Having recently made a road trek from New York to Tennessee, (I will NEVER do that again) this topic was bandied about over a morning smoke (he did, I didn’t), two days ago in the hotel parking lot. A Tennessee transplant from South Jersey lamented over his hometown when he spied my NY tags, (front license plate and back – thank you).

While Uncle Andy whined about how much he missed his soft pretzels, pizza and hoagies, he relished the fact that the government “don’t bother you too much in these parts”. “In fact”, he boasted, “you only need one plate on your car”. It sparked an interest as I pondered the surgeon general’s warnings about second-hand smoke.

Overall we don’t want a world where our road mates are highway phantoms in our rear-view mirror. They may be carrying an authentic hoagie or soft pretzel. Might be a Golden State Warrior.

• For More Information On Car Registration in Florida , Click : Car Registration Florida

• Master the journey to your California Driver’s License – Explore more at California Driver’s License!
• Navigate car registration in California like a pro – Learn how to register a car with ease at How to Register a Car in California!

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There are roughly 12 million cars on the road in the state of New York. Of those 12 million cars, nearly 8.5 million are condensed inside New York City. This doesn’t include the 50+ million visitors to the city every year from out of the state (The record is 59.7 million set in 2015). If there was ever a time to take advantage of green driver state incentives in New York, that time is now. As a resident of New York, you can play a vital role in keeping our state beautiful and pollution-free. By being a green driver, you can take advantage of numerous incentives that sweeten the deal and create a win-win for everyone. These green driver incentives may make you think twice about what you drive.

• For More Information On AZ Emissions Testing – What You Need to Know, Click: AZ Emissions Testing – What You Need to Know

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Whether it’s backing into a parking space at the local mall or a head-on spot at the community supermarket, when it comes to parking, the most challenging of these maneuvers is parallel parking, the monster of the parking world. Just trying to locate, then sizing up a space, can be challenging and down right frustrating.

How can you increase your chances of successful parallel parking? Quick analysis work and some parking strategies can improve this experience, helping to make it faster, easier, and more victorious. Where can you acquire these techniques? Driving instruction information can be helpful, but there’s nothing more dynamic and interactive to get the learning juices flowing, than a live traffic education and defensive driving course. But for now, you’re entering into the information realm.

To begin this journey into the cosmos for improving your parallel parking skills, there’s some great technology that assists in parallel parking. The latest devices, include back-up cameras for viewing the space behind the auto, that have guided colored lines; defogger rear mirrors, which heat up to remove ice, snow, and frost for improved visibility; and reverse back-up sensors, that guide an auto into a space with audio alerts. All of these are useful techie features, but then there are the basic must-have components, clear rear and side-view mirrors, and windows. They are tools that improve your ability to see the area well.

Know your car dimensions by sight and in comparison to common area infrastructure markers, such as sidewalk slabs. They can be useful measurement tools. If you know your car is about four standard sidewalk slabs long, about 17 feet in length, and the space is about two standard sidewalk slabs long, then the car won’t fit.

Familiarize yourself with the destination, especially if it’s a new area. By mapping out the location in advance, you can target potential parking opportunities. Think outside the box too. Briefly scan street parking in not only commercial districts, but residential and side streets as well. Your odds of finding a space increases by expanding the search area.

Find a parking spot that provides more space than the size of your automobile, that extra footage comes in handy when maneuvering the vehicle. It can be anywhere from about 2 to 3 feet. You never know how many attempts it may take to park the car, so play space is helpful.

When you’re the lucky winner of a parking space, alert other drivers and pedestrians of the intent to park by signaling with your right turn signal. Next, try aligning the vehicle directly beside the automobile parked in front of the space. The line up should be about where your vehicle’s passenger side-view mirror is approximately parallel to the middle of the driver’s side door of the car parked in front of the open spot.

