Last week I talked about how to target and project the path of the vehicle when pulling over to the curb. As you may imagine, pulling away from the curb is pretty similar to pulling over to the curb. The key points are make sure you keep your eyes up, targeting well ahead so that you’re reading the scene ahead and projecting the path that the forward pivot point will follow. Like any lane change (yes, this is a lane change!), follow S.M.O.G. (Signal, Mirror, Over the Shoulder, Go).
Pulling away from the curb may present you with an obstacle, though, that you probably won’t encounter when pulling over to the curb; someone may be parked in front of you, somewhat close to your vehicle. When this happens, people are sometimes tempted to look over the hood of the car as they pull away from the curb, trying to make sure they don’t hit that car in front of them. Don’t do it! You know better. Keep your eyes up. If you target ahead and project the path, you already know if you need to back up to give yourself more space to pull away. You need to be looking at what’s going in traffic, not looking at something you can’t see anyway because of the Void Area!