Driving in English: Car & Road Vocabulary

Hi, welcome to www.engvid.com . I'm Adam.

Today, I'm going to talk to you about how to drive.

We're going to look at two aspects of driving.

First, we're going to learn how to operate your vehicle, it means what do you actually

do with your car, and then we're going to look at road etiquette, how to behave and

how to actually drive on the street, okay?

So, we're going to start with the actual vehicle, we're going to look at some words that you

need to know in your car, and what you need to do.

So, the first thing you want to do when you get into your car is strap on your seatbelt.

So, the seatbelt goes from your shoulder to your hip and then across your waist from hip

to hip.

That belt, that string, whatever, the thick one, we call this a strap, we call it a seatbelt,

but we also call it the strap, and then you have the buckle that you snap into place,

so you can strap on your seatbelt, you put the strap across, or you can just put on your

seatbelt.

Very important.

Don't drive without putting on your seatbelt or strapping it on.

Then, your car's ready, you've turned it on, turn on the key, the ignition, I guess I should

put that, you've turned on the ignition, you've turned the car on, it's running nicely, you're

ready to go.

So, the first thing you want to do is shift into gear.

So, you have your gear shifter, usually it's on the side if you're in an automatic car

or in a manual transmission, in automatic all you do is put it into the gear you want,

and you go.

In a manual car, you have to press your clutch, put it into gear, and then you go, a little

gas, let off the clutch.

So, you're shifting into gear, you put it into the gear you want.

The gear that you have are park, P, reverse, R, neutral, N, and drive, D. When you're in

the car wash, you put it in neutral, otherwise you don't need to put it in neutral.

Again, manual transmission, you're at a red light, put it in neutral, relax a little bit.

Some of you will have like a 3 or a 2, or D3 or D2, or H or L, high gear or low gear.

People rarely use these.

If you're stuck in a snowbank, you might need to use that, but mostly you don't.

So, those are your gears.

Automatic or manual transmission.

Manual transmission, you have the clutch, so you have three pedals for your feet, you're

using both feet, okay?

So, before you - so you put it into reverse, let's say, because you want to get out of

your parking spot, before you move, and again, some people use this, some people don't, but

if you - if you put - engaged your emergency brake, so usually it's on the side, lift it

up.

If you're on a hill, you want to use that so your car doesn't roll down.

Maybe you forgot and you left it in neutral.

So, the emergency brake at least keeps you in place, the car doesn't roll away.

So, you want to disengage, you want to release the hand brake, we call it a hand brake because

you use your hand.

In some cars, it's foot brake, because that's where it is, you disengage the emergency brake,

and then you back out of your parking spot.

Now, if you parallel parked, then you just back up and go forward out, right?

So, parallel park is when you, like - you have a parking spot, you pull in, back out.

Parallel park, you have two cars and you pull in between the cars, okay?

Some people avoid parallel parking because they're not good at it, some people have no

problem with it.

Either way, back out of your parking spot and put it into drive, shift into drive, and

drive away.

Press the gas or you can just say accelerate, accelerate means press the gas pedal, and

that's what these things are called, the things at your feet, right - gas, left - brake, very

left - clutch for the manual transmissions.

It's very simple, driving is a very easy thing to do, everybody should do it at some point

because it's actually can be fun.

These are the things you need to do.

But more important than knowing how to operate the car is knowing what to do as you're moving,

as you're moving your car along the streets, okay?

So, let's look at that next.

Okay, so now we know how to operate our vehicle, very good, we're on the road, we're on the

highway, we need to know how to act, how to maneuver, how to move around, right?

So, let's say you're cruising along on the highway.

Cruising means just driving straight, not really worried about too many things, you're

looking around, everything's nice, people walking, all this stuff.

If you want, you can turn on your cruise control, it means you don't have to press the gas,

you don't have to accelerate or anything like that, you just keep at a steady pace, at a

steady speed.

This is recommended more for the highway, not so much for the city, but you can do that.

So, you're cruising along, make sure you stay within the posted speed limit.

Now, in most cities, there will be signs all over the place telling you what the speed

limit is.

If the speed limit is 60 kilometers per hour, don't do 70.

I mean, you can, but just be very careful.

If you do 80, and there's a police officer somewhere nearby, you're going to get pulled

over, you're going to get a ticket and it's a big fine and your insurance will go up,

so try to stay within the posted limit.

Now, if you need to change lanes, so you're in a two-lane street, and you want to get

out of this lane and into the left lane, or vice versa.

It's not just a matter of turning the wheel, okay?

It's not that simple, you have to do a few things first.

First, you want to check your rear view mirror, so that's the mirror up here, that goes right

at the back window, and then you have your two side view mirrors that you should look

at to make sure nobody is beside you.

But just because you saw your mirrors doesn't mean that you've seen everything.

Everybody has a blind spot.

So, there's a certain angle from the mirrors that doesn't cover the person or the area

right next to your car on your left, alright?

Or, on your right, if you're driving in England or somewhere like that.

So, make sure that you check your mirrors, but then check your blind spot.

We call this a blind spot because the mirrors don't show you what's there.

You are blind to this little area and it's very easy to get into an accident.

So, you've checked your mirrors, you've checked your side mirrors, you've checked your blind

spot, make sure that you signal to go left, signal up to go right, etc., make sure that

the person behind you, if someone is there, knows you're coming into their lane, knows

you're switching lanes.

So, change lanes or switch lanes, once you know it's safe, go ahead and do that.

