Look out! Advanced observations for the uninitiated...
Discussion
I said I'd post some stuff once the new book was out, so here's a post on the issue which causes more road accidents than anything else in the UK:
44% of all road accidents are caused by drivers not looking properly.
How can this be possible? How can almost half of drivers who crash not be looking properly? Looking is surely the one thing we should all be doing all the time when we’re driving?
You’d like to think so, wouldn’t you? But of course, life is never that simple, so here are my tips for avoiding being involved in an accident due to someone simply not looking properly.
Firstly, CONCENTRATE. Can you remember how much you had to concentrate when you first started driving? The simple actions involved in pressing the brake, turning the steering wheel and moving the gearlever took up pretty much all of your mental capacity. In fact, whilst you were concentrating on operating the controls, your instructor was watching the traffic and looking out for hazards on the road on your behalf.
But, with practice and experience, you probably found that you had to think less and less about controlling the car – setting off, changing gear and steering became almost second nature and you could almost carry out those simple actions without thinking about them at all. For a learner, this is the point where they can start to really concentrate on what’s happening outside the car – where to look, how to approach hazards, how fast (or slow) to drive, what’s next…
As drivers develop, pass their test and gain experience, that “second nature” mentality starts to creep into every aspect of their driving. As well as giving less and less thought to operating the car’s controls, they give less and less thought to how they approach junctions, vehicles and other hazards.
Driving becomes “routine” – something we do without giving it too much thought, much like many other things that we’ve done a thousand times before. Making a cup of tea, having a shower, vacuuming the carpet, sending a text – these are all actions that at one time or another we’ve had to learn and concentrate on, but over time we’ve become able to do them almost automatically without thinking.
Have you ever driven to work, or to the supermarket, or to somewhere else you drive to regularly and had absolutely no recollection of the journey? Did you drive through a red light? Did you cut someone up in traffic? Can you remember if you locked your car? It’s very common to forget the details of journeys if you’re not concentrating on your driving.
The reason you can’t remember your journey is that you’re thinking about other things – what have you got on at work today? What shopping do you need? What shall we have for tea? You’re thinking about other things all the time, because driving doesn’t really take up much of your mental capacity
The difference between making tea or having a shower and driving a car is that showering and tea making don’t involve moving a ton and a half of metal at speed along a road populated by idiots in other lumps of metal also travelling at speed with cyclists, child pedestrians, animals and tractors thrown into the mix.
There are far more risks involved in driving than almost all our other daily tasks combined, but because we generally arrive at our destinations unscathed and undamaged, we don’t consider those risks and we habitually lose concentration when driving.
So how do you improve your concentration?
Firstly, remember what you’re doing. Don’t let your mind wander too far from the fact that you’re driving a car at speed in a potentially very dangerous environment. I know you might have had a bad day at work, your partner is mad with you, the kids are screaming on the back seat, you’re worried about an unexpected bill, you’re wondering what to wear tonight and your dog’s been taken ill, but it’s important to set these things aside when you get into the drivers seat.
Try this – if you’ve got a thousand things going on in your head, instead of getting in to the car, putting your seatbelt on, sticking the key in the ignition and going for first gear, try just getting into the car, shutting the door and sitting there for a few seconds – no more than 5 or 10 seconds is enough. Take that time to gather your thoughts, set your other issues aside and remind yourself you’re about to drive a car and it’ll need your full attention.
Be curious and use your imagination. Look at every junction or hazard and imagine what might go wrong. Could a car pull out on you? Might a child run out from behind those parked cars? Could that wobbly cyclist fall off in front of you? If you start to imagine what might happen, your predictions will sometimes come true! The car will pull out, the child will run out and the wobbly cyclist will fall off. Instead of being surprised by these things going wrong, if you’ve imagined them happening, you’ll be prepared and you’ll be much less likely to have an accident.
Tied in with using your imagination is the skill of making driving plans. Once you’ve started imagining what might happen, you can build on this skill by planning what you should do if those things happen. So, if that car does pull out in front of you, you’ll brake and steer round it. If a child does run out from behind the parked cars, you’ll brake and avoid them. If the wobbly cyclist does fall off, you’ll avoid hitting them (once you’ve stopped laughing, of course).
Using your imagination and making driving plans will hugely improve your ability to maintain a good level of concentration even on your most mundane, everyday journeys.
On longer journeys, it’s easy to let your concentration slip, particularly if you’re travelling for several hours on motorways, which can be quite monotonous. Take regular breaks, keep hydrated, make sure you eat regularly so that your blood sugar doesn’t drop too low and have a rest, preferably away from the car, if you start feeling tired.
How do you look?
No, I don’t mean how does your hair look? Or do those shoes go with that skirt? Or does your bum look big?
I mean, how do you look down the road and around you when you’re driving? It sounds like a pretty stupid question to start with (I look down the road – what else is there to say?), but there’s actually a lot more to it than you might think.
Firstly, you need to understand that your eyes work in a specific way – and it’s not a way which is always well suited to driving a car or riding a motorbike. As you read this post, you’re looking straight ahead at the screen, and you also have a wide field of view of everything else around you – you may be looking at the screen, but you can also see the rest of the room, or the other people on the train, or the beach and the sea (lucky sod!) to the left and right, above and below the screen you’re actually looking at. This is commonly referred to as your peripheral vision.
