Learn Hardcore Russian: Эта водительница всегда пристёгивает ремень и смотрит в зеркала. - This female driver always fastens her seat belt and looks in the mirrors.

водительница ends in -ица / -ница, which is a typical feminine ending for profession words.
Therefore, the correct demonstrative is the feminine form эта (this), not the masculine этот.

So:

эта водительница = this (female) driver
этот водитель = this (male) driver

The gender is grammatical (feminine noun) and also matches the actual sex of the person here.

What is the nuance of using водительница instead of водитель?

Both are related to the word водитель (driver):

водитель – grammatically masculine; traditionally used as a neutral word for “driver”, especially in official or generic contexts.
водительница – explicitly feminine; “female driver”.

Nuances:

In many contexts, especially neutral or official ones (news, road signs, exams), Russians will often say водитель even if the driver is a woman.
водительница is used when the speaker wants to underline that the driver is a woman (for example in a story where gender matters, or in casual speech).
Some people find too much emphasis on feminine profession forms unnecessary or slightly old-fashioned in certain jobs, but водительница is common and understood.

Here the sentence clearly draws attention to the fact that the driver is a woman.

Why is всегда placed after водительница and before the verb? Can it go in other positions?

всегда means “always” and is an adverb of frequency. The most neutral position for such adverbs in Russian is before the verb:

Эта водительница всегда пристёгивает ремень… – neutral, natural word order.

Other possible positions:

Эта водительница пристёгивает ремень всегда. – grammatically correct; can sound a bit more emphatic, like you’re stressing “she always fastens it”.
Всегда эта водительница пристёгивает ремень… – possible, but sounds more like contrast or emphasis, e.g. “It’s always this driver who fastens the belt…”

So the given order (subject + adverb + verb) is the normal, unmarked order.

What tense and aspect is пристёгивает, and what is its infinitive?

пристёгивает is:

Present tense
3rd person singular
Imperfective aspect

The infinitive is пристёгивать (to fasten, to buckle). The usual aspectual pair is:

пристёгивать – imperfective (process, repeated/habitual action)
пристегнуть – perfective (single, completed fastening)

In this sentence, we describe a habitual action (“always fastens”), so the imperfective пристёгивает is exactly what we want.

In English we might say “she fastens herself in”. Why is it пристёгивает ремень and not a reflexive form like пристёгивается?

Russian often uses a direct object where English uses a reflexive structure.

English: “She fastens herself (in).”
Russian: Она пристёгивает ремень. – literally “She fastens the belt.”

So:

The verb пристёгивать is not reflexive here.
The thing being fastened is the object ремень (belt).
It’s understood from context that it is her own seat belt.

There is a reflexive form пристёгиваться, but it is more like “to be fastening oneself / to get fastened” and is less common in this specific fixed phrase about seat belts. The standard idiom is exactly пристёгивать ремень (безопасности).

What case is ремень, and why is there no explicit word for “seat belt”?

ремень is:

Accusative singular (direct object of пристёгивает)
Masculine noun: nominative ремень, accusative ремень (same form for inanimate masculine nouns).

As for meaning:

ремень by itself means “belt” (any belt).
In the context of cars and drivers, ремень almost automatically means ремень безопасности (seat belt, literally “safety belt”).
You could say the fuller phrase: пристёгивает ремень безопасности, but everyday speech often shortens it to just ремень when it’s obvious we’re talking about car safety.

So, the sentence is grammatically complete, and the “seat” part is supplied by context, not an extra word.

Why is there no possessive pronoun like свой or её before ремень?

Russian often omits possessive pronouns when ownership is obvious from context, especially with body parts, clothing, and personal items:

Он поднял руку. – “He raised (his) hand.”
Она надела пальто. – “She put on (her) coat.”

Similarly:

Эта водительница всегда пристёгивает ремень…
Literally: “This driver always fastens the belt…”
Naturally understood as: “…fastens her (own) seat belt.”

You can say свой ремень or её ремень, but here it sounds unnecessary or even a bit heavy. Native speakers normally leave the possessive out in this situation.

Why is it смотрит в зеркала, not смотрит в зеркало?

A car normally has several mirrors (rear-view mirror, wing mirrors), so Russian naturally uses the plural:

смотреть в зеркала – “to look in the mirrors” (all of them, in general).

If you say смотрит в зеркало:

That suggests one specific mirror, for example a single rear-view mirror in some contexts, but for “good driving habits” the plural sounds more natural, since the idea is that she checks all necessary mirrors.

So the plural reflects the real-world situation and is the more idiomatic choice here.

Why do we say смотрит в зеркала and not смотрит на зеркала?

The preposition choice is about how Russian conceptualizes the action:

смотреть в зеркало / зеркала – literally “to look into the mirror(s)”, i.e. at the reflection inside them.
This is the standard collocation when using a mirror in the normal sense.
смотреть на зеркало / зеркала – literally “to look at the mirror(s)”, focusing on the physical object itself (the glass, the frame), not on the reflection.

In our sentence, the driver is checking what is happening through the mirrors, so Russian uses в + accusative: в зеркала.

What form is зеркала, and how does it relate to зеркало?

Base form:

зеркало – neuter noun, nominative singular (“mirror”).

In the sentence:

зеркала is accusative plural.

For most inanimate neuter nouns, nominative plural and accusative plural look the same:

Nominative plural: зеркала
Accusative plural: зеркала

So grammatically, в зеркала = “into the mirrors”, with зеркала as the plural object of the preposition в (direction).

Could we drop эта and just say Водительница всегда пристёгивает ремень и смотрит в зеркала?

Yes, that would be grammatically correct:

Водительница всегда пристёгивает ремень и смотрит в зеркала.

Difference in nuance:

Эта водительница… – refers to a specific driver that is identified in the context (“this driver here / that one we’re talking about”).
Водительница… (without эта) – more like introducing or describing “a (female) driver” in general or in a narrative.

So you can drop эта if you don’t need the deictic “this”/“that” meaning.

How do you pronounce пристёгивает, and where is the stress?

пристёгивает is pronounced approximately:

pri-STYO-gi-vai-et (with Russian sounds).

Details:

The stress is on ё: пристЁгивает.
ё is always stressed and sounds like “yo” (as in “yolk”).
The г before и is a normal hard g sound, not “zh”.
Syllable division: при-стё-ги-ва-ет.

Also note:

In real-life texts, Russians often write е instead of ё: пристегивает.
The pronunciation stays пристЁгивает with “yo”, and learners need to remember that many ё’s are written as е in everyday Russian.