Safety Matters: How You Can Become A Safer Driver

Safety Matters: How You Can Become A Safer Driver

(wikimedia)

By Nigel Hilton

There are thousands of motor vehicles on the roads today, and the potential for accidents and fatalities are huge. In 2016, the National Safety Council estimated around 40,000 people lost their lives due to motoring accidents and millions more were injured.

Making the road safe is your responsibility. Having a car or a motorbike offers you tremendous freedom and convenience, but if you are an unsafe driver, you are risking the lives of others as well as your own.

Safe driving is not only about saving lives. The cost of a road accident can be huge. Not only will there be the potential for medical bills, but you are also liable to pay higher premiums on your insurance. Motorcyclists are at particular risk of being shortchanged and there are law firms who will fight on your side, but your priority should be safer driving before you get into that position.

Here are four ways you can be safer on the road.



Take further lessons



There aren’t many people who could call themselves a perfect driver, and those that do are probably being a tad arrogant. We can all do with more practice, especially if we have been driving for a long time and become complacent in our driving standards. Taking a refresher course, such as in defensive driving, will make you a better driver and save money on your car insurance.



Be responsible


You should already know what you shouldn’t do when behind the wheel. Using your phone when driving, getting in your car while under the influence of alcohol, and driving while feeling sleepy, are just some of the ways you are being negligent. There are countless other ways you can behave badly. From speeding to road rage, you need to take greater control of your attitude when out on the road. Other drivers may behave irresponsibly, but you don’t need to follow their actions. Do the right thing, follow the Highway Code, and reduce the risk of an accident through your good behavior.



Keep your car maintained



No matter how good your driving skills, if your car is a potential deathtrap, you are increasing the chances of an accident or fatality. Always keep on top of your car maintenance. Follow this handy checklist to help you take better care of your car. While there may be things you can do yourself, you should still take your car to a qualified technician if you are unsure. At the very least, you need to make sure you get your car serviced annually for your peace of mind.


Buy a safe car



When possible, consider a newer car with the latest safety features. While the cost will be high, you will at least have a better chance at staying safe on the road. However, whatever car you choose, ensure it is roadworthy before purchase. Always hire a technician to check a used car, as there may be potential pitfalls you are unaware of. A brand new car is safer but check online for any known problems that may have occurred with the manufacturer.









Making The Road Safer Is Everyone’s Responsibility

Making The Road Safer Is Everyone’s Responsibility

By Jerry Mooney

Karl Benz invented the first car in 1885 or 1886, although there had been plenty of patterns and designs since the beginning of the 19th century. In short, mankind has been thinking about personal motorized transportation for over 200 hundred years, and we’ve  been driving for over 130 years. But accidents, crashes, and fatalities still occur on a daily basis. In over a hundred years of history, the driving has not become the safe experience that inventors hoped it would be. Naturally, driving a heavy machine at high speed is likely to be the most common cause of accidents. But it hasn’t stopped car engineers to develop faster and stronger cars. While this is made to become a mean of safety and protection, modern cars are still linked to road fatalities. The reason behind the lack of safety on the road is everyone. Indeed, everyone should be working to make driving safer for everyone. Let’s call it a teamwork, and see the different ways that are available to improve road safety.


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Driving school

Driving Is A Risky Business If You’re Not Prepared

Cars are fast and heavy. Consequently, you need to know how to handle them as safely as possible. Drivers can be provided with in-depth safety lessons as they are learning to drive. This kind of safety-focused instructions is already applied for bus and truck drivers, who are responsible for a heavy vehicle. But making safety a priority for all driving lessons would mean changing the means of evaluating whether a learner is ready to drive on their own. It should also be part of modern driving lessons to experience snow and rain conditions so that the driver knows how to react and how to handle a vehicle on a wet road.  

Being Prepared Also Means Thinking Of The Worst

Safety considerations need to account for situations where the driver is not safe anymore. Indeed, introducing stricter safety lessons only means that drivers will be more aware, but it is no guarantee that the road will always be safe. Accidents can happen, and when they do, it’s important to have considered the right response. A car insurance cover is mandatory for all drivers, and they should account for third-party damages too so that if you’re involved in an accident, your insurance can cover all repair costs. There’s another case, when you’re involved in an accident but it wasn’t your fault: You need the services of Payer & Associates, or any other personal injury lawyers, to help you recover from the financial and personal damages. Additionally, keeping ahead of your car maintenance and repairs is essential to making the road safer for you and others.

But Car Manufacturers Are Making Driving Safer

Drivers and protection covers are working together to make the road safer and to improve the overall road experience for everyone. Car manufacturers have also developed better safety features for their vehicles to encourage a safer driving experience. Volvo, one of the safest car makes, has developed a thorough knowledge circle to deliver cars that are designed to keep people safe. Using national data to understand the car progress, Volvo plans to reduce the number of fatalities and serious injuries down towards zero by 2020. Volvo is developing an improved scalable product architecture not only to make cars stronger and safer but also to activate a proactive collision avoidance feature. You can expect cars to become smarter at driving within the next 10 to 20 years, and to give a smooth road experience.

