precisely, you’re spending your driving time, you’ll understand what you can “cut” to make your life easier. For instance, maybe you’ll notice that you drive to a convenience store on Monday to get some groceries for the week and then you also drive to the grocery store on Friday to get the “bulk” of your goods and groceries. In a sense, you are “wasting” your trip. If you could figure out how to combine those two shopping trips into one, you could save many miles a week. By making it a habit to pay attention to your driving behaviors, attitudes, and habits (both good and bad), you’re bound to discover ways to optimize your driving.
More Web Resources:
How Much Is Your Time Really Worth?
Learning to Pay Attention to Your Own Life