From here on out, it’s all about clearance and angle when parking the car. Once you check the rear and side-view mirrors, as well as, blind spots for any obstructions, and it’s all clear, put the car into reverse. Next, you completely turn the wheel to the right, making a 45 degree angle with the automobile. Keep an eye on the car parked in front of this area, this is to ensure your vehicle clears it without impact. As the back of the automobile comes close to the curb, about 1 to 2 feet, start turning the steering wheel to the left. If the rear of the car contacts the curb like a bumper car, this signals the automobile went too far back. At this point, you can pull slightly forward and straighten out the vehicle repeatedly with baby-steps until the rear tires clear the curb without contact.

Once the car slips in the space, check the rear and side-view mirrors to verify that the vehicle is centered with about a foot from the curb and 2 or more feet from the automobile parked in front and behind you. Keep in mind, an ideal parking job has your car in the middle of the space with about a foot to the ledge of the sidewalk, practically hugging the curb and not your partner.

The post Winning Parking Techniques: Hugging the Curb Instead of Your Partner appeared first on MyImprov.

Both young and experienced drivers are likely to have been given “expert” bad weather driving advice at one point or another in their lifetimes. These myths can range from the misinformed (all-wheel drive is unstoppable on snow) to the downright absurd (there’s no need to warm up your car in frigid temperatures). Unless you’re willing to risk life and limb, the following are some of the worst bad weather driving advice to ever make the rounds.

All-Wheel Drive Is All Powerful

The main issue with all-wheel drive vehicles and their handling on snow and ice is that the feature gives car owners a false sense of security. All-wheel drive vehicles do have better traction in the snow and ice than two-wheel drive cars, but you still need to accelerate slowly, turn carefully, and brake gently while driving in winter weather.

Hit the High Beams in the Fog

This myth is not only dangerous to you, but also other drivers on the road. This myth is so widespread that many people even refer to high beams as fog lights. However, the extra bright light from the high beams will cause you to have reduced visibility and will also act as a distraction to other drivers traveling on the road with you. Although you should use your headlights in foggy conditions, forgo the high beams and drive at a reduced speed.

Don’t Warm Up Your Car in the Cold

Social media has been held responsible for this myth becoming popular. The reasons behind not warming up a car range from wasting fuel to newer engines not requiring a warm-up period to run efficiently. Granted, you don’t need to have your car idling in the driveway for hours, but allowing it to warm up for a minute or two will give time for the heat to kick on, the windows to defrost, and for the oil to get heated enough to properly lubricate the engine’s moving bits.

Drench Your Car With a Pot of Boiling Water to Defrost the Windshield

Not only is this silly to do, but can cause major damage to your car. By pouring boiling hot water on an icy cold windshield, you run the risk of causing the glass to crack due to the extreme temperature changes. An ice scrapper and de-icing product is a much safer method to clear off the windshield.

Steering and Skidding

One of the most confusing bits of bad weather advice is what exactly you should do if you start to skid. Do you steer away from the skid? Or do you steer into the skid? Although there has been major debate on what you should actually do, most experts agree that you should avoid oversteering since this will cause you to fishtail. Your best bet is to slowly redirect your car to the way you were intending to go.

Deflate Tires in the Snow

Just because someone told you that you’ll get better traction with under inflated tire doesn’t mean you should buy this line. Deflating tires will do nothing as far as preventing accidents and can actually damage your tires by causing unnecessary wear and tear. You’re also increasing your risk of having a blowout while driving. Instead, keep your tires at the pressure recommended by the manufacturer and use a tire gauge to check levels regularly. If your area has a tendency to have long and terrible winters, you may also want to invest in a good pair of snow tires. Winter tires are pliable in the cold and will provide much better traction by sticking better to snow and ice covered roadways.

Stay Put in Your Car When Spotting a Tornado

One of the worst pieces of bad weather driving advice is that you should just stay in your parked car if there’s a tornado nearby. First of all, if you can safely drive away from the tornado, why on earth would you stay on its path of destruction? Although a car can provide some shelter from flying debris, the high winds can easily flip the car with you still inside it. Also, if you can make it to a sturdy shelter nearby, then you’re much better off ditching the car.

Traffic school and defensive driving courses can help you rule the road no matter what type of extreme weather conditions you’re facing. Learn all about safe driving while also potentially earning a discount on your car insurance policy.

