When you read about car crashes in papers, some of them with sordid gruesome pictures of the car that was totaled and smiling past photographs of the victims that are now lying in hospitals in casts or worse, it can really take the pleasure out of driving. Each time you read about a car crash, you come closer to thinking that you should give up driving. But if you read these reports carefully, you will understand one thing that's common in them – everyone who was involved in a car crash had done a mistake in some form or the other and that resulted in the crash.

So what does that mean? Plainly, it means that we can avoid car crashes if we are careful. We can take care of the small things that can cause car crashes and we will be always safe from them.

Here are some of these tips.

1. Always follow road safety rules. Traffic rules are not to make you feel inferior; they are devices to ensure that there are as few casualties on the roads as possible. You must always make it a point to follow every safety rule, even if it is such a minor thing as always keeping your wipers in working order and checking them before you drive every time. If you are planning to drive in a foreign country, you must make perfectly sure that you know their traffic rules. No two regions of the world ever have the same traffic rules. There are several countries in the world that have right hand drive and an equal number that have left hand drive, for example.
2. Learn what all the signs on the road mean. You can take a traffic guide book to understand them. Most of these signs are warning signs and you should know them all. When traveling through a forest, you may see a sign for "monkeys ahead". If you fail to read this sign, you may crash with monkeys that have a nasty habit of spilling out on the forest roads. This is just an example. Try signs like "oil on the road", "landslide area", "snake curves ahead", etc. Since these signs are depicted pictorially, you must learn to read them.
3. Check that every part of your vehicle is fine-tuned before you are setting out on long drives. Check for air in the tires, fuel, etc. Check the mechanical parts of your car. You can never know which of these could save you from potential car crashes.   
4. Invest in safety equipment for your car. You cannot do without air cushions and seatbelts, preferably for every passenger in your car. If there are children traveling with you, you will need child car seats. While these things will not actually prevent you from having car crashes, they may save your life when one happens.
5. Last but not the least, keep your entire attention on the road when you are driving. Really good drivers will not even talk with other passengers in the car when they are driving. But we see so many people committing atrocities like talking on their cell phones when they are at the wheel. And should we even mention that it is suicidal to drink and drive? It is these people who are the first to be arrested or worse.