Safety beyond the vehicle

Would you get behind the wheel of a car with no seatbelts, no airbags, and a crank handle to start the engine?

On 1 October 1908, Henry Ford gave the world the Model T. It changed everything. Within a few years, Ford’s moving assembly line had the build time down from over 12 hours to around 93 minutes, and the motor car went from a rich man’s toy to something an ordinary family could own.

What it didn’t have was safety. That word barely existed in motoring back then.

The hand crank used to start the engine broke plenty of wrists and arms. The wooden spoke wheels could fail without warning. There were no seatbelts, so nothing held you in place in an impact or a rollover. There was no crash protection built into the chassis or body. You get the picture.

To be fair, the roads were a different place. Most people were still making the switch from horse and cart. Traffic rules were still being worked out, and the three-colour traffic light didn’t arrive until the 1920s. Speed limits in some American states sat around 12 mph in town. You could survive a lot at 12 mph.

Fast forward to 2026. Technology has boomed, AI is influencing how modern vehicles are engineered, and we now have a safety rating system that tells you exactly how one make and model stacks up against another before you buy. Driver assist features, whether you love them or find them annoying, are here to stay, and most are now mandatory if a vehicle wants to earn five stars.

All of that exists to protect you, your passengers, and now pedestrians too.

But here’s the question worth asking: is the driver as prepared as the car?

You cannot rely on the vehicle to do all the safety work. There are a few things each of us should have covered, and they can make the difference in a big way.

Driver education

No matter your age, keeping up with changing vehicle technology and road rules is a big task. A weekend at a driving school will bring you up to speed on both. If you own a 4WD and use it, invest in a 4WD course that covers safe recoveries, emergency braking off road, and basic maintenance.

First aid

Do a course, and refresh the CPR component every 12 months. Keep a first aid kit in your car and set a reminder to check it yearly and replace anything out of date. You might hesitate to help a stranger, but I’d bet you wouldn’t hesitate for your own family. When help could be hours away, those skills are worth every minute you spent learning them.

Fire suppression

A 1kg dry chemical powder extinguisher, mounted somewhere you can reach it, can be the difference between putting out a small fire and losing the whole vehicle. I’ll be honest: 1kg won’t touch a large fire, and whether you can do anything at all depends on reaching the source. Proper fire training teaches you how to use the extinguisher, and just as importantly, how to quickly judge whether the fire is beyond you.

A few weekends of training and you’ve levelled yourself up. Knowing a little more than you did yesterday is what keeps you level-headed in an emergency, whether it’s your car or one you come across on the road.