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Have You Gotten A Ticket? It’ll Cost You – On Your Auto Insurance

Tickets are somewhat of the gift that keeps on giving. Not only are you, as a motorist, required to pay the fine for the ticket, but the citation also counts against your driving record and will cause your car insurance premium to increase. After all, your driving record is the No. 1 factor that constitutes what you’ll pay for car insurance. Generally speaking, this means that the more tickets you have, the more you’ll have to pay for your car insurance premium. Too many tickets and – you guessed it – you could even be rendered “uninsurable.”

Just one ticket can lead to a 22 percent increase in car insurance costs.

Just how much does a ticket increase your car insurance premium? According to a recent report from Insurance.com – which analyzed nearly 500,000 policy quotes – just one ticket can lead to a 22 percent increase in car insurance costs. Reckless driving, for instance, was found to be the citation that led to the greatest insurance premium increase, while driving under the influence accounted for a 19 percent average increase, driving without a license an 18 percent average increase and careless driving a 16 percent average increase.

It’s worth noting that the aforementioned percentage increases are estimates – penalties certainly vary based on a variety of factors, such as driver age, status of driving record and more. Perhaps surprisingly, the Insurance.com report discovered that divorced drivers are penalized more in terms of premium increases than single or married drivers when it comes to any given offense. In fact, divorced drivers cited for reckless driving, for example, might find their premiums to increase by 7 percent more than a non-divorced driver cited for the same offense. On a related note, those who live in condominiums – as opposed to renting or being a standard homeowner – are more likely to see their premiums escalate.

Traffic Tickets and Insurance Premiums

According to the aforementioned Insurance.com report, here’s a more specific look at how much traffic tickets boost insurance premiums (on average):

1. Reckless driving leads all citations at 22 percent
2. Driving under the influence, first offense: 19 percent
3. Driving without a license or permit: 18 percent
4. Careless driving is next most penalized at 16 percent
5. Speeding 30 miles per hour or more over the posted speed limit: 15 percent
6. Failing to stop: 15 percent
7. Improper turning and improper passing both come in at 14 percent
8. Following too closely (or tailgating): 13 percent
9. Speeding 15 to 29 miles per hour over the posted speed limit: 12 percent
10. Speeding 1 to 14 miles per hour over the posted speed limit: 11 percent
11. Failing to yield: 9 percent
12. Operating a vehicle without car insurance: 6 percent
13. Seat belt citations: 3 percent

What do you do if Your Insurance Premium Increases from a Traffic Ticket?

The average car insurance premium increases for the citations listed above begs the question – just what do you do if you’ve been dinged with such a significant increase? There are several courses of action you can take:

• Stay put with your current provider and learn from the citation, while eating the increased premium costs until they expire from your driving record.
• Shop around to different auto insurance providers: Carriers treat citations differently, so some may be more lenient toward tickets than others. They may even offer additional discounts to get your business as a new customer. If you’re shopping new auto insurance providers, this is also a good opportunity to bundle services and utilize any applicable discounts to save money on all of your insurance needs.
• Attend a Traffic School Course: If insurance companies can see that you’re taking initiative and being proactive about your driving, some may be likely to go easy on any premium increases that result from a citation. In some states, if you have a clean driving record, taking and passing a safe driving course after a citation may even prevent it from going on your driving record at all.
• Increase your deductible: Another option you have is to increase your deductible. Generally speaking, the higher the deductible, the cheaper your auto insurance premium. This is a “proceed at your own risk” type of option, however, as you’ll be forced to pay more out of pocket if you have to file an insurance claim.

The post Got A Ticket? Here’s How Much Your Car Insurance Premiums Will Increase appeared first on MyImprov.

