Shake your driving habits out of the lockdown

We are nearing three months of a nationwide lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. Things are getting back to normal, and we have also written a helpful blog on restarting your vehicle after the lockdown. But what about your driving habits?

Staying at home has changed our life and work patterns and is affecting motorists all over the globe with a change in driving habits. A recent study conducted by a major automaker suggests that people are finding it hard to get back on the road. Here's a list of common errors that motorists on the road are making when driving after the COVID lockdown.

• Stalled engines: When you fail to switch gear or rev, and the engine stops.
• Struggling to parallel park: Parking in-between two parked cars on the kerb is something we find challenging at the best of times in Indian cities. Now it has become even more difficult due to the extended period away from the roads.
• Forgetting to indicate: Another driving habit that we already lack considerably in India has gone from bad to worse due to the empty roads.
• Scraping the kerb: Staying away from driving is leading to a lot of scraped wheels and fenders as motorist struggle to park on busy streets and in confined parking spaces.
• Not checking the safety mirrors: Finding the streets empty is causing people to get lax about checking the back and wing mirrors when driving on the road.
• Forgetting the fuel tank location: Well, this one is quite funny if you think about it, but people are turning up on fuel stations and parking wrong since they forgot the location of the filler cap.
• Not putting on seatbelts: A hazard of limited driving and relaxed traffic rules during the lockdown is that people are out of habit when it comes to seatbelts.
• Forgetting documentation: A lot of people are getting on the road without proper documentation (left forgotten at home) nowadays.
• Expired certifications: During the lockdown period, a lot of vehicle insurance policies and pollution certificates have expired, and people only realize that after getting pulled over by the cops.

While it surely is a bit awkward being on the road again, however, you can retrain your muscle memory with some careful driving in the coming days. We hope this list of errors will alert you and make driving on the road safer for you and your loved ones.