Where to start...
My driving career has had good and bad periods...
I've made heavy contact with other vehicles on two occasions...
One guy was stopped in the road for some reason, everyone stayed at the 55 limit and just waited 'till the last minute to go around him, whatever lack of attention I was suffering caused me to not miss him, but oddly enough, I made it around him, not even scratching his truck, yet tore the drivers side nose off of mine as it dove underneath the outside 4 inches of his bumper. So I suppose I have a good reaction time, and good enough car control because he was unscathed. So much so he decided he better leave, which left the Police questioning me as to why he left. He eventually came back after he dropped off his drugs and got a nice talking to for leaving the scene. I was not ticketed in any way, nor did I have any repercussions for it, only a totaled 500$ work truck, which I suppose is not that bad, could have been worse, thank god it was not, though it was about the worst day I can remember having, I was in the hospital all night with IV fluids and all kinds of tests, while in the same hospital my grandfather died before I was released. I don't necessarily want to use that as an excuse, but I should not have been driving due to my mind being somewhere else completely, otherwise, I may have noticed the stopped truck much sooner. My fault...
Number two...
I was driving home to hook the boat up to the new truck, this was four months later. I was making a left hand turn through an intersection, with a green arrow signal, which means good to go.
Just as I make my turn, a blur and then the loudest noise I've ever heard, or maybe it was just a hard impact, who knows. This trucks drivers nose had been torn off as well. Out of towners in a large sedan, which I didn't see, even though I looked before making the turn regardless of signal were well over the speed limit and we collided as the went through the intersection. Perhaps they had just got a green light and didn't slow down? Maybe I didn't see something I should have? There were other cars stopped at the same intersection, but their far lane was clear, however I could not see through the cars on their far lane, so I never saw them before the bang. No one was hurt, their car was, but thankfully no one else. Aside from my face due to the airbag... My fault? More than likely, I could not see them, but I guess I should have. It was at a newly rebuilt intersection, with fast changing turn signals, which I should have had in mind as well, but I was thinking about fishing, not the light which lasts 15 seconds... I was ticketed this time, failure to yield, fair enough I suppose, truck two out in less than six months. That was my only time being ticketed to date, knock on wood. I was one of the 10+ accidents at that intersection that month, safe to say the signals time between changed has increased, the yellow arrow will actually stay lit longer than a drag race Christmas tree.
That's the worst of it though, not to say it's good. But I only feel one incident was honestly avoidable, and that was the first. Which oddly enough I should have been labeled at fault for, I did technically rear end the other truck, but it was un-damaged down to the taillight and paint on the back bumper. I'm still unsure of the second incident because, really, if he was doing the speed limit, we would not have met, I would have made my turn on the arrow, picked up my boat and been on the water fishing.
For the most part though, I'm a safe driver, I rarely ride above 5 over, even on open highways. I have a lot of miles logged. Snowy Appalachian mountains on regular all season tires from Florida (Didn't expect snow), Summertime monsoons with highway traffic. Pulling heavily loaded trailers down I-4 in Orlando, with lot's of traffic. When I used to do marine construction, I'm sure I regularly pulled massive loads of lumber and 30ft pilings, concrete bulkhead panels weighing many thousands of pounds. I've spent countless hours off road, sliding, on road in wet parking lots doing the same. I feel I have good car control as I've said before. I do however feel that I'm not good enough at predicting what people are going to do, around here, I think it's next to impossible, people honestly drive like it's the Daytona 500, I'm surprised we don't have more "Big ones" on some of our main roads. I've driven many vehicles from horrid work trucks with nearly 90* of play in the wheel and instantly locking brakes, to turbocharged performance cars. You just keep learning new things.
But I actually think much of my problem with attentiveness on the road would stem from my way overly spirited driving off road or in unincorporated, basically deserted parts of town. If I was racing through the woods offroad on one of my many home built rally cross tracks, I felt good as gold, could not have been paying more attention. I feel like I lost interest in my road driving because it became boring, I was no longer doing 60-80mph in the dirt, sliding between palmetto trees like they were cones, but I was going with the flow of traffic. That was something I NEVER would do before I found driving off road, with nothing to hit. I would normally make my own pace and let everyone else have their way. I don't know, it's a theory. I no longer make trips out into the woods, and after the massive wake up calls, I don't seem to have a problem anymore with attentiveness.
So enough of my driving autobiography... I feel I'm a safe driver, not really a good one, but better than most of those around me at most any given time, it's rare to see any courtesy around where I live, so it's welcomed when it's given back, which is rare. I have plenty of room for improvement, I know I've done much worse than some, but still much better than others. Oh well, you make mistakes and you learn from them, that's all you can do. Oh, and pay attention more of course, which is a strategy I've heavily employed since incident two, almost three years ago.
Please don't crucify me for admitting to my somewhat tarnished driving career.
.
I honestly can't fathom how we spent the thirty-two hours of education that our state mandates, but to be honest, even if the class had covered useful material, nobody would have been paying attention anyway and there would have been no use. We actually spent quite a bit of the class time copying down the questions and their answers that were to appear, verbatim, on the three written tests that we were required to take. Furthermore, the only supervised driving on the street was four one-hour sessions, and the test itself was some simple maneuvering through cones. Predictably, even grossly incompetent drivers were given a passing grade. 
