Follow these driving tips and you’ll help reduce your risk of being involved in a crash as well as improve your personal safety as a motorist.

Power check

When checking your vehicle, the POWER check is the easiest to remember. This stands for Petrol, Oils, Water, Electric, and Rubbers. Everything under each heading should be visually checked at least once per week.

Safety gap between vehicles

When you stop behind another vehicle in a line of traffic, always ensure you are able to clearly see the bottom of the vehicle's rear tyres. This ensures you are not too close to the other vehicle. Also, as you commence to move your two-second gap will already be in place.

Keep left

Keep to the left at all times unless overtaking. The right hand lane is for overtaking, or turning right. Use it for driving straight through only if the left lane is obstructed by road works or parked vehicles, or if it is not useable for any reason.

Indicate early

Where practical, use your indicators for at least 30 metres before commencing to turn or change lanes, to tell other road users what you will do.

Drive with anticipation

Expect the unexpected and be aware that we all make mistakes sometimes. The other driver may forget to indicate, or to look to see if you are near by. If you have anticipated this may happen, it will not be a surprise. We should be driving as a team, not as individuals, be prepared to let the other driver in, rather than blocking them out.

Stop at lights or stop signs

When you stop at the lights or at a stop sign, your car should be behind the thick stop line. There are some intersections, where if you stop over the stop line and a truck or bus turns into the street that you are leaving; it will collide with your vehicle.

Overtaking is probably one of the most dangerous manoeuvres a driver can perform, especially on a two-way carriageway. Quite often the vehicle you overtake is only travelling slightly slower than you are. So please avoid overtking.