Is it a matter of writing style, or is one of these sentences more correct than the other?
- In order to drive safely, you must anticipate the road conditions.
- You must anticipate the road conditions in order to drive safely.
Secondary question: must the first example be punctuated? I am conscious of overusing commas.
Answer
Both sentences are grammatically correct. You have a prepositional phrase which you have moved to the beginning of the sentence. That’s perfectly fine. When moving prepositional phrases to the beginning of sentences, you can often choose to use a comma or not (as long as they don’t contain years or place names that require commas). With longer phrases, it is advised to insert a comma to avoid confusion.