But peripheral vision isn’t really as good as you might think it is. Try this little exercise - keep looking at this paragraph and reading these words, and at the same time, try to pick out some detail of your surrounding area without taking your eyes off the words.
Try to pick out what that movement is through the window, or what the passenger next to you is wearing, or how many people are swimming in the sea (lucky sod!). It’s not possible to make out that level of detail in your peripheral vision.
You might be able to make out some movement, or some basic colours or shapes, but if you’re not looking directly at something, your peripheral vision only really gives a visual “frame” to the detail that you’re looking directly at.
Let’s move that little exercise on a little and make it more focussed. Keep looking at these words, but try to read the words in the paragraph below, without taking your eyes off these words. It’s still not possible is it? You can make out words and spaces and paragraphs, but you can’t actually read the words, can you?
Now try it with the line below. Look at the words on this line, but try to read the line directly below. Now it’s just about getting possible to make out letters and words, but it’s still not easy to read in this way – let’s face it, you need to be looking directly at the words to be able to read them properly. But how small are the words? Compared with your field of vision, they’re tiny, so although we feel like we’ve got a nice, wide field of vision, we can only actually look at detail in a very narrow area right in the centre of our field of vision. Right where we’re actually looking at the time, in fact.
Over millions of years, our bodies have developed strategies to deal with this limitation in our vision. Try this little exercise – sit opposite a friend (it’s better with a friend, as strangers give you a funny look if you ask them to do it), and ask them to stare at your right eye and then your left eye, and then keep switching between your left and right eye every second or so. Watch their eyes as they look from left to right – they flick, very quickly in an almost insect-like manner.
Then try the same exercise, but this time with yourself in the mirror. You’ll look from eye to eye, but you won’t notice the flicking motion at all – our brains have evolved to ignore the blur when your eyes are moving, and focus only when your eyes are stationary, in between the “flicks”. Even if you try to look smoothly from left to right in a long arc, your eyes are actually flicking and stopping, flicking and stopping constantly, but because your brain ignores the flicking, it’ll look to you as though you’re just smoothly moving your eyes from left to right in one movement.
So, we can only focus on detail in a very small part of our field of vision, but our eyes compensate by flicking about at high speed and allowing us to focus in detail on lots of things in a short space of time. If you were going to design eyes from scratch for driving, they wouldn’t be like that, would they? I can’t imagine Google or Tesla or whoever else is developing driverless cars have designed limited field, flicky cameras. I imagine they’re developing cameras which constantly monitor everything that’s happening 360° around the car at all times. A camera like this won’t miss anything, and won’t be looking in the wrong direction at the wrong time. It is, for want of a better expression, an all seeing eye.
The All Seeing Eye
So, obviously, we’re biologically limited and we’re not going to evolve 360° HD eyes any time soon, so how do we make the best of what we’ve got? How do we train ourselves to use our eyes as though they are 360° HD cameras? It’s not as difficult as you might think.
Firstly, when you’re looking along the road, you should try to develop a system for where to look. My system is:
Far Distance
Middle Distance
Near Distance
Sides
Rear
So let’s go through each of those in turn and see how it works.
Far Distance I start by looking as far ahead as it’s possible to see. On some roads, this can be right up to the horizon, and on others your view will be more limited – perhaps a few hundred yards at most. Starting in the far distance allows you to build a mental picture of where the road is going and what hazards you’re likely to encounter further down the road.
Middle Distance I hesitate to set an actual distance on this – the middle distance can vary as much as the far distance can, but in practice, it’s usually halfway between you and the far distance. Looking into the middle distance allows you to see and plan for hazards which you’ll encounter next. In other words, you’ll be looking at the hazards you’ll be dealing with after the one you’re currently dealing with.
Near Distance This is the stuff immediately in front of you – the stuff you’re actually driving round or through at the present time. The cyclist you’re passing, the corner you’re driving round, the roundabout you’re on or the pedestrian crossing you’re stopping at.
Sides Without teaching you to suck eggs too much, this is the stuff that’s happening either side of you, alongside you, in your “blind” spots, and over your shoulders. If you’re keeping good observations, things alongside you shouldn’t take you by surprise.
Rear Centre mirror, side mirrors and occasional shoulder checks should allow you to keep a good, clear picture of everything that’s going on behind you, but I don’t just mean the occasional glance behind – you need to employ a similar technique to when you’re looking forwards – a mirror check should start in the far distance, then move to the middle and near distances.
Scanning When you’re practising this “all seeing eye” technique, try to combine it with another technique, referred to as scanning. Scanning is a continual visual “sweep”, whereby you continually move your eyes around, picking out potentially hazardous situations which might cause you problems as you approach them. Let’s use a line of parked cars as an example:
Start by looking in the far distance to see if there are any cars approaching from the opposite direction which you might need to give priority to.
Then look along the line of parked cars to see if any have brake lights on, doors closing/opening, indicators or any other little clues that cars might be moving off or doors opening into your path.
As you pass the parked cars, keep a look out for movements of feet underneath the cars you’re passing which might be someone about to cross the road.
Check to the sides for cyclists or other hazards, and check your mirrors for vehicles approaching from behind.
