Practice makes perfect in emergency driving situations

Making a sudden stop was not as easy as he thought it would be, with a journalist commenting, "I had never thought that making a sudden stop would be that hard."

He made the comment after finishing a full-braking test drive on board a Toyota Mark X at the newly renovated Fuji Speedway in Shizuoka, a prefecture more than an hour's drive from Tokyo.

The journalist said that his car once hit a row of kiosks when he failed to make a full-brake when a jaywalker walked across his path.

"Thank God, nobody was killed in the accident," he said.

The story sounds so familiar, particularly to those of us who do not know how to full-brake. Knowing which should be stepped on first -- the clutch or the brake -- is decisive in such circumstances.

But as that old-fashioned but true advice says, practice makes perfect. On April 10, Toyota Motor Corp. initiated classes for drivers -- ranging from beginners to the experienced -- called the Toyota Safety Education Center "mobilitas" (pronounced "mobilita").

Head instructor at mobilitas, Tashio Kanno, said the carmaker expected to train about 4,000 participants this year. "By 2010, we hope to train 12,000 people per annum," he said.

Following the briefing, journalists from Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam were broken up into four groups at the mobilitas' track.

The track is just one of the facilities available at the circuit, which Toyota Motor Corp. has spent about US$200 million renovating to meet the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) Grade 1 standard.

The Indonesian group had the first chance to try out the full- braking course.

Four Mark X cars lined up behind a safety car, waiting for their turn. Each driver was requested to accelerate to 80 kilometers per hour (kph) before making a full stop upon arriving at a "gate" comprising of two road cones. The purpose of the course was to feel the Antilock Braking System (ABS).

The next lesson was on the low-friction course to experience high-speed driving. The instructors drove the cars, passing curves at 120 kph and then stopping at a 35 degree curve.

"Can we open the door?" my friend asked.

The instructor nodded with a smile, but the doors were very heavy to open.

"When the car stops in this position, such as in a natural disaster, one must remember that the way out is on the other side," the instructor said.

The last lesson was for driving on winding, slippery surfaces similar to ice and snow. The purpose of the lesson was to enable drivers to handle the car with or without safety technologies such as ABS and VSC (vehicle stability control).

Heavy rain that fell on the Fuji Speedway that morning made the roads even more slippery, making the lesson more difficult.

Kanno said the mobilitas program was expected to enhance traffic safety awareness in a bid to achieve zero traffic fatalities and zero traffic accidents.

Japan has managed to reduce the number of traffic accidents. In 1970, a total of 16,765 people were killed in accidents, but by 2003 this number had decreased to 7,702.

-- Primastuti Handayani