Volvo S80 D5 Momentum






The Risks Of The Road: What Can Be Done About Them?

The Risks Of The Road: What Can Be Done About Them?

Cars are dangerous. When you’re behind the wheel, you’re responsible for lives. We all know that, and we drive carefully because of it. But, with yearly car fatalities nearing 1.3 million in the U.S., it looks as though we’re not careful enough. In fact, the majority of drivers will experience a crash at some point in their driving lives.

Of course, we’ll never get to a point where there are no crashes. Driving is dangerous, and accidents are sure to happen. But, the sheer amount of accidents is staggering enough to make us wonder whether something could be done to improve the situation.
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One thing the nation does seem to have under control is protection for those who have been in an accident. Firms like Gray and White Law are the first port of call for many who fall foul to the roads. Having these protections in place does, at least, offer some relief for drivers. But, should accidents be happening at all? Prevention is, after all, better than cure. So, we’re going to look at a few things which need changing to ensure safety.



More focus on safety during lessons



Driving lessons are a nerve wracking process, and there’s a lot to take in. Understandably, then, most lessons concentrate on the driving, rather than safety risks. Presumably, this is due to an assumption that teaching you to drive well will keep you safe. But, the high-fatality figures mentioned above would suggest that isn’t the case. So, is it time for lessons to become more safety oriented? Many would argue yes.

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But, how could instructor’s incorporate safety into their teaching? Something as simple as showing beginner drivers the risks would make a difference. That’s not to say that instructors should spend their time frightening students. But, one lesson out of the course which looks at previous car accidents is sure to teach a valuable lesson. Driver’s definitely wouldn’t forget it in a hurry.

 

Better safety features in cars

 

Some would argue that more responsibility should be on cars themselves. Every new release has to undergo rigorous testing, which includes a crash test. But, fatality figures suggest these tests aren’t doing enough to protect us. For the most part, there’s not much a car designer can do about full-on collisions. No car will be able to keep you safe if you crash full-speed. But, they could potentially stop that incident from arising.

The good news is, some cars are leading the way here. Inclusions such as emergency brake features and collision warnings look to be the way forward. The problem is, only a select few new releases are making the most of these technologies. Though they may, one day, become required in all cars, that day can’t come fast enough.



Stricter speed limits?



Speed limits should also come under scrutiny when considering driver safety. In built areas and cities, limits are usually modest and sensible. On main roads and countryside routes, though, those limits rise considerably. In the USA, the standard speed limit averages at 75mph for rural interstates. That’s some speed. Crashing when you’re driving that fast is sure to do considerable damage.

But, is there any need for such fast speed brackets? Definitely not. Giving the green light for high-speed driving like this is a sure way to trouble. So, you could argue that speed limits are somewhat to blame for the risks. Dropping these would surely see fewer accidents on the road.



Better road surfaces

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There’s nothing worse than driving on bad roads. For one thing, it’s uncomfortable. But, on a more serious note, uneven or potholed road surfaces can pose significant risks. Driving over a pothole at top speeds could cause your car to spin, or make you lose control. Both of which could lead to a nasty accident. Even if you manage to keep control, a nasty pothole could pop a tire and still wreak havoc. So, better road surfaces would also work wonders for driver safety.


What can you do?



So, that’s what needs changing. But, what can you do about it? In a lot of instances, we mere mortals have to sit back and hope those in charge come to their senses. But, you can be proactive about some of these issues. If you think safety should be more important in driving lessons, why not become an instructor? If you’re passionate about improving your roads, you could start petitions. Small steps like these will go a long way towards solving the problem for everyone.

 





Business Expansions: Will You Know When The Time Is Right?

Business Expansions: Will You Know When The Time Is Right?

By Brian McKay

All business owners should plan to grow and expand their operations at some point. However, many new entrepreneurs won’t know when the time is right. That is because they don’t have enough experience, and there isn’t a whole lot of information online. With that in mind, this article should help to point readers in the right direction. Use this information to ensure you never expand too soon or too late. If you make moves before your company is ready, you could suffer financial issues. If you leave it too long, you might have missed your opportunity. Read this post carefully, and you should come away with a better perspective.


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When you’re saturated the market

Most company bosses trade in their home country first. That makes sense because you know the culture, and it’s easy to sell to people you understand. However, there will come a time when you have saturated your home market. When that happens, you will need to expand if you want to increase profits and move to the next level. So, you would probably choose to sell the same products or services overseas. It’s just vital that you always seek legal advice during an expansion. Many different issues could affect your potential profits. Import and export fees being some of them.