Known as advanced driver assistance systems, or ADAS, safety sensors and driving systems are becoming very common place in new cars. However, the question that is on many people’s minds is whether these systems are worth their money. Do they actually improve drivers’ performance on the road or not. If one was to ask the car manufacturers and makers of ADAS equipment, the answer would be a resounding yes. Systems like frontal collision alerts, lane drifting alarms, rearview cameras, drowsiness detection, night vision enhancement, automatic braking assistance and more all come into play to anticipate and think faster than the human driver, preventing human error versus enhancing it. Many are adaptions from what has existed in planes and jets as well as boats for years, now modified to work in land vehicles.

Car brands are not ignorant to the benefits of ADAS equipment. In fact, there has been a wholesale acceptance of these new features in the last five years in the standard car package offerings versus the option list or extras. Each new sensor, alarm and mini-radar becomes another marketing edge on the competition, which of course is causing all the options and alternatives to include the latest gizmo and system possible within cost combinations and what the market will pay for. The safety trend started with luxury cars and big European names such as Volvo and BMW, but the ADAS packages have quickly spread to even the most compact and economic cars made. In short, ADAS passive systems are becoming as standard and commonplace as wheels on a car.

The actual safety process is run by computers, of course, with mini-processors all supported by the car’s main motherboard and PCU. The combination allows the two components working together to identify the presence of predetermined risks (objects in the path of travel for example), determine the correct pre-coded solution, and trigger the appropriate response all within micro-seconds faster than the human brain does the same three steps normally. In many cases the ADAS equipment senses triggers that the average human driver fails to pick up altogether when driving in the dark or in inclement weather conditions. These systems are also adaptive in many cases and the latest models, so they adjust and improve with use from the particular driver and driving style as well. The data is saved in memory chips and applied again and again in new calculations by the processor. All of this again is in theory a huge leap in driver’s safety, and many would attest it is true anecdotally. But does the safety ring true for everyone hands down?

The risk or vulnerability of ADAS equipment is their very strength, however – the computer. At the end of the day, the computer is fallible, a human-made construct. It can only work as good as the power source, the circuitry, and the stable working environment. When those factors are compromised, the computer fails, which then leaves the driver at the mercy of basic mechanics and momentum. In most cases and cars so far this has not been a problem. However, a few cars malfunction here and there, always reminding us that even the best car computer systems are imperfect, a built-in obsolescence.

There is no question that part for part, system for system, the modern car today is a far safer vehicle than it was twenty or even ten years ago. However, perfection is something that still eludes us, no matter how many safety sensors are put on a car. At the end of the day, the driver’s skill and experience still matters, being the one controllable factor everyone can influence and make a difference with. Traffic schools, or defensive driving courses are available to you to improve your defensive driving skills or want to earn a discount on your car insurance. Further, if you’ve received a traffic ticket, safety sensors won’t make it go away, but your state’s county traffic court may allow you to complete traffic school to dismiss the citation and avoid having points added to your driving record. And, if you decide to enroll in traffic school voluntarily, your car insurance provider may award you with a safe driver discount.

The post Do Safety Sensors Make Safer Cars for Any Driver? appeared first on MyImprov.

When convicted of a traffic violation in California, you face the risk of increased insurance rates. When it comes down to it, your driving record is a guide for insurance companies to figure out how much they should charge you for your auto insurance. Therefore, it’s in your best interest to fight against any traffic violations you feel were not deserved, because anything that shows up on your driving record may cause your insurance company to increase your premium. Thankfully, there are ways for you to get the most favorable outcome in regards to your traffic violations due to the expertise of many California traffic attorneys that will have your back.

It should be noted that not every traffic offense will drive up insurance premiums. Smaller violations such as parking tickets and fix-it tickets may not actually affect your insurance rates at all. On the other hand, violations such as speeding, DUIs and reckless driving can lead to a profound increase on your insurance rates. As a rule of thumb, the more points you rack up on your driving record, the higher your insurance rates will be.

Between auto insurance policy renewals, your insurance company will analyze your driving record to adjust your rates. Thus, you may not notice an increase of your auto insurance premium until your next policy renewal.

The length of time a moving traffic violation will raise your auto insurance rates will depend on the severity of the offense. Your insurance agency will continually check your driving record, so every violation that continues to stay on your record will continue to affect your auto insurance rates.

