Well if you drive off a cliff or into a tree at 40 mph you are still going to get hurt.

If you drive sensibly, the seat belt, roll cage and helmet give you a LOT more protection than a quad bike or motorbike. If you mess up and roll a UTV you end up looking very silly hanging from the seat belt, but probably uninjured. Same accident on a quad bike has a 400 lb machine landing on your internal organs, head or spine.

So I was driving in the left lane. The person in the right lane suddenly stopped because a car trying to park was blocking the road.

So I thought the other driver to my right was going to try to jump right in front of me so I stopped to briefly to let the person get in front of me.

Then someone honked (not sure if it was the person on my right honking at the car blocking his lane or the person that suddenly appeared behind me)

Thankfully nothing happened but now I keep wondering if that was the safest thing to do. At the time I thought it was but now I'm not so sure.

Have you driven on a public road in the last 5+ years? If you haven't noticed, most other drivers don't give even half a **** about anyone but themselves. Do you think the same self absorbed imbecile who "didn't see you" while crossing over 2-3 lanes illegally without signaling after pulling slowly out of a parking lot onto a 45mph road cares if someone has to wait for them to back into a parking spot? Do you think the fools running up the back of every car on the road regardless of how fast the rest of traffic is driving care if they inconvenience anyone in a parking lot when they're constantly putting themselves and others in the position of being one slow reaction-time away from smashing into the back of another car at high speed and potentially injuring or killing someone just because they can't wait 2 seconds for anyone or anything, even when their impatience endangers themselves or others??

The short answer is, in theory it is safer to be able to see out of a parking spot when you're exiting it, so backing in means you're facing forward when you leave and can see better. That said, I think it's debatable whether the safer view exiting the spot outweighs the added danger and inconvenience inflicted on others of stopping and backing into a spot when there are other cars driving in the lot who often have no idea what you're trying to do until you've already started doing it because there's no "I'm backing into a spot" signal, horn or light on a car etc.

This has to do with the piston rings. Piston rings are made of cast iron, which is softer than the steel of the cylinder walls of the engine. They're supposed to seal against the cylinder walls so they hold compression in the engine. Years ago the way to make them seal was to wear them in by driving the car slowly and carefully for the first few hundred km. If you did this wrong, if you overheated the iron in the rings, they would harden and not wear in properly, and then the engine would never hold compression.

So you'd drive the car under a certain speed for maybe 1000km, then you'd change the oil and the oil would be black with all the iron filings that came off the piston rings.

That was years ago. These days piston rings are made more precisely so they don't have to wear in quite as much. So they don't tell you to drive under a speed limit and change your oil and all that, like they used to. But it's still not a bad idea, considering how much trouble and expense it is to replace those rings.

During the break-in, it's not a good idea to run at the same speed for hours and hours. It's a good idea to change the speed at least every few minutes. The speed limit is only for 'cruising'. You can go above the limit for a few minutes and it won't hurt anything.

Because if you are turning left you cross the lane in front of you, the lane coming from your right, and turn into the lane coming from your left.

If you are turning right you only turn into the lane coming from your left without crossing any other lanes

In spite of another answer, you can be held liable for that!

In my hometown, a very similar situation occurred. While the "waver" was not criminally charged, she was sued civilly and lost! Had to pay all the damages, and even "pain and suffering" court costs and all that other crap that goes along.

I have a good friend who is a Police Officer, formerly the Traffic Division Supervisor who tells me that waving someone into traffic like that is technically NOT LEGAL! The rationale is, You are not a trained traffic officer, and have no authority to give traffic directions.

I will still stop and allow a space when someone needs to pull out, but I will NEVER again wave someone into traffic!