Vehicular Defense Driving Positions and Vehicle Set Up

Here's another important video from the Personal Defense Network. All right, naturally, one of the first things I want to do when I get inside the car is put my seatbelt on. One is the law and two, if I have to start taking evasive actions, the vehicle is going to start having a lot of massive weight transfer very quick. I do not want my body to become a part of that weight transfer. One of the best things one of the best pieces of safety equipment you can have on your vehicle, is you the driver securely fastened in front of the seat just behind the wheel and stay there. If you start taking these evasive actions, the last thing you want to start to have happening is for your body to become a part of that weight transfer. And now you're trying to make these evasive maneuvers while trying to hold on to the steering wheel, which is not a good thing because you need you may need to add more steering, and you may start flying up against the door into the passenger seat. Now as we're talking about steering wheel management, naturally, I wanna have two hands on the vehicle. We all see people driving around all the time, their seats laid back, they've got one hand barely on the top of the steering wheel. If they have this type of situation occur, they've got to start taking different steps in what a driver would if he had two hands on the wheel, body upright, ready to go at a moment's notice. If your seat's laid way back, then you now have to add extra steps into this equation where you have to first lean up, now you don't have a back rest to lean against. And you're gonna have to start then putting two hands on the wheel, which is just putting you behind the power curve just that much more. So I wanna be in a position where I can have two hands on the steering wheel. That way any amount of steering that I need to add into the steering wheel, I can begin to do that with two hands. Another thing that I want to do is take my left foot and I want to brace it up down here on the firewall as much as I can. If I can brace myself up in the seat, I have just decrease the chances of my body becoming a part of the weight transfer. With the steering wheel management technique that I'm using here, remember, if I hit this car in front of me, I may have left plenty of room but if I hit the car in front of me while I'm trying to make this evasive maneuver, the airbag may deploy. If the airbag deploys, I do not wanna have my thumbs wrapped inside of the steering ring. If I do that and that airbag deploys, I can pretty much guarantee that my thumbs are gonna be injured possibly broken, so I wanna try to avoid that. If the airbag was to deploy, it would throw my hands free and clear, then I could pull the bag back down, you're gonna have a lot of chemicals in your face, but at least I can put my hands back on the steering wheel and continue to drive away. The the second part of that is, now all these things what we call the chemical cocktail have just entered my system. That big surge of adrenaline. And under that surge of adrenaline, one of the the biggest factors is sympathetic grip. And we all know that as it applies to firearms. That's why we don't walk around with our finger on the trigger. Same thing in driving, if you've got your thumbs wrapped inside the steering ring, once these stressors, or once that adrenaline is introduced, then the first thing you want to do is start gripping on the wheel. Once you start getting the big muscles and that big grip on the wheel like that, is hard to steer sometimes because your body wants to tense and stress up. So you need to remain calm, relaxed, thumbs outside of the steering ring, and then simply make the directional change and then begin to accelerate in that direction. One of the other things that I wanna do, now I've got my left foot still braced out on the firewall, I don't wanna drive around all the time with my foot braced out on the firewall to where I'm now getting fatigue in my leg. I find a comfortable position to put it there, close to that firewall or close to any point down here that your foot can reach, because once the vehicle dynamics start to get the weight transfer, and I'm doing things like jumping the curves or going through an intersection, then I'm going to brace myself up so that my body doesn't become a part of that weight transfer. With my other leg, I'm simply indexing my heel in the floorboard, a comfortable position in between the brake and the accelerator. That way, I'm able to just rotate the toes back and forth so that I can make any type of changes I need to, there as well. Now that we've covered that, let's talk about mirrors and something that can help you with the situational awareness around the entire vehicle, whether it be for other traffic, or whether it be for other people on the side of the road. Some things that prevent sometimes depending on what type of vehicle you're in like an SUV, or some type of larger vehicle, this A pillar here may be a little bit bigger. So at times that can create a blind spot as you're sitting in an intersection or as you're driving down the road. That setting my rear-view mirror up so that I can see more than just the back seats and a little bit of the glass, I wanna make sure that I can get a full view out of the backlash or as much of a full view as I can with the rear-view mirror that I have. And of course with the side mirrors I wanna position them so that I can see, there's really not a reason or purpose for me to be able to see the side of the car. I positioned mine out so they're just a little bit farther than what the side of the car is. I know where the side of the car is but it just gives me this that much more angle that I can see from the blind spot behind me. We talked about the weight transfer that takes place inside the vehicle. And what I want everybody to realize is how important that is to the only thing from our car that's touching Mother Earth is our tires. Everything that we're asking the vehicle to do is gonna be depending on the type of traction that we have with our tires. And one of the most critical points there is proper tire inflation. We all see driving down the road, those tires that are under inflated, you'll see the bolts on the sidewalls, that's a clear indication of an under-inflated tire. And if you're starting to take these evasive maneuvers, it's important that you have that proper tire inflation pressure because at that time, is not the time for the rim to be digging in or for you to pop a beat or something and have some type of mechanical failure due to lack of proper tire inflation pressure. So I get into the habit every day, as I walk out even into my driveway, I look at all four tires, I don't necessarily put the pressure gauge and check the tire pressure every day. But I usually do about once a month or if I see that there's some type of sidewall, the bulge that's coming out, which is a clear indication of under-inflated tire. What you wanna try to achieve with your tires is you're still want them to be pliable because like I said and jumping that curve or going into that pothole, you don't want to have them so tight that it's gonna increase the chances of the tire popping. And you don't want to have them so under-inflated that is gonna cause the rim to get dinged or pop the bit of the tire. So what I would recommend is go with the the manufacturer's suggested inflation pressure which can be found in several different places. Every car manufacturer has it on the website, you can find it in the owner's manual of the vehicle. You can find it a lot of times on the doorframe and you can find it a lot of times in places in the trunk. One of the things you don't wanna do is go off the maximum inflation pressure which is written on the sidewall. That maximum inflation pressure is based on this tire and at a certain load. Just as Rob was saying it earlier, "The Care and Maintenance of your Firearm", same thing applies to the vehicle itself. If I've gone and taken the steps to have good situational awareness, allow that safe buffer or that safe wiggle room between me and the vehicle in front of me. Preparing for a situation like this. And the last thing I want to do is find myself in that situation, have taken all the actions that I need to assist me in evading this situation, and then have something like an under-inflated tire cause me to bog down when I begin to accelerate away. Check out more videos just like this one at the Personal Defense Network.