Five key tips for inner city driving

Five key tips for inner city driving

If you work in or have taken a shopping trip into one of our countries major cities like London, Manchester or Liverpool, chances are you’ll have seen streets jam packed with cars, buses and lorries. You may be glad that you haven’t had to drive that day, but for many people driving in the city is a regular way of life. There are a lot of city drivers who may get stressed which can lead to lapses of concentration and accidents.

Below are five tips to keep your cool when driving in the city:

Drive smart
When driving in the city you are constantly stopping and starting so accelerating sharply can be a wasted effort, it also means that you’ll be burning up more petrol unnecessarily. As well as this driving habit costing you money, it will also cost your car’s health as constant accelerating and braking can do damage to your car.

Drive safe too
A lot of drivers get impatient stuck in rush hour traffic which is understandable; however you shouldn’t let this force you to act rashly. People constantly changing lanes because the other seems to be moving slightly more than theirs is a waste of time and energy as you’ll only add to the congestion and block both your lane and the one you are moving to. What’s more if you do this for any amount of time, you could frustrate other road users and cause road rage, which isn’t safe.

Park in a secure area
Parking in a city can be tough but when you choose where to park you should be aware of the possibility of car thieves in the area. Parking in registered car parks with attendants present is advisable but in cases where you cannot do so you should park in a well lit area, possibly an area with a lot of pedestrians to deter would be criminals.

Have the right sized car
Unfortunately driving in the city does not suit every vehicle type, larger vehicles can be too large for many parking bays and even some midsized cars can struggle to get into parking bays. There are lots of cars now marketed as “city cars” due to their small size and numerous other city specific features such as fitted parking sensors and cameras. If you do spend most of your time driving in busy city streets and parking in built up areas where spaces are limited, you should take this into account when next changing your car.

Plan your route
If you’re new to a city then it’s advisable to plan your route before setting off and to drive slower than usual in areas you aren’t familiar with as you may miss a turning if you are driving too fast. Also, as you won’t necessarily know the quickest route, you could end up hitting traffic in the obvious areas which could be avoided if you use one of the free online route planning services which warn you of the traffic hot spots.

If you are looking for a city car or any car, but are finding it tough to arrange car credit due to your circumstances, then try searching for bad credit car finance. You could arrange car credit even if you have been refused in the past by other finance companies.