What should you do when waiting to make a left turn?

When waiting to make a left turn, keeping your wheels straight is essential for safety. This practice ensures that if your vehicle is struck from behind, it won’t be pushed into oncoming traffic. By maintaining straight wheels, you can avoid potentially catastrophic accidents.

While signaling continuously is important to indicate your intention to turn, it alone does not address the risk associated with the positioning of your vehicle. Turning your wheels to the left, while it may seem intuitively correct for making a turn, poses a hazard if you are rear-ended. Additionally, keeping the engine running, while sometimes necessary to maintain power for headlights or other systems, does not directly contribute to safe turning practices.

Thus, keeping your wheels straight while waiting to turn left is a critical defensive driving technique to enhance safety on the road.