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When your company reaches the desired turnover

When you first launched your brand, you will have created a business plan. You did that to get funding from investors. However, most business plans contain a growth strategy. In that document, you will have determined how much your company has to make before you can afford to expand. If you perform a business valuation and work out your turnover, it might be time to take the step. As all wise entrepreneurs will know, you should never deviate from your original plan unless new information surfaces. If you’ve reached the desired turnover, you should expand right now.

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When you’re willing to take a risk

Lots of people hesitate when it comes to growing their companies. They worry about taking excess risks when their business is currently making a healthy profit. However, capitalism only works if your firm continues to expand. So, you need to work hard to ensure you’re willing to take the risk when the time is right. Sure, you might have to check some figures and go over everything a few times. Still, at some point, you will have to take the bull by the horns. Just don’t spend too much time thinking about things because you might miss your opportunity.

To summarize, the time to expand your business is determined by market availability, turnover, and your gut instinct. Things can always go wrong, but they can also go right. So, sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith and trust your judgment. If you allow any company to stagnate, it will cease to make a profit pretty quickly. So, you need to expand if you want to succeed well into the future. That is how you will become wealthy and build something impressive.





The Imperative Things Every New Business Needs to Survive

The Imperative Things Every New Business Needs to Survive

By Nigel Hilton

If you are a brand new business, you have probably heard all the rules that every new business needs, you have probably done your homework. However, if you want to survive, make it through your first year, there are some things you need to do which are so important you simply can’t do without them! Make sure your business does better than you ever planned it to do by following these simple things that every business needs to do to do well:

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The best thing you can do for your business is to have a niche. This may go without saying, but if you don’t have a niche, all your potential clients will go to your competitors who are already established and have made more of a name for themselves. Once you have a niche, it will be easier to figure out who your customers are going to be. It will also be a great chance to become very specialized in the topic you have chosen. Also, you will have less competition, or sometimes even no competition! Making it all the easier to do the marketing as well as gain potential customers. Once customers figure out that they need that service or product again, they will only have one place to return. So having a niche market is one of the most important things you can do in those terms. This can also help you understand the value of your company. Using this business valuation calculator can also provide insight. 

After having a great niche figured out, the next best thing you can do for your business is to have a fantastic team. You’re going to want the kind of team that is always hard working and understands your business perfectly. This may take a while to find, and that is ok. You’re going to have to sit with a lot of people, but don’t pick just anyone because you want a position filled quickly. Just think how good it will be when you have someone you trust one hundred percent! As well as someone you can rely on one hundred percent to have the best ideas. Recruitment is, and always will be, so important. With people who don’t fit the role correctly, you will always have to be watching them or covering things they have missed, and that is not how a great team works! If you’ve ever worked in retail or something like that, it is straightforward to see how one person can let the team down, not intentionally, they just maybe aren’t perfect for the role.

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People need to be able to find what they are looking for, in this case, your company! The first place everyone goes to is of course, online. You will need to have a very easy to find the website. You should get a domain name that is simple, just the name of the company. Try something like wizzhosting.co.uk/domain-names as they have loads of different extensions which you will need depending on the country your business is registered to. If you don’t have a website, people will just give up looking for you as the internet is pretty much the only place we go to to find services.  

Other than a website, but along the same line, your company will need to get a www.instagram.com account. Social media is the second place people will go to look for you. This is something that your customers would do after they know who you are and what you do, they come to social media to get more from the brands they love. If you don’t do this, you’ll be missing out a lot of interaction that you could get from your customers. They use this platform to ask questions and to see what is new with the company!

Something else that you will need is a section on your website that people can sign up to be part of a mailing list. This will show you your customers that are not only loving your brand but want notifications (emails) every time you do something! With your mailing list, you will want to be sure that you have a good balance of emails you send. It is easy to send too many, and that does get annoying to people, you will no doubt get a lot of people unsubscribe. However, if you send too few, this may cause people to lose interest. The right balance is about once a week, try to do it on a set day so people can expect a bit of an update from you on that day at that time.

Another part of the website that is absolutely essential to the success of your business has a blog section. It is so easy if you go onto a site like http://www.wix.com/start/blog because they have loads of templates that you can easily customize. A lot of brands overlook the importance of having a blog section of the website as it is quite a casual thing. However, it does help people to feel like they can connect to the brand and understand some of the morals and attributes of the people running it, it’s perfect for getting to know as much as possible from the creators. You will want to update the blog quite often, so people have a lot to come back for, you will also want to enable the comments section so that your customers can chat there as well as ask you questions!

An excellent way to get your business heard of, and something that you should do if you are planning on doing well is to have a promotional film made for the internet! Tv adverts are not really for a start up businesses and films made for the web are great because you can make them very interactive and get some unique editing. If you don’t have much budget, this is something you should make room for because these films have proven to be very effective! You can put them somewhere like www.youtube.com as the adverts that play before videos as well as just hosting it there and linking it in as many places as you can!




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