One of the unfortunate facts of life is that we are at the mercy of others. It does not matter how nice or civil you are. If you have the misfortune of crossing paths with a malevolent or careless individual, there is a chance you will endure harm. This is precisely why you need a solid line of defense.

The Value of Taking a Self-Defense Course

All sorts of self-defense courses are available, from traditional karate to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Krav Maga and so on. The common theme amongst these courses is that considerable preparation is necessary to stay safe and avoid harm. There is a good chance you will eventually encounter a physically aggressive person at some point in your life. From purse-snatchers to drunks looking for a fight and beyond, some people are willing to engage in physical confrontations with completely innocent victims. It is important to recognize this danger and prepare accordingly. Complete a self-defense class and you will have the confidence you need to go out in public and do as you wish. This is especially true for women, seniors, individuals without a large frame and others who might be considered to be easy targets.

Keep Your Vehicle Safe with a Defensive Driving Course

You can protect your vehicle with a defensive driving course just like you can protect your body with a self-defense course. It is quite concerning to think about the fact that you can follow all the rules of the road, maintain a moderate rate of speed and be extremely cautious only to endure an auto accident due to another driver’s negligence. Take a defensive driving course and you will greatly reduce the odds of such an accident. This course teaches you how to drive in a defensive manner that prevents accidents, tickets and road rage.

If you haven’t taken a defensive driving course in the past year, it is time to sign up for one, especially if you live in NY, NJ or a state where your auto insurance company will offer you a huge discount for taking the course. Also, there is a good chance you have forgotten some of the subtle rules of the road and strategies to avoid collisions, tickets and other unpleasant incidents while behind the wheel.

Keep Yourself Safe with a Defensive Course

A defensive driving course will serve as a valuable refresher on what to look out for while on the roads and highways. It will also boost your driving prowess to reduce the chances that you cause an accident that harms others, their vehicles and your own person or vehicle. In the end, a defensive driving course has the potential to save you thousands of dollars in automobile repair costs and hundreds or thousands of dollars on potential insurance hikes resulting from accidents. Most importantly, learning how to drive defensively will greatly reduce the odds of a painful injury that spurs costly medical treatment and might even prevent you from working.

Protect Yourself on and off the Road

Your defensive driving course instructor will teach you valuable tactics to avoid damage to your vehicle as well as your body. Think of defensive driving as a self-defense course for your body when positioned inside of a vehicle. You are still in danger of physical harm even though the party at fault does not mean to harm your person. This educational driving course is exactly what you need to avoid a painful accident when traversing the crowded roads. The strategies you learn just might make the difference between a nasty accident that harms the occupants in your vehicle and narrowly escaping a collision, allowing you to make it to your destination unharmed.

Autonomous motor vehicles, or self-driving cars, are closer to reality now than they have ever been. No longer a flight of fancy for lovers of science fiction stories, these computerized vehicles are now a real order of business for automobile manufacturers around the world.

In fact, some automobile manufacturers predict they will have self-driving models of their most popular vehicles on showroom floors by 2019. The consulting firm KPMG and the Center for Automotive Research in Michigan both reported this week that autonomous vehicles will likely be for sale at a dealership near you in less than a decade.

In the meantime, legislators in states from California to Florida are tackling the legal process required to make room for self-driving cars on the roadways in their states. Specifically, details need to be ironed out with police, automobile manufacturers and insurance companies, all of whom have a stake in letting cars drive themselves.

All of this is well and good for the major players involved in the decisions to build, market and legislate these new computerized vehicles, but for the people who will be owning them and relying on them to get them safely around town, the decision is yet to be made whether or not they will be acceptable.

When it comes to change, especially any change in their automobiles or driving habits, the American consumer has shown they are reluctant at best. The change from fossil fuel driven cars to electric or even hybrid vehicles has been very slow to come. This leads some experts to expect that sales of self-driving cars, however innovative and safe they might seem, will be slow.

When it comes to self-driving cars you don’t need to wait, or regularly check-in at your local dealership. There are a number of new features available on new cars which do just about everything for you, although stop short of fully driving for you.

There are autonomous, or self-driving cars, on the roads right now in California and Arizona and some states such as Florida and New York seem just about ready to pass legislation to make them legal there as well. In fact, just about all 50 states are currently looking at some sort of legislation intended to make autonomous cars legal on their roads. These autonomous cars would make transportation of cargo easier and make road ways safer. They would also help some drivers whose ability to operate a vehicle has been curtailed because of age or impairment, able to get around from point A to point B without the need of public transportation or a ride from friends or family.

But just short of fully autonomous vehicles are features designed to make driving safer for putting who drive themselves. These features include cruise control, obstacle avoidance and rear-view video cameras. Cadillac has a new feature will drive the vehicle for you on long highways trips called enhanced cruise control. Some obstacle avoidance systems will actually apply the brakes when an object is detected in front of your vehicle, like when the car ahead slows down or stops.

None of these features will make your vehicle truly autonomous however, and regardless of what sort of car you have you are still ultimately responsible for the safety of yourself, your passengers and everyone who shares the road with you. There is no substitute for safe, defensive driving and that means having good judgement about your abilities and the ability of your vehicle. Just because your car drives itself doesn’t mean it can change its own tires when they get bald.

Self-driving cars have been the talk of the town lately, with states like California and Arizona already approving them for use on roads in their state, and other states such as Florida, taking a serious look at the technology.

But how soon can you expect to own one? Probably not any time soon.

A recent study showed that while the technology to operate a self-driving car is ready for commercial use, and even for use for special circumstances, it is not quite ready for mass production. That means that a select few people might get one within the next few years. People with special needs, or companies which deliver cargo to predetermined locations will likely be able to use them within the next five years, but most of us will need to wait.

Even when the self-driving car technology is ready for mass production that doesn’t mean everyone will be rushing out to get one. In fact, for as many people who have expressed an interest in lounging in the backseat while the car does the driving, there are many more people who simply refuse to relinquish control of their vehicle (and their life) to a machine. They also enjoy the thrill of driving and say nothing will ever tempt them into giving up that feeling.

Whether or not you want a self-driving car, or whether or not you want to share the road with a self-driving car, it seems likely they will eventually be available to you. But it hardly seems something that you should worry about because it likely won’t happen until a generation comes along more willing to accept and embrace it.