Safe Driving Tips For Everyday Driving — Missouri Driver's License Practice Test

This section covers the everyday habits that keep you and your passengers safe: seat belts and child restraints, defensive driving, safe following distance, and how to handle hazards like deer or a traffic stop. Many of these are also Missouri legal requirements. Building these habits into every trip lowers your crash risk and helps you react calmly when something goes wrong.

Always fasten your seat belt and make sure all passengers are buckled up or in child restraints, even if your vehicle has air bags. Wear the lap belt low and snug across the hips and the shoulder belt across the chest — never under the arm or behind the back. Missouri law requires the operator and front-seat occupants of passenger vehicles to wear a seat belt, and all passengers of an intermediate license holder must be properly restrained. Children under four years old, or weighing less than 40 pounds, must be in a child passenger restraint system; children four to under eight who weigh 40 to under 80 pounds and are under 4'9" must use a child restraint or booster seat.

Defensive driving means keeping your eyes moving, checking your mirrors every few seconds, and expecting other drivers to make mistakes; look left and right at intersections even when you have the right-of-way. Use the three-second rule for following distance: if you reach a fixed object before finishing the count of one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-three, you are too close. Signal at least 100 feet before turning, changing lanes, merging, or parking. Watch for deer, which are most involved in crashes in January, May, and October through December, with the highest risk from sunset to midnight and around sunrise; if a crash is unavoidable, do not swerve, since swerving off the road or into oncoming traffic increases the risk of injury.