Use the same approach at junctions – don’t just take a quick glance left and right – a quick glance will not allow you to take in enough detail. Instead, use the all seeing eye approach, take a second longer to look far, mid and near distance. A slightly longer scan will allow you to better assess the speed of approaching vehicles and you’ll be far less likely to miss more vulnerable road users such as cyclists or motorcyclists.
Your eyes should never be still when you’re driving – if you stare at something for too long, you’ll exclude all the other hazards from your driving plans and you’re far more likely to miss something important and make a mistake which could lead to an accident.
Other Drivers
Improving your own observation skills is all well and good, but what about everyone else? 44% of them aren’t looking properly, so even if you’re doing everything right, how do you protect yourself from all the other blind idiots out there?
Start by assuming that no-one has seen you. If you keep at the back of your mind, the possibility that any of the other road users out there may pull out on you. Swerve into your lane or step out in front of you, then you’ll always have a plan in mind to help you avoid an accident.
When you see another vehicle waiting in a junction, check to see whether the driver has looked in your direction. At the same time, keep an eye out for whether their wheels are stationary or moving, and whether their brake lights (if they’re visible) are on or off, or – even worse – have just gone off.
If you spot a car waiting in a junction and the driver isn’t looking in your direction, the brake lights go off and the wheels start to turn, there’s a better-than-good chance that they’re about to pull out in front of you, so lift off the accelerator, move towards the centre line and be ready to brake.
And consider sounding your horn.
Horn use isn’t always appropriate – if you blast your horn after someone has already pulled out, for instance, there’s a chance they may panic and stop right in your path and make a bad situation worse.
If, however, you’re picking up clues that a car might pull into your path because the driver hasn’t seen you, then a horn warning can be a good idea. Give a short blast on the horn and look for a reaction from the driver. They may hit the brakes, look in your direction or flick you a middle finger. It doesn’t really matter – all that matters is that they have seen you and you’ve prevented them from pulling out by getting their attention.
Horns are extremely misused these days, but this is an example of how to use one correctly.
So there you go – concentrate, learn how to look and assume no-one has seen you. Easy!
Don’t be one of the 44%!
44% of all road accidents are caused by drivers not looking properly.
How can this be possible? How can almost half of drivers who crash not be looking properly? Looking is surely the one thing we should all be doing all the time when we’re driving?
You’d like to think so, wouldn’t you? But of course, life is never that simple, so here are my tips for avoiding being involved in an accident due to someone simply not looking properly.
Firstly, CONCENTRATE. Can you remember how much you had to concentrate when you first started driving? The simple actions involved in pressing the brake, turning the steering wheel and moving the gearlever took up pretty much all of your mental capacity. In fact, whilst you were concentrating on operating the controls, your instructor was watching the traffic and looking out for hazards on the road on your behalf.
But, with practice and experience, you probably found that you had to think less and less about controlling the car – setting off, changing gear and steering became almost second nature and you could almost carry out those simple actions without thinking about them at all. For a learner, this is the point where they can start to really concentrate on what’s happening outside the car – where to look, how to approach hazards, how fast (or slow) to drive, what’s next…
As drivers develop, pass their test and gain experience, that “second nature” mentality starts to creep into every aspect of their driving. As well as giving less and less thought to operating the car’s controls, they give less and less thought to how they approach junctions, vehicles and other hazards.
Driving becomes “routine” – something we do without giving it too much thought, much like many other things that we’ve done a thousand times before. Making a cup of tea, having a shower, vacuuming the carpet, sending a text – these are all actions that at one time or another we’ve had to learn and concentrate on, but over time we’ve become able to do them almost automatically without thinking.
Have you ever driven to work, or to the supermarket, or to somewhere else you drive to regularly and had absolutely no recollection of the journey? Did you drive through a red light? Did you cut someone up in traffic? Can you remember if you locked your car? It’s very common to forget the details of journeys if you’re not concentrating on your driving.
The reason you can’t remember your journey is that you’re thinking about other things – what have you got on at work today? What shopping do you need? What shall we have for tea? You’re thinking about other things all the time, because driving doesn’t really take up much of your mental capacity
The difference between making tea or having a shower and driving a car is that showering and tea making don’t involve moving a ton and a half of metal at speed along a road populated by idiots in other lumps of metal also travelling at speed with cyclists, child pedestrians, animals and tractors thrown into the mix.
There are far more risks involved in driving than almost all our other daily tasks combined, but because we generally arrive at our destinations unscathed and undamaged, we don’t consider those risks and we habitually lose concentration when driving.
So how do you improve your concentration?
Firstly, remember what you’re doing. Don’t let your mind wander too far from the fact that you’re driving a car at speed in a potentially very dangerous environment. I know you might have had a bad day at work, your partner is mad with you, the kids are screaming on the back seat, you’re worried about an unexpected bill, you’re wondering what to wear tonight and your dog’s been taken ill, but it’s important to set these things aside when you get into the drivers seat.
Try this – if you’ve got a thousand things going on in your head, instead of getting in to the car, putting your seatbelt on, sticking the key in the ignition and going for first gear, try just getting into the car, shutting the door and sitting there for a few seconds – no more than 5 or 10 seconds is enough. Take that time to gather your thoughts, set your other issues aside and remind yourself you’re about to drive a car and it’ll need your full attention.
