DRIVING SKILLS NUMBER TWO: Not Trusting Anybody

DRIVING SKILLS, NUMBER TWO:  Not Trusting Anybody.

At first glance, my suggesting that you don’t trust anyone sounds harsh and cold, almost as if I’m saying that you should shut everyone else out and live alone in a cabin in the woods with only a squirrel and a raccoon as friends. But that’s not what I’m saying at all: I’m saying that you should never give any driver, pedestrian, motorcyclist or bicyclist the gift of your 100% full trust, because inevitably, that decision will come back and bite you in the butt. Here is why.

Before we go deeper into this, let’s do some defining. What does it mean to trust? Well, in a basic sense, it means that you can let your guard down around someone because you know that the person won’t hurt you or cost you something. This is exactly the kind of behavior I want you to avoid in a car. Not trusting anyone means not letting your guard down around other drivers, pedestrians, or riders, even if they look like they are as safe and as harmless as a white bunny rabbit in a grassy field.

Let’s look at some examples. What is to be feared from this driver?

Nothing, right? This is your standard minivan, full of a husband, wife, and kids, going along harmlessly to whatever their day has planned. You look at this, and this is likely what you think of:

And honestly, who can blame you. Minivans look so innocent, so dull, so incapable of causing problems. We think of minivan, and we think of efficient, safe people mover. But let’s look a bit deeper. What if that minivan above looked like this in the back:

Or what if the driver, instead of being a sweet, innocent, devoted mom driving her careful bundles of joy around, actually drove like this:

If the minivan in the first picture actually looked like the last two pictures, could you trust that driver to be safe? Could you trust that driver to not be distracted with kids having light saber fights in the back and mom trying to drive, text, and eat an ice cream cone all at the same time? Of course you couldn’t. The chances of that lady in the pic above  rear-ending a car at a stop light, or side swiping a bunch of parked cars because she was focused on her phone is very high. But you can’t see any of this from the outside, so how do you know?

Am I saying that the lady above is most minivan drivers? Of course not. Most minivan drivers are safe, careful drivers. I used the example of a minivan because of its reputation for safety. But there are a lot of drivers like here. Not trusting anyone means that you don’t trust a minivan just because it’s a minivan and it has a reputation as a safe and harmless car. No car is harmless when it’s being driven like it is by the woman above.

Another time people put their trust on hold is with elderly drivers, after all, how can a person like this harm anyone?

But what about this driver?

Can you trust that the lady in the picture above can see where she is going, and can drive in such a way that you aren’t in danger? Will she be able to stop in time when a light turns red, or when a car pulls out into the street without looking? Will she be able to see when she needs to turn, and make that turn safely? I personally wouldn’t say yes to any of those questions.

Again, this example was not designed to bash on senior drivers. Most of them have a wealth of knowledge and experience behind the wheel and are the safest drivers on the road because of it. But just like with minivans, when someone sees a senior citizen driving, they rarely consider them a threat, and that is what I find dangerous. There have been many times where seniors have gotten into accidents because they hit the gas pedal when they meant to hit the brake, or they couldn’t see where they were going and ended up hitting other cars or driving into businesses or homes. The bottom line, don’t trust anyone or anything based on an assumption of safety. No one and nothing is trustworthy when you are driving. Everything you see on the road can hurt you.

But does not trusting anyone mean that you hate everyone or look at them as beneath you or not worth your time because you have to watch out for them? Absolutely not. This philosophy of not trusting is simply a way of thinking that allows you to be ready for anything, and not to fall for stereotypes. To wrap this up, let’s look at one more picture:

Here we have what is undoubtedly the safest and most worry-free situation one could encounter: a bunch of happy kids, walking along, getting ready to Trick or Treat. There can be no more trustworthy situation than this, right? Well, what if the kid in the black hat (I'm assuming that's a hat, anyways, the kid in the black headgear, rear right!) in the background sees his friend across the street and runs out into the street to go meet him? What if the little cowboy in the foreground has his plastic pumpkin kicked into the street, and he runs out into the street after it? What if the little cowgirl in the foreground is told something mean by Dracula in the background, and runs home crying, crossing the street in the process? Can you really trust these innocent kids to stay on the sidewalk while you drive past them?

Hopefully by using these three examples, you have gotten what I am trying to say about not trusting people. What trusting anyone boils down to is basically an assumption that they will do what you think they will do when you are around them. But people are human after all, and being as we are ruled by our emotions and our desire to get wherever we can, as quickly as we can, sometimes people don’t act logically. Not trusting anyone means that you don’t assume anything of anyone, and that you are ready for anything, from anyone. When you drive past that minivan, you don’t assume that it’s safe; you drive past ready to take action to avoid anything. When you come across that senior citizen behind the wheel, you don’t assume they are safe because they are driving too slowly to be a problem. You drive by, ready for anything they could do. As you pass pedestrians of all kinds, you don’t assume they will stay on the sidewalk, but you are ready in case someone runs out.