Now, and then cruise along, drive away, etc.

Now, we're going to talk about etiquette.

What is etiquette?

Etiquette means behavior, how you should behave on the road, okay?

Keep in mind there are other people sharing the road with you.

Make sure that everybody is safe, everybody gets where they need to go.

So, first thing you want to is you want to yield to pedestrians or cyclists or basically

anybody smaller than you.

If a person is walking and you're going to make a turn and the person is crossing the

street, wait for that person to cross the street.

If there's a person on a bicycle next to you, let him or her pass or move out of the way

so they can go or turn or whatever they need to do.

Basically, pedestrians, these are people walking, and cyclists, have the right of way.

The right of way means they have the right to go first before you.

You have to yield, you have to give up the space to these people, okay?

Otherwise, somebody could get hurt, somebody could get killed, you don't want to be the

person responsible for that.

So, next, now that's for pedestrians and cyclists.

With other cars, don't cut people off.

People hate when people cut them off.

If you're driving and somebody comes and suddenly comes right in front of you without basically

changing lanes properly, they don't signal, they don't look, they just come right in front

of you, you have to brake hard not to hit them, that means that they cut you off.

Don't do that to other people.

If somebody does it to you, just let them drive away.

Don't go around crazy and try to cut them off too.

It's not good for anybody, although it happens.

And don't tailgate.

If somebody is going slow, don't come right behind their back bumper and be very, very

close.

If they hit the brake, you're going to hit them in the back and in Canada, at least,

the person in the back who hits the person the front, the person in the back is the one

who gets the ticket, the one who gets blamed for the accident, if it happens.

Don't tailgate, don't cut people off.

Now, if you're coming to a streetlight, there's red, orange, green, but we don't call it orange,

we call it amber.

That's the color, it looks like orange, but it's called amber.

If you're driving along and you have a green light and suddenly the green light turns to

amber, what you should do is press the brakes, not the gas.

Some people, they see orange, they want to beat the light, they don't want to stop for

the red, so they charge the amber, they put up extra speed to try to beat the light.

Don't do that.

If it turns amber, slow down, stop at the red, wait for your green light.

Now, in some countries, how the lights work, they go from green to amber to red, and then

from red to amber to green.

In Canada, for example, we go green, amber, red, red, green.

There's no warning.

Patience, wait for your turn, go when it's your turn.

Ideally, avoid honking.

*Honk honk*, try not to honk at people because nobody likes it, but if somebody is at a light

and the light turns green and they're sitting there on their phone texting and they don't

see the green light, then yeah, honk, wake them up a little bit.

They shouldn't be texting.

Otherwise, try not to do it.

People don't like it; some people go a little bit crazy.

Speaking of going crazy, avoid road rage.

So, a lot - this is happening more and more in the world, especially in busy cities with

lots of traffic.

People just - they go crazy.

If somebody cuts them off or if somebody's not moving at the light or if somebody's going

too slow, more and more, people just - they go crazy when they're driving, and they do

stupid things.

Sometimes people hit somebody just because they're angry, more and more you hear stories

about somebody getting out of their car and pulling the other guy out or pulling over

a bicyclist and just beating them up.

Sometimes, you hear about shootings because of road rage.

Stay calm.

Whatever you do as you're driving, breathe.

Stay calm.

Don't go crazy because it's not good for anybody, it's not good for you especially.

If you get into an accident or if you do something stupid because of road rage, the police don't

care how angry you are.

You will get charged; you might go to jail if you did something really bad.

Now, speaking of people texting and email - don't.

When you're in your car, put your phone down, turn it off, don't look at it, you're not

on your phone, you're in front of your car.

Your car is a weapon, okay?

Your car can kill people.

Make sure you're in control of your car.

If you're driving and texting, that means you're not looking.

If you're not looking, you're not seeing possible dangers.

If you're not seeing possible dangers, you are the danger, okay?

So, make sure you're not texting, you're not emailing, you're not distracted.

Distracted driving is a big problem these days in most places all over the world.

If a police officer stops you for distracted driving, it's a big ticket, okay?

In some places, you'll have one ticket, like I think $150 or $200 the first time, second

time is $500, third time you lose your license, okay?

So, don't do it.

And again, it's dangerous.

So instead, use hands-free devices.

Hands-free means no hands, right?

That's what the "free" means.

Hands-free - Bluetooth.

Somebody calls you; you press a button and you talk all you want.

When it's over, you hang up and that's it.

Don't hold a phone.

Don't hold a tablet.

Don't hold a GPS.

Don't hold anything except the steering wheel.

And make sure you're aware of what's going on, avoid dangers, stay calm, everybody gets

to where they're going, everybody's happy, and it's all good.

So, that's all you need to know about driving.

Of course, you need to know about your car, you need to know about certain things you're

going to see on a road if you're going on a trip.

We have a few other lessons about driving.

We have a lesson by Alex talking about the parts of a car.

I made another lesson about going on a road trip.

There's another lesson about car maintenance.

Very important to know about all aspects of your car and how to operate it, how to take

care of it, what to do, what not to do on the road.

So, look at the www.engvid.com site, do the search, you'll find all these lessons.

There will also be links in the description for this lesson that you can link to.

Also, if you have any questions, please go to www.engvid.com and you can ask questions

there in the comments section.

There's also a quiz to make sure you understood all these words and all these things you need

to know.

And please subscribe to my channel on YouTube if you like this lesson and come back for

more great lessons to help you with your English.

I'll see you then.

Bye!