Be curious and use your imagination. Look at every junction or hazard and imagine what might go wrong. Could a car pull out on you? Might a child run out from behind those parked cars? Could that wobbly cyclist fall off in front of you? If you start to imagine what might happen, your predictions will sometimes come true! The car will pull out, the child will run out and the wobbly cyclist will fall off. Instead of being surprised by these things going wrong, if you’ve imagined them happening, you’ll be prepared and you’ll be much less likely to have an accident.
Tied in with using your imagination is the skill of making driving plans. Once you’ve started imagining what might happen, you can build on this skill by planning what you should do if those things happen. So, if that car does pull out in front of you, you’ll brake and steer round it. If a child does run out from behind the parked cars, you’ll brake and avoid them. If the wobbly cyclist does fall off, you’ll avoid hitting them (once you’ve stopped laughing, of course).
Using your imagination and making driving plans will hugely improve your ability to maintain a good level of concentration even on your most mundane, everyday journeys.
On longer journeys, it’s easy to let your concentration slip, particularly if you’re travelling for several hours on motorways, which can be quite monotonous. Take regular breaks, keep hydrated, make sure you eat regularly so that your blood sugar doesn’t drop too low and have a rest, preferably away from the car, if you start feeling tired.
How do you look?
No, I don’t mean how does your hair look? Or do those shoes go with that skirt? Or does your bum look big?
I mean, how do you look down the road and around you when you’re driving? It sounds like a pretty stupid question to start with (I look down the road – what else is there to say?), but there’s actually a lot more to it than you might think.
Firstly, you need to understand that your eyes work in a specific way – and it’s not a way which is always well suited to driving a car or riding a motorbike. As you read this post, you’re looking straight ahead at the screen, and you also have a wide field of view of everything else around you – you may be looking at the screen, but you can also see the rest of the room, or the other people on the train, or the beach and the sea (lucky sod!) to the left and right, above and below the screen you’re actually looking at. This is commonly referred to as your peripheral vision.
But peripheral vision isn’t really as good as you might think it is. Try this little exercise - keep looking at this paragraph and reading these words, and at the same time, try to pick out some detail of your surrounding area without taking your eyes off the words.
Try to pick out what that movement is through the window, or what the passenger next to you is wearing, or how many people are swimming in the sea (lucky sod!). It’s not possible to make out that level of detail in your peripheral vision.
You might be able to make out some movement, or some basic colours or shapes, but if you’re not looking directly at something, your peripheral vision only really gives a visual “frame” to the detail that you’re looking directly at.
Let’s move that little exercise on a little and make it more focussed. Keep looking at these words, but try to read the words in the paragraph below, without taking your eyes off these words. It’s still not possible is it? You can make out words and spaces and paragraphs, but you can’t actually read the words, can you?
Now try it with the line below. Look at the words on this line, but try to read the line directly below. Now it’s just about getting possible to make out letters and words, but it’s still not easy to read in this way – let’s face it, you need to be looking directly at the words to be able to read them properly. But how small are the words? Compared with your field of vision, they’re tiny, so although we feel like we’ve got a nice, wide field of vision, we can only actually look at detail in a very narrow area right in the centre of our field of vision. Right where we’re actually looking at the time, in fact.
Over millions of years, our bodies have developed strategies to deal with this limitation in our vision. Try this little exercise – sit opposite a friend (it’s better with a friend, as strangers give you a funny look if you ask them to do it), and ask them to stare at your right eye and then your left eye, and then keep switching between your left and right eye every second or so. Watch their eyes as they look from left to right – they flick, very quickly in an almost insect-like manner.
Then try the same exercise, but this time with yourself in the mirror. You’ll look from eye to eye, but you won’t notice the flicking motion at all – our brains have evolved to ignore the blur when your eyes are moving, and focus only when your eyes are stationary, in between the “flicks”. Even if you try to look smoothly from left to right in a long arc, your eyes are actually flicking and stopping, flicking and stopping constantly, but because your brain ignores the flicking, it’ll look to you as though you’re just smoothly moving your eyes from left to right in one movement.
So, we can only focus on detail in a very small part of our field of vision, but our eyes compensate by flicking about at high speed and allowing us to focus in detail on lots of things in a short space of time. If you were going to design eyes from scratch for driving, they wouldn’t be like that, would they? I can’t imagine Google or Tesla or whoever else is developing driverless cars have designed limited field, flicky cameras. I imagine they’re developing cameras which constantly monitor everything that’s happening 360° around the car at all times. A camera like this won’t miss anything, and won’t be looking in the wrong direction at the wrong time. It is, for want of a better expression, an all seeing eye.
The All Seeing Eye
So, obviously, we’re biologically limited and we’re not going to evolve 360° HD eyes any time soon, so how do we make the best of what we’ve got? How do we train ourselves to use our eyes as though they are 360° HD cameras? It’s not as difficult as you might think.
Firstly, when you’re looking along the road, you should try to develop a system for where to look. My system is:
Far Distance
Middle Distance
Near Distance
Sides
Rear
So let’s go through each of those in turn and see how it works.
Far Distance I start by looking as far ahead as it’s possible to see. On some roads, this can be right up to the horizon, and on others your view will be more limited – perhaps a few hundred yards at most. Starting in the far distance allows you to build a mental picture of where the road is going and what hazards you’re likely to encounter further down the road.
