5 Tasks to Become A Better Passenger While Travelling in India

by IndianAuto Team | 05/07/2018
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Safety should always be contributed by the corporate effort of every occupant travelling in a vehicle, the driver and the passengers. IndianAuto, hence, brings you 5 simple tasks to become a more helpful driving partner and avoid yourselves from being in an awkward situation.

1. Buckle up! Don’t wait to be told

Seriously! This is your lives we are talking about. Seatbelt exists because it helps to reduce the odds of you getting injured or even killed in a traffic collision. So anchor yourself in place, help yourself first before thinking of helping the others. If you’re with children, show them how to pull it off, and make sure they follow exactly the instructions.

Children being secured with seatbelt in a car

Seatbelts exist for the sake of your safety

2. Don’t expect the driver to do all the work of navigation

One of the many skills driving basically requires is to stay alert, which means looking out for obstacles from both offside and nearside and steer around to avoid crashes. The thing is even with the aid of ORVMs (wing mirrors), the drivers can’t cover every corner around the car, with or without moving objects, therefore car crashes are always expected to happen. But that is the case in which one drives alone. A companion can be a third wing mirror by warning driver of possible obstacles, engaging vehicles moving on the same road. Or just simply lean back if the driver wants to make a turn and you happen to be a front passenger and are obscuring the view by sitting upright.

assenger reading map, helping driver navigating around       

   A companion can be a third wing mirror by warning driver of possible obstacles

Also Read - Safety driving tips: How to use GPS navigation safety while driving

3. Chit-chat is ok, really! Just don’t be a distraction!

Remember this, folks! Keeping your driver entertained with storytelling to kill travelling time is ok; but getting them distracted by being talkative is another story, a very very very different story. To your surprise, you may not be aware that you are hindering the driver’s focus on the driving job, which can result in a traffic accident. By extension, the drivers themselves cannot play dumb and ignore your talking about stuff, and will reply at some points out of courtesy or interest. And this is exactly when they drop down their vigilance, thus allowing the casualty to happen. So yeah! Be considerate enough to create a lighthearted atmosphere during the trip, just try not to be carried away and haphazardly drop your guard over what’s going on. And pay attention to your driver’s mood, if they don’t look like they’re listening or showing any wish to learn more about what you have to say, then just zip it! You know the drill! 

 male passenger talking to female driver

Sometimes keeping quiet is the best way to be useful

4. Don’t try to tell the driver what to do

The funny thing is we the human tends to correct the others and really enjoy it if we think we know better than them. Ok! Such spirit is excusable, as long as you stay cool and don’t boss around the others, even though you mean well. The context of driving is no exception, in which someone rather than the driver giving orders on how to drive properly is actually not helping at all; in fact, it is quite annoying and very distracting. 

Arguing driver and front passenger in a vehicle                         

The idea of someone rather than the driver giving orders on how to drive properly is actually not that much of help

5. Can’t stay awake? Don’t sit at the front!

One very important thing of which every passenger should be aware of is that the act of sleeping is contagious. To put it in perspective regarding travelling in a vehicle, the sight of someone falling asleep can render the others drowsy involuntarily. And drivers are more likely to get heavy-eyed being seated next to a sleepyhead. Got that? the person in charge of operating the car may fall asleep and leave the whole crew’s fate in the hand of providence, which is very fickle and unpredictable. Best advice here is if you feel like taking a nap, move to the back seat to stay out of the driver’s watch.

Driver falling asleep                                   

The person in charge of operating the car may fall asleep and leave the whole crew’s fate in the hand of providence

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In-Car Etiquette - Things Car Passengers Do - Car Fails

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Also Read - 7 Basic Safety Features That Every Car Should Have

Also Read - Top 5 child safety features that every Indian family car should have

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