Colac driving instructor Paul Uytdehaag says motorists need to adjust to winter road conditions or face the consequences.
A COLAC driving instructor says motorists must change their behaviour behind the wheel during winter or they’ll find themselves “in strife”.
Paul Uytdehaag, who has been a driving instructor with Colac’s Active Driving School for six years, said winter was already starting to take its toll on Colac and district roads.
Mr Uytdehaag, a former policeman, said motorists too often failed to adjust to poor road conditions, particularly early in winter.
He said early-season rain changed road conditions dramatically.
Colac driving instructor Paul Uytedhaag.
“When the roads actually become wet for the first time after a while, it’s a lot greasier than what it is when it’s been raining for a while,” he said.
“All the oils come to the surface and of course it makes it a lot more slippery.”
Mr Uytdehaag said weather and road conditions could vary in different areas of the Colac district.
But he said drivers should take the same precautions regardless.
“It doesn’t hurt to go five or 10 kilometres below the speed limit – you drive to the conditions of the road and it doesn’t hurt to just back off a little bit,” Mr Uytdehaag said.
“Depending on if you’re in Elliminyt or Colac, the fog or rain conditions could differ but if it’s pouring, you go slower and if it’s foggy and you can’t see, go slower,” he said.
“And your headlights should be on low beam in the fog, not on high beam.”
Mr Uytdehaag said a wet and windy day could make the environment surrounding roads just as hazardous to motorists as the road conditions.
“There’s always going to be some sort of loose object especially on the Apollo Bay and Lorne roads,” he said.
“You could even be driving around the streets and there could be bins on the road but people still just fly around.
“If they don’t change their driver behaviour they are going to be in a lot of strife – back off that’s all you’ve got to do and look ahead it makes it a lot easier.”
Mr Uytdehaag said learner drivers should get experience in poor conditions to ensure they were better prepared for independent driving.
“A lot of people are not equipped for it or used to these conditions – it doesn’t make you a worse driver, it just makes you less experienced at it,” he said.
“Learners need to get as much variety in their driving before they get their Ps so they are a bit more equipped when they get their Ps.”
As a parent instructing a learner, the driving of some fully licensed drivers horrifies me. I’m working hard to make sure my son is learning to drive correctly and well, but when he is overtaken on double white lines on a curve on the princes highway, it shakes his, and my, confidence. He was in a 100km zone, doing around 95 in wet weather, and suddenly finds himself having to brake to avoid a collision with an illegally overtaking vehicle. He had to brake to give the driver room to get back on the correct side of the road and avoid the oncoming vehicles!
We are also sick of being tailgated by aggressive fully licensed drivers when he is doing the speed limit, having to brake to avoid fully licensed drivers who have failed to give way, particularly at roundabouts, and braking to avoid fully licensed drivers who cannot manage to use their indicators, or who swerve onto the wrong side of the road while lighting a smoke!
If these are the people setting an example for the new generations of drivers, we have a problem.
Shall we start on the cyclists? The bicycle lane is there for a reason. Why are they riding on the very outside of it? How can we give them a metre clearance when there is no room to do so because of their own bad habits. This particularly applies to the ‘training’ cyclists who are a hazard all of their own. Three or four abreast, failing to stop or give way at intersections, and my personal favourite, blocking the entire left hand side of the road out at Alvie when doing their ‘races’. They are giving all other cyclists a bad name. They need to remember that the same road laws apply to them too.