Middle Distance I hesitate to set an actual distance on this – the middle distance can vary as much as the far distance can, but in practice, it’s usually halfway between you and the far distance. Looking into the middle distance allows you to see and plan for hazards which you’ll encounter next. In other words, you’ll be looking at the hazards you’ll be dealing with after the one you’re currently dealing with.
Near Distance This is the stuff immediately in front of you – the stuff you’re actually driving round or through at the present time. The cyclist you’re passing, the corner you’re driving round, the roundabout you’re on or the pedestrian crossing you’re stopping at.
Sides Without teaching you to suck eggs too much, this is the stuff that’s happening either side of you, alongside you, in your “blind” spots, and over your shoulders. If you’re keeping good observations, things alongside you shouldn’t take you by surprise.
Rear Centre mirror, side mirrors and occasional shoulder checks should allow you to keep a good, clear picture of everything that’s going on behind you, but I don’t just mean the occasional glance behind – you need to employ a similar technique to when you’re looking forwards – a mirror check should start in the far distance, then move to the middle and near distances.
Scanning When you’re practising this “all seeing eye” technique, try to combine it with another technique, referred to as scanning. Scanning is a continual visual “sweep”, whereby you continually move your eyes around, picking out potentially hazardous situations which might cause you problems as you approach them. Let’s use a line of parked cars as an example:
Start by looking in the far distance to see if there are any cars approaching from the opposite direction which you might need to give priority to.
Then look along the line of parked cars to see if any have brake lights on, doors closing/opening, indicators or any other little clues that cars might be moving off or doors opening into your path.
As you pass the parked cars, keep a look out for movements of feet underneath the cars you’re passing which might be someone about to cross the road.
Check to the sides for cyclists or other hazards, and check your mirrors for vehicles approaching from behind.
Use the same approach at junctions – don’t just take a quick glance left and right – a quick glance will not allow you to take in enough detail. Instead, use the all seeing eye approach, take a second longer to look far, mid and near distance. A slightly longer scan will allow you to better assess the speed of approaching vehicles and you’ll be far less likely to miss more vulnerable road users such as cyclists or motorcyclists.
Your eyes should never be still when you’re driving – if you stare at something for too long, you’ll exclude all the other hazards from your driving plans and you’re far more likely to miss something important and make a mistake which could lead to an accident.
Other Drivers
Improving your own observation skills is all well and good, but what about everyone else? 44% of them aren’t looking properly, so even if you’re doing everything right, how do you protect yourself from all the other blind idiots out there?
Start by assuming that no-one has seen you. If you keep at the back of your mind, the possibility that any of the other road users out there may pull out on you. Swerve into your lane or step out in front of you, then you’ll always have a plan in mind to help you avoid an accident.
When you see another vehicle waiting in a junction, check to see whether the driver has looked in your direction. At the same time, keep an eye out for whether their wheels are stationary or moving, and whether their brake lights (if they’re visible) are on or off, or – even worse – have just gone off.
If you spot a car waiting in a junction and the driver isn’t looking in your direction, the brake lights go off and the wheels start to turn, there’s a better-than-good chance that they’re about to pull out in front of you, so lift off the accelerator, move towards the centre line and be ready to brake.
And consider sounding your horn.
Horn use isn’t always appropriate – if you blast your horn after someone has already pulled out, for instance, there’s a chance they may panic and stop right in your path and make a bad situation worse.
If, however, you’re picking up clues that a car might pull into your path because the driver hasn’t seen you, then a horn warning can be a good idea. Give a short blast on the horn and look for a reaction from the driver. They may hit the brakes, look in your direction or flick you a middle finger. It doesn’t really matter – all that matters is that they have seen you and you’ve prevented them from pulling out by getting their attention.
Horns are extremely misused these days, but this is an example of how to use one correctly.
So there you go – concentrate, learn how to look and assume no-one has seen you. Easy!
Don’t be one of the 44%!
Edited by Reg Local on Monday 25th April 17:33
A great post Reg, and a topic I'd thought about asking for your comment.
I'm in the wonderful situation of assisting someone in learning how to drive. Unfortunately this person hasn't clicked with the sub-conscious/automatic car control yet.
But this afternoon whilst driving around a local housing estate, one with incredibly poor vision left and right on approach to some junctions and also wide open fields of view approaching others I asked a question.
"Why on the approach to this junction did you not look out of the left and right door windows to asses any hazards?"
The reply "I was trying to concentrate stopping on the line..."
Yesterday we got stranded in a yellow box grid junction attempting to turn right. Having stopped before the box I advised you can drive into the yellow box if you are wanting to turn right.
An attempt to move forward into the box resulted in a stall. Panic set in. This time I didn't repeat the mantra of 'handbrake, neutral, start the car' and left the person to deal with it in their own head.
The car was restarted, (without the handbrake - yes I know it is not mandatory). Then the hand went to the ignition key and the car was started again - they sound of the starter engaging with the all ready running engine set my teeth on edge.
Then another stall, a restart, another stall, finally I said 'handbrake neutral, start the car...'. After which the hand went back to the key, turned the engine off, car into first gear, handbrake off, lift the clutch and utter confusion as to why the car didn't move forwards.
