Yup. Totally get what you mean. Good question.
"Where does the road ahead go?" You'll probably know if it's relevant.
It's not the doing of long-range forecasting, it's the making relevant sense of it that I have difficulty with. I get the theory but can't often get it to work but that's theories for ya
Long range forward observation (or any other observation for that matter) is only ever going to be of any use if the information gained from it
is used to form a plan or several 'what if' plans and they are
acted upon. I find my style of planning to be more immediate but not to the point of having to react, so my drives are often very comfortable for all concerned with very few minor adjustments (some folk approach junctions too fast). Greater distances of planning may be of use at high speed and with blue flashing lights but at 29.9mph, how far ahead do you need to know anything about...and if you did,
unless distracted, you'd know about it without having to make a concerted effort. If distracted, what
was going on further up the road when you observed it, is not what you will be thinking about. But I get the theory, just don't find it works for me.
>/begin soothsayer mode
Sooner or later, there will be no option but to follow lanes and signs as if on a tracks and we won't have the chance to express ourselves as we now do.
>/end soothsayer mode
Very often what I find myself doing, is (practicing it more and more by the way because it's the done thing) noticing loads of stuff waaaayyy ahead and by the time I have scanned back to more imminent and evidently far more important information (emergencies excepted) which is likely to affect the next few seconds, what I
saw going on way up ahead (unless is of catastrophic proportions) means absolutely nothing. Perhaps a chat with a Traffic cop would help as they tend to ask searching questions about previous driving events and I may surprise myself with what I saw.
For what it's worth, I still don't look in my mirrors whenever I turn into a new road (urban) because that's exactly where people will be short cutting their crossing instead of walking a bit further before squaring the corner. If i'm not looking for them because i'm looking backwards, i'm guilty of not paying due care or attention. That, to my mind, is safe. "Okay so new road, Mirr..."(BANG!) "I'm sorry i didn't see them because I was looking for nobody in my mirrors". Doesn't sound very safe to me.
So somewhere along or shortly after the seeing-judging-planning-memorising timeline, i'm not making anything useful out of the most distant information I gained. Reason being that it's not of any relevance. I feel justified in saying that. I can think of loads of examples of times where I have seen the road way ahead and by the time I get there, i'm dealing with it as if I only saw it as part of my more immediate 'plan A'. This is more to do with Short vs Long term memory and how it is often explained. Is this making sense? Am I explaining it right? That's one of the most common issues I have with Roadcrafting is that the book assumes I know nothing, when in almost 30 years of driving, I have proved to be a successfully safe driver and my system works for me.
I think what is most important to me, is what I take most notice of and the purpose of knowing where the road goes in half a mile. What's going on down there is way down the list of priorities if there's loads of other things going on more immediately. Yes forward planning and observation is important but for how far ahead is it relevant? I guess that depends on whether you're exiting a slip road onto a Motorway where you'll need to know in advance if the lanes ahead are clear enough to proceed onto. So the speed is relevant to this.
I recently went out for a drive as part of a Mercedes-benz marketing strategy. The guy was RoSPA/IAM/ADI and works as a driving instructor. Nice chap. At one point in the test drive and after we had chatted about IAM, RoSPA etc, he asked me what I was observing ahead. We were driving along a fairly quiet road, late evening so it was still light and there were not many people or cars moving around. The cars that were moving around had their lights on and people were easy to see because it's a wide and straight road. To give you some idea, from the Portslade/Hove end, it is possible to be at the beginning of Portland road looking East and due to the layout of the land (Brighton is in a shallow valley with a steep side to the East), to see the TV mast on top of the hill some five miles away in Kemptown ...on the other side of Brighton. So that is as
far as I could see but as it was not relevant, I didn't say so. However, what was relevant to me was not the multitude of traffic lights reaching off into the distance or even the roads that crossed Portland road half a mile away but the nearby pub, the zebra crossing, the side roads for a few hundred yards and how clear the road was for the next 1/4 mile or so and less. As for what was going on upto 1/4 mile behind me? That was of far less relevance and if there was something that needed to make it's presence felt, it would have done so and I would have been aware of it. I'm visually very observant, so have no issues with finding relevant information. What he said was important
to him was the furthest traffic light he could see, which was red and about a mile away. So why he thought that was more relevant than anything more immediate, we never got to the bottom of. It took us minutes to get there and the lights had changed a couple of times. I let it sink in and left it there incase I was being incredibly daft and just not getting something but it still came across as coming from a book. I know I have difficulties with receiving and following information immediately after it is given, as I have short term memory issues but once it's adapted to Long term memory, it sticks around for years.
So how far depends on what requires your attention and whether or not it's relevant. If it's a treeline or lamp post showing a bend, you'll know what to do.
Just thought i'd share that with you.
A wise man once told me that "it depends". I sometimes agree.