The post Learn Exactly How a Traffic Ticket Affects Your California Insurance Rates appeared first on MyImprov.

It’s not easy to predict exactly how much a traffic ticket will cause your insurance premium to rise, but generally, the more moving violations you have on your driving record, the more you end up paying, especially with severe violations.

There have been cases where insurance premiums have been increased by 20-30% for the year from a single violation. In reality, you have to multiply that by 3 years because that’s the minimum length of time it will stay on your record.

• Traffic Tickets & Auto Insurance Premiums

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Completely avoiding traffic tickets is tricky, even for the most experienced drivers. All it takes is a moment of lost concentration to make a mistake and receive a citation. This is one of the reasons traffic schools are so popular.

Of course, it’s even more difficult to avoid traffic tickets if you don’t even know what you’re being ticketed for! To help you out, here are four of the most common traffic tickets that many drivers aren’t even aware of. You will be able to use the tips below to become a safer driver, and get pulled over less.

Driving Too Slowly

Everybody knows that it’s illegal to speed, it’s one of the most common tickets drivers come to defensive driving schools to try and dismiss. Speeding is dangerous, interrupting the flow of traffic, and putting yourself and others at risk.

It makes sense, then, that driving too far under the limit is also a ticketable offense. Like speeding, driving too slowly interrupts the flow of traffic and puts others at risk. If you’re driving below the limit, you should always stay in the right-most lane. Even then, you must drive fast enough to not impede traffic

Of course, there are some exceptions to the rule:

• If you’re passing a slower vehicle (like an oversized load), you’re permitted to move one lane to the left in order to pass them.
• You’re permitted to slow down if you’re preparing to make a turn.
• During certain hazardous road or weather conditions, it’s expected that you will be driving far below the posted limit.

Making a U-Turn

It’s easy to get turned around or lost when you’re driving in a new place. Sometimes, it’s just easier to turn around and go the other way. Making a U-turn is often necessary, but it’s also sometimes illegal. Illegal U-turn tickets are quite common, so it’s important to know exactly when they’re illegal.

Exact laws on U-turns do vary by state, but in general it’s legal to make as long as it’s reasonably safe based on approaching traffic, cars in the area, and the road you’re on. However, several things can make a U-turn illegal. Typically, this will include things like:

• Being on a hill or sloped road.
• Being close to a bend or curve that limits visibility of oncoming traffic.
• Going across double-yellow lines on a road.
• Making a U-turn near an explicit ‘No U-Turn’ sign.

Driving With a Pet

There’s nothing as fun as taking your dog on a road trip to the park, to the ice cream store, or anywhere in-between. What you might not have known, however, is that you might be violating traffic laws by doing so.

Several states do explicitly ban drivers from holding their pets while driving. Others ban pets from sitting on the driver’s lap while the vehicle is in motion. In New Jersey, for example, you could be fined up to $1,000 for driving with a dog in your lap.

If you want to safely drive with a pet, you should consider a traveling restraint for them. It allows them to safely sit and lay down, without giving them the ability to freely roam throughout the vehicle as you drive. It also prevents them from running out when the door is opened.

Having an Unsafe Vehicle

Traffic tickets are simply limited to mistakes you make while driving. If your vehicle isn’t safe to operate, you can receive a ticket for trying to drive it.

There are many types of unsafe vehicles, but there are a number of conditions that can make it unsafe:

• Worn down, balding tires that are at the end of their life-cycle.
• Faulty headlights or brake lights.
• Snow on the top of the vehicle that hasn’t been shoveled off.
• Excessive fluid leaks.

Getting Rid of Tickets With Defensive Driving Courses

If you received a traffic ticket, one of your best bets is taking a defensive driving course. It provides you with the necessary tools to become a defensive, safe driver. You’ll be able to remove violation points from your record and possibly even have the ticket thrown out.

Best of all, voluntarily enrolling in a defensive driving course often encourages insurance companies to lower your premium. So make sure to check us out and enroll in a class today!

The post 4 Traffic Tickets You Didn’t Know Existed! appeared first on MyImprov.