Thoughts?
I'm in the wonderful situation of assisting someone in learning how to drive. Unfortunately this person hasn't clicked with the sub-conscious/automatic car control yet.
But this afternoon whilst driving around a local housing estate, one with incredibly poor vision left and right on approach to some junctions and also wide open fields of view approaching others I asked a question.
"Why on the approach to this junction did you not look out of the left and right door windows to asses any hazards?"
The reply "I was trying to concentrate stopping on the line..."
Yesterday we got stranded in a yellow box grid junction attempting to turn right. Having stopped before the box I advised you can drive into the yellow box if you are wanting to turn right.
An attempt to move forward into the box resulted in a stall. Panic set in. This time I didn't repeat the mantra of 'handbrake, neutral, start the car' and left the person to deal with it in their own head.
The car was restarted, (without the handbrake - yes I know it is not mandatory). Then the hand went to the ignition key and the car was started again - they sound of the starter engaging with the all ready running engine set my teeth on edge.
Then another stall, a restart, another stall, finally I said 'handbrake neutral, start the car...'. After which the hand went back to the key, turned the engine off, car into first gear, handbrake off, lift the clutch and utter confusion as to why the car didn't move forwards.
Thoughts?
It sounds very much to me as though your student isn't ready to be left "on their own" yet.
Have a read of this old thread - particularly the section on the four stages of competence:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Your student sounds as though they are still pretty much at stage 1 (unconscious incompetence) and are only just starting to move a little towards stage 2 (conscious incompetence).
It's your job as an instructor/supervisor to get to know your student and to give them clear and straightforward instructions in plenty of time for pretty much every action they need to carry out at this stage, whilst also keeping an eye on all the other hazards & traffic.
Or as I put it to my students "I'll be doing all the driving for now. You'll be sitting in the driving seat, pressing the pedals and turning the wheel, but I'll actually be doing all the driving until you start to get the hang of it".
As their experience grows, the amount of thought required to simply move the car along the road will decrease, and they will slowly start to develop some "spare capacity" which they can apply to traffic, hazards and planning. For now though, you'll have to provide the spare capacity whilst they get the hang of the controls.
As their experience increases, look for the positives - when they get a junction right, or move off without stalling, remind them next time they're in a similar situation - "remember what you did last time? Do it the same this time."
They'll get there in the end. But you'll have to do most of the thinking for the time being.
Have a read of this old thread - particularly the section on the four stages of competence:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Your student sounds as though they are still pretty much at stage 1 (unconscious incompetence) and are only just starting to move a little towards stage 2 (conscious incompetence).
It's your job as an instructor/supervisor to get to know your student and to give them clear and straightforward instructions in plenty of time for pretty much every action they need to carry out at this stage, whilst also keeping an eye on all the other hazards & traffic.
Or as I put it to my students "I'll be doing all the driving for now. You'll be sitting in the driving seat, pressing the pedals and turning the wheel, but I'll actually be doing all the driving until you start to get the hang of it".
As their experience grows, the amount of thought required to simply move the car along the road will decrease, and they will slowly start to develop some "spare capacity" which they can apply to traffic, hazards and planning. For now though, you'll have to provide the spare capacity whilst they get the hang of the controls.
As their experience increases, look for the positives - when they get a junction right, or move off without stalling, remind them next time they're in a similar situation - "remember what you did last time? Do it the same this time."
They'll get there in the end. But you'll have to do most of the thinking for the time being.
Great post Reg, thanks. I just recently grabbed a copy of your latest book and am looking forward to reading it. I remember reading an article about the effects of human vision on driving (especially the problem with 'saccades'). The article was written by an RAF pilot and gives some tips to work around these literal gaps in your vision while driving. As you say, the brain fills in these gaps so we don't notice them, but they're real and they are there. Saccades provide the places all those motorbikes and cyclists hide as you emerge from a junction before saying 'Sorry, I didn't see you'...
If anyone is interested in reading the pilot's explanation and tips on working around it, you can read the article here.
As a related aside, I had that same observer at RoSPA again yesterday. On passing a junction on the motorway, I moaned it was something of a waste of resources to have what turned out to be a mobile speed camera van and four traffic cars on the gantry of an empty M58, at 10am on Sunday morning. There were only three other cars on the road besides us (and one unfortunate soul pulled over with a trafpol on the hard shoulder) and there were certainly no kittens in sight. The observer got all adenoidal and preachy, and said with so many people killed by speeding there should be more enforcement for any infraction of the limit and he fully supported them.
Recalling our conversation and the stats in your book,I asked him what percentage of KSIs he imagined involved drink/drugs, mobiles or excess speed as contributory factors. His response was a predictable 70 to 80%... He stopped trying to tell me throwing money at cameras was a safety issue once he heard the real figures. At least you helped liven up an otherwise mundane drive out...
My point being, if more people understood the real causes of most accidents they might be more motivated to help prevent them. After all, as much as we moan about 'average drivers' I doubt many drivers would actively wish to be involved in a serious accident if they could help it. Hopefully your book takes off and word gets around, because if education and driver improvement increased we wouldn't have so many people needlessly focused on punitively enforcing arbitrary limits. I personally dislike the current police emphasis on the 'fatal four'... driver error is never listed as one of them.
