Are you an activated driver?

An activated driver is someone who assumes responsibility for his or her own driving skills and who self-examines and compares his or her ability with the requirements for safe driving. Through improved knowledge and self-awareness, we hope you will understand what a safe driver is and will assume the responsibility to be a safe driver or to decide to give up the driver's license and seek other forms of transportation.  Think about what tasks you do every time you get behind the wheel of a car. You must coordinate the actions of your hands, feet, eyes, ears, and body movements. At the same time, you must decide how to react to what you see, hear, and feel in relation to other cars and drivers, traffic signs and signals, conditions of the highway, and the performance of your car.

These decisions are usually made close to other vehicles and must be converted quickly into action - brake, steer, accelerate, or a combination of all - to maintain or adjust your position in traffic. And these decisions must be made frequently. About 20 major decisions are needed for each mile driven; drivers frequently have less than one-half second to act to avoid a collision.

Try this quiz to help you identify those areas of your driving where you should carefully evaluate your physical and mental abilities to assess if there may be a change required in your driving!  Visit http://www.aaafoundation.org/quizzes/index.cfm?button=driver55.