Being ready is the bottom line of this article. This was not written to bash any group that was mentioned here, or to say any group mentioned here are bad drivers or bad people. The goal of this article was to get you used to the mindset that no one can be trusted, and that as a driver, you need to be ready for anything when you are behind the wheel. Until next time…

DRIVING SKILLS NUMBER ONE: Focus and Vision

DRIVING SKILLS NUMBER ONE:  Focus and Vision

I’m starting a new series on driving skills, and I am going to begin at what my experience has shown me is the most vital part of driving well and driving well enough to survive any trip you’re on: vision. What does vision mean exactly? Well, the traditional definition of vision is simply seeing something, but I define it in terms that go much deeper. It means how you see the road, but it’s more than that. Vision includes not just seeing the road, but understanding it. It involves seeing potential road hazards or accidents, and driving in such a way as to avoid them. It involves knowing how to read the body language of cars and drivers (And yes, cars do have a body language, as you’ll soon see!), and predict what other drivers are going to do before they do it.

As an illustration, take the photo below:

How many potential trouble spots can you see right off the bat? Take a second and look at it.

You should be able to spot:

1.       The car beginning the left turn

2.       The bus

3.       The motorcycle

4.       The white car in the lane to the left of you.

5.       The fact that the light is green, and has been for a bit

6.       Pedestrians near the bus stop

All of these could be trouble spots. What if the car making the left turn slows or stops in the road for the car making the right turn, and causes the white car to swerve into your lane? What if the bus stays in the right lane and doesn’t move, forcing you to have to decide to either change lanes or stop? What if a passenger, who just left the bus, tries to run across the street? What if the light changes to red and you have to stop suddenly? What if the car making a right turn stalls, or has to stop in the lane because a pedestrian decides to walk across the street right at that moment? You might not think that these things are likely to happen, but they do, every day. The driver with vision notices these things, and while he or she might not have to take action because nothing happens (many times the scenarios that we just discussed above never come to pass) they are prepared to take action, which saves time in reaction that could lead to the difference between life and death.

So vision is just like the exercise we did with that picture. It is you, observing the world around your car, noticing and understanding everything, and seeing what could be trouble and what isn’t. Vision allows you to see things before they happen. If you have a car that wants to make a right or left turn from a side street into traffic, and they have stopped in such a way as to have the front of their car almost in traffic, you could assume that the driver is impatient, and might pull out at any time. If you see a driver constantly checking their mirrors while they are stopped, you might assume that will reverse or that a U –turn is coming. If you see a driver yelling at either kids or another adult in the car, you could assume that the driver is distracted, and you should beware of them. If you see someone eating, putting on makeup, shaving, or reading in the car (and yes, I’ve seen all of those happen more than once while someone was driving a car), you can assume distraction as well, and get far away from them.

So how do you acquire this vision? All you need to do to acquire good vision for driving is to unplug from all your distractions while driving, whether they be electronic, or human, and put most of your focus on driving. Having said that, I, like you, live in the real world. There are billboards, there are people blowing up your phone, there are chatty passengers who all seem determined to steal away your vision and focus from the road. I don't expect you to really be able to tune out everyone and everything. I get that you're human, and things can distract you. The trick is to remove those distractions before you start driving. That phone? Put the ringer on silent (not vibrate, silent) and put it in a bag or somewhere where you can't get to it from the driver's seat. That chatty passenger? Don't be afraid to ask them to be quiet while you are driving. You or they might think something like that is rude, but a little rudeness can be forgiven if the alternative is a nasty car accident because that passenger took your vision away. Those billboards or things on the street you see that catch your eye? Look at them quickly (we're talking a half a second, no more) then back to the road without looking back again. That gorgeous guy or girl walking, same thing. Quick glance, and back to the road. Distractions happen, as long as you don't focus on them, they won't be able to take your vision away from you.

While you are focused on driving, make sure you take in the whole world around you. Check your mirrors every five seconds, and put your focus primarily on any trouble spots. That doesn’t mean that you take action when you see a potential trouble spot (like a car that pulled out too far) but it does mean that you notice that, and are prepared to go into another lane or hit your brakes in case something happens. Having vision allows you to prepare to take action, and this can make all the difference between avoiding an accident, and not being able to. Think about it: When you aren't expecting something, like let's say a ball being thrown at you, how much longer does it take you to be able to catch it compared when you were ready for it? The difference is only seconds between being prepared and not being prepared, but when you think that, in a car going 60 miles per hour, you go 100 yards in a second, seconds count. That  is why vision is so important: it makes you prepared to take action if you need to.

So the vision equation goes something like this:

Attention + Understanding what you see + Preparing to act on what you see = Vision

Vision isn’t the only thing you need to drive safely. You also need focus. Focus is of course driving the car without distraction. It is putting your attention 100% on driving and operating the car. It is listening to the car to make sure there are no sounds that might indicate that the car is unsafe or that a problem might be starting, and being 100% present as you drive. That means no daydreams about what Aunt Martha’s Coconut Cream Pie is going to taste like as you are driving to a family dinner, or how you are going to do on that tough chemistry test  when you get to school. Focus is paying attention  as close to 100 percent to your driving, and by focusing and having solid vision, you will not only make sure that your trip is safe, but you will be able to give a very precious gift, the most precious gift you can give to any other driver out there: the gift of a safe driving experience because you are a driver with vision who focuses on driving and driving alone, and doesn’t let anything else distract them. Until next time….