If anyone is interested in reading the pilot's explanation and tips on working around it, you can read the article here.
As a related aside, I had that same observer at RoSPA again yesterday. On passing a junction on the motorway, I moaned it was something of a waste of resources to have what turned out to be a mobile speed camera van and four traffic cars on the gantry of an empty M58, at 10am on Sunday morning. There were only three other cars on the road besides us (and one unfortunate soul pulled over with a trafpol on the hard shoulder) and there were certainly no kittens in sight. The observer got all adenoidal and preachy, and said with so many people killed by speeding there should be more enforcement for any infraction of the limit and he fully supported them.
Recalling our conversation and the stats in your book,I asked him what percentage of KSIs he imagined involved drink/drugs, mobiles or excess speed as contributory factors. His response was a predictable 70 to 80%... He stopped trying to tell me throwing money at cameras was a safety issue once he heard the real figures. At least you helped liven up an otherwise mundane drive out...
My point being, if more people understood the real causes of most accidents they might be more motivated to help prevent them. After all, as much as we moan about 'average drivers' I doubt many drivers would actively wish to be involved in a serious accident if they could help it. Hopefully your book takes off and word gets around, because if education and driver improvement increased we wouldn't have so many people needlessly focused on punitively enforcing arbitrary limits. I personally dislike the current police emphasis on the 'fatal four'... driver error is never listed as one of them.I must admit I have to work quite hard to keep concentration levels up now. I find myself just going with the flow and sticking to speed limits, this means things happen so slowly it becomes easy to rely on auto pilot mode. So far it has not lead to a near miss or even having to brake hard I just find myself being a bit untidy or noticing something after it has happened. On the up side it does help me stay calmer when the car I'm following comes to an unnecessary stop at a roundabout again.
I used to play the game of working out what the driver in front was going to do before they even looked in the mirror or indicated, assuming either are done, but even that gets boring eventually. On motorways you can see how many cars and how far ahead you can predict movements correctly so they are not too bad for staying awake.
I used to play the game of working out what the driver in front was going to do before they even looked in the mirror or indicated, assuming either are done, but even that gets boring eventually. On motorways you can see how many cars and how far ahead you can predict movements correctly so they are not too bad for staying awake.
Reg Local said:
They'll get there in the end. But you'll have to do most of the thinking for the time being.
Excellent points Reg and thanks for the link.Recently I'd been trying to reduce my commentary to a minimum, looks like I may have been going in the wrong direction.
The individual concerned seems to have good and bad days and quite often seems to get into stage three, but then if something untoward happens jumps straight back to stage one and stays there struggling to get back to stage three.
We're trying the little and often approach at the moment so a daily 20-30 min drive rather than two hour long drives/week.
I'll keep at it, thanks for the help!
rainmakerraw said:
If anyone is interested in reading the pilot's explanation and tips on working around it, you can read the article here.
That's a nice article.I really liked the "Move your head – or you’re dead" statement.
It was something I discovered (nearly) the hard/expensive way about eight or nine years ago, and I remember it quite vividly.
I was driving up to Sligo to follow the WRC in a Toyota Landcruiser. (big A pillars)
I was approaching a junction joining my minor road onto a main road. Visibility out of these cars is so good because you are sat so high, I had a good view of the traffic on the main road in both directions and knew I'd have to stop.
I observed:
Plenty of traffic passing in both directions.
Another minor road meeting the major road from the other side, but offset to my right.
The opposite minor road was clear and empty.
Eventually the main road traffic cleared and I was safe to pull out.
Then WTJF a car appeared in front of me. There was no emergency stop, no panic, I just let him turn in front of me. In fact to an observer it was probably a non event.
To me however it was a big wake up call that my observation in that situation under those circumstances was woefully lacking.
The A pillar had completely obscured that junction on the other side and I
Now I'm no bobblehead, but ever since that day I shift my head to look around the A pillars at junctions - it might only be a few inches forward or back or side to side, but I do it, and I've been pleasantly surprised a couple of times that it has enabled me to avoid a hazard.
Impressed myself today (no one else in the car to impress sadly so here I am), elderly couple in an older car in front seemed quite uncertain where they were going with random slowing down and indication but not turning and I guessed they might be going to a funeral and turn off at the crematorium 3 miles away, sure enough they did, cool story bro etc.
I've been trying commentary (only when I'm alone in the car) lately and it's helped me with concentration quite well. For one, I know that if I shut up then I am clearly not concentrating enough as there's usually something I could be talking about (even just checking mirrors or noting mud on the road or something)... and I haven't had any "memory blanks" from journeys.
charltjr said:
I can't help thinking how much safer the roads would be if this was taught as part of learning to drive. Embed the behaviour early and you're half way there.
I think I was lucky to have an instructor who went above and beyond the pure mechanics and rules of driving.
I'm sure most do try I know I do. I think I was lucky to have an instructor who went above and beyond the pure mechanics and rules of driving.
It would certainly be possible if learners had to complete a minimum compulsory amount of paid tuition (say 35 hours) with an ADI. This way most learners would have got to a high enough standard where they'd easily remember such techniques and wouldn't need to be prompted or questioned on what to do or look for when the situation arises.
Sadly not everyone can be natural drivers and some really struggle (even steering) so it gets expensive for them and all they care about is passing a test. Which once they eventually do some don't care about what they've been taught anymore and do what they want. It's a sad mix of skills and attitude.
