DETROIT — It might be you or someone else breaking the rules of the road, but we wanted to put what we know to the test, literally.
7 Action News Traffic Anchor Ali Hoxie took her written test, 80 questions teen drivers usually take to get their learner's permit.
“I got 51 out of 80, I’m pretty sure I failed,” Hoxie said.
“So you needed a 56 out of 80 to pass, which would have been a 70 percent,” said Aisha Hedwood.
Hedwood is the owner of “Wheel to Drive” driving school. She says questions pertaining to math or science are the ones most test-takers typically get wrong, considering we do most of these things in real-time.
Hedwood says there are three things people tend to overlook while hitting the road
- Forgetting to check all your mirrors. “Sometimes drivers they’ll check one or two places and not all three. Ideally, we want to make sure with any lane change that we are checking our rearview mirror, our appropriate sideview mirror, and then glancing over that same shoulder just to be sure there is no traffic there that we didn’t see.”
- Using turn signals to tell other drivers on the road where you are going. “We want to make sure we are signaling early in advance, we want to make sure we are signaling early in advance, at least a half a block away when we get ready to make a turn or change lanes just to make sure others know our intentions and it gives them time to prepare and react to the situation.”
- Speeding might not surprise anyone who drivers around metro Detroit, yet it happens all the time. Hedwood says if you notice yourself passing other people it is a good indication you need to slow down.
Speeding is the top factor leading to crashes here in metro Detroit, according to Michigan State Police.
“Number one is always excessive speed,” said First Lt. Mike Shaw.
He says other factors include following too close and distracted driving, which can also play into speeding.
First Lt. Shaw says handing out a ticket is a way to make sure drivers don’t do it again.
“It’s not really the ticket that is part of it, that is really the last kind of form of education that a police officer can actually provide,” said First Lt. Shaw.