In the 18+ months I've been an ADI I've only had 3 students do pass plus with me out of dozens of passes. People don't want to spend the money on advanced driving as they don't have to.
WJNB said:
Crikey how I hate being on the road in the company of the sort of person who writes books & pontificates about how to drive well. Most become self-policing driving in such an exaggerated overly-careful tentative way as if lecturing us.
Brilliant. You might want to give a thought to us people that are trying our best to teach people who cannot drive very well (if at all) and get them to a stage where you might accept them to be on the road.I'll lay you a wager right now that if yourself and myself took a commentated observed drive with Reg I'd 100% wipe the floor with your score.
If you don't like the company here - the door is that way --->
That door has got "f
k off" written all over it with your name currently top of the list.
WJNB said:
Crikey how I hate being on the road in the company of the sort of person who writes books & pontificates about how to drive well. Most become self-policing driving in such an exaggerated overly-careful tentative way as if lecturing us.
Possibly the stupidest thing I've ever read on PH, and that's with substantial competition. Well done you!Dr Mike Oxgreen said:
WJNB said:
Crikey how I hate being on the road in the company of the sort of person who writes books & pontificates about how to drive well. Most become self-policing driving in such an exaggerated overly-careful tentative way as if lecturing us.
Possibly the stupidest thing I've ever read on PH, and that's with substantial competition. Well done you!Even idiots.
WJNB said:
Crikey how I hate being on the road in the company of the sort of person who writes books & pontificates about how to drive well. Most become self-policing driving in such an exaggerated overly-careful tentative way as if lecturing us.
Having spent the afternoon yesterday with Reg, with him observing my driving, I feel a damned sight better and confident about my driving after some constructive criticism from him. He doesn't pontificate, he uses his countless years of experience of advanced driving and situational driving to try and improve a persons skills.Theres a couple of changes that were mentioned yesterday that have definitely wormed their way into my head, and theres more I can learn.
WJNB said:
Crikey how I hate being on the road in the company of the sort of person who writes books & pontificates about how to drive well. Most become self-policing driving in such an exaggerated overly-careful tentative way as if lecturing us.
I thought this might be a trolling post but perhaps not... I don't know Reg but I have read enough of his stuff/watched his videos to know that he is the sort of person who writes books about how to drive well and knows how to drive well. I also can be pretty certain that he doesn't drive in the way you are suggesting he might. If you want to be surprised, look up John Lyon and ask him to take you on an advanced driving "lesson" through Lincolnshire in a quick car. Mention that you think he is the sort of tosspot old driver that you assume he must be given his similar credentials and I expect all you will be pontificating about is how not to soil your trousers.
You sir, are an ignoramus.
Interesting read, thanks for this.
This bit sparked something with me.
I drove some colleges about 20 miles the other day and I was doing this as usual without giving it a second thought, and both passengers commented that this constituted very "aggressive and angry" driving as I was ready to beep at everyone on the road!
This bit sparked something with me.
reg said:
When you see another vehicle waiting in a junction, check to see whether the driver has looked in your direction. At the same time, keep an eye out for whether their wheels are stationary or moving, and whether their brake lights (if they’re visible) are on or off, or – even worse – have just gone off.
If you spot a car waiting in a junction and the driver isn’t looking in your direction, the brake lights go off and the wheels start to turn, there’s a better-than-good chance that they’re about to pull out in front of you, so lift off the accelerator, move towards the centre line and be ready to brake.
And consider sounding your horn.
Horn use isn’t always appropriate – if you blast your horn after someone has already pulled out, for instance, there’s a chance they may panic and stop right in your path and make a bad situation worse.
If, however, you’re picking up clues that a car might pull into your path because the driver hasn’t seen you, then a horn warning can be a good idea. Give a short blast on the horn and look for a reaction from the driver. They may hit the brakes, look in your direction or flick you a middle finger. It doesn’t really matter – all that matters is that they have seen you and you’ve prevented them from pulling out by getting their attention.
Horns are extremely misused these days, but this is an example of how to use one correctly.
I do this habitually if there is anyone in a junction that I am approaching, particularly on the near side, and I will have my hand "covering" the horn as I approach.If you spot a car waiting in a junction and the driver isn’t looking in your direction, the brake lights go off and the wheels start to turn, there’s a better-than-good chance that they’re about to pull out in front of you, so lift off the accelerator, move towards the centre line and be ready to brake.
And consider sounding your horn.
Horn use isn’t always appropriate – if you blast your horn after someone has already pulled out, for instance, there’s a chance they may panic and stop right in your path and make a bad situation worse.
If, however, you’re picking up clues that a car might pull into your path because the driver hasn’t seen you, then a horn warning can be a good idea. Give a short blast on the horn and look for a reaction from the driver. They may hit the brakes, look in your direction or flick you a middle finger. It doesn’t really matter – all that matters is that they have seen you and you’ve prevented them from pulling out by getting their attention.
Horns are extremely misused these days, but this is an example of how to use one correctly.
I drove some colleges about 20 miles the other day and I was doing this as usual without giving it a second thought, and both passengers commented that this constituted very "aggressive and angry" driving as I was ready to beep at everyone on the road!
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