Teach me to be a safe driver.

[WhoseGeneration]

Oh vonhosen, something I had wanted to ask you in the locked thread, do you see a difference, in terms of response to your now way of educating, between male and female candidates?

[vonhosen]

I will not exceed urban speed limits no matter how close you follow and I will stop on an amber light, you can roll your eyes, shake your head and sigh all you like. AD means observation of this and ensuring using signals to give information to the follower.
I will not, on a single carriageway A road, if you tailgate me, close up on the one in front, I will increase my following distance. Of course, the tailgater usually doesn't overtake me.
However, I will, when we then come to a roundabout with a 2 lane entry and you go offside, demonstrate OAP and use of gears to accelerate.
Then, there's the going slow in extreme weather, few understand that.

What do you see as the risks created from your behaviours in these situations?

[vonhosen]

Oh vonhosen, something I had wanted to ask you in the locked thread, do you see a difference, in terms of response to your now way of educating, between male and female candidates?

Not male/female specific no.

[WhoseGeneration]

I will not exceed urban speed limits no matter how close you follow and I will stop on an amber light, you can roll your eyes, shake your head and sigh all you like. AD means observation of this and ensuring using signals to give information to the follower.
I will not, on a single carriageway A road, if you tailgate me, close up on the one in front, I will increase my following distance. Of course, the tailgater usually doesn't overtake me.
However, I will, when we then come to a roundabout with a 2 lane entry and you go offside, demonstrate OAP and use of gears to accelerate.
Then, there's the going slow in extreme weather, few understand that.

What do you see as the risks created from your behaviours in these situations?

Much as you I suspect, managing the expectations of other drivers. Understand that, for many, the act of driving is secondary or lower in their concerns and you're most of the way there.
The multidrop delivery driver, the LGV driver with a traffic clerk asking when he's going to get to the drop, the tradesman wanting to get to the next job to earn a crust, the salesperson tasked with n calls a day, the mum doing the school run, then tea and off to whatever activity the kids want.
Driving is not seen, by most, as a discipline worthy of attention in its own right.

[trashbat]

WG, you talk about not being pressured by others on the road. What about your own internal state?

I'm not an expert in this by any means, but I can spot some of my own flaws, and I feel it's an interesting discussion.

As they happen, but before they manifest as relevant behaviours, can you identify undesirable attitudes in yourself? Examples:

• inattention (wrt observation & anticipation) through tiredness
  
• inattention through being preoccupied about something else
  
• 'helmet fire' - unable to fully deal with the task at hand, for whatever reason
  
• irritation, anger, spite; maybe looking to blame others
  
• disinterest or boredom
  
• impatience

Failing that, can you catch yourself doing something bad after these factors do manifest as behaviour? Examples:

• missing early observation/anticipation of something important
• neglecting something minor, e.g. indicator left on, forgot to switch off lights coming out of a forest
• loss of control
• poor decision making
• personalising other road users, e.g. "this doddery old fool is doing 40 in a 60"
• something where the risk balance was different to your normal acceptance, e.g. a rash overtake or close following
• finding yourself doing something badly that you normally care about doing well, e.g. smoothness, progress

Either way, having realised your temporary weaknesses, is there any mitigation you can take at that time? Examples:

• relaxing/backing off
• deliberately reducing exposure to risk, e.g. stop looking for every workable overtaking opportunity
• using the projected impact of something bad like a near miss, and inflating its significance into something you seriously want to avoid, e.g. written off car, your family losing you, someone else's death
• manipulating your physical environment, e.g. temperature, music/radio
• trying to influence other environmental factors, e.g. passenger behaviours like the conversation topic
• explicitly trying to do the opposite - e.g. personalising road users? -> treat them as machines
• trying to remap your behaviour by rationally comparing it to your long-held ideals of what a good driver looks like
• actively get distractions out of the way; if lost, stop and read a map; if late for an appointment, stop and ring up your contact
• specific mitigation techniques like commentary

All pseudo-psychology and navel gazing, but it's not hard to see how it can make you safer.

As I said in the other topic, which I thought was a very insightful thread, the aviation community is full of this stuff. There, however, risk and mitigation is thought of very differently, in everything from training to post-accident. Bluntly, crash a car and it's about blame; crash a plane (not necessarily literally) and it's about avoiding that happening again.

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

I did ask the mods (by PM) to see if they could split the relevant posts (just the coaching-related ones) off into a new thread so we could continue the discussion, but my message has vanished. If it got lost, can I repeat the request here? I know it's not a difficult task - if I had the access I would offer to do it myself ... they would paste themselves in in chronological order anyway so would appear at the top. Please?

[trashbat]

Then... ho ho ho... if the above was useful, you could even go another level down the rabbit hole and look at behaviours/attitudes/thinking that prevent you effectively using the above identification and correction process.

Examples:

• Rationalising your poor behaviours and glossing over the fact they compromise your beliefs
• Downplaying the significance of an actual, tangible error ("but Sir!")
• Downplaying the likely future significance of your behaviour
• "It's not me, it's him"
• Exaggerating the importance of your current crisis, or downplaying the benefits of mitigation, e.g. "I must get there on time, it's too late now to stop and ring up"
• Being temporarily uninterested in this process - again, you probably do care at heart

So, can you catch those attitudes? Rinse and repeat until you're a Zen master.

[vonhosen]

I will not exceed urban speed limits no matter how close you follow and I will stop on an amber light, you can roll your eyes, shake your head and sigh all you like. AD means observation of this and ensuring using signals to give information to the follower.
I will not, on a single carriageway A road, if you tailgate me, close up on the one in front, I will increase my following distance. Of course, the tailgater usually doesn't overtake me.
However, I will, when we then come to a roundabout with a 2 lane entry and you go offside, demonstrate OAP and use of gears to accelerate.
Then, there's the going slow in extreme weather, few understand that.

What do you see as the risks created from your behaviours in these situations?

Much as you I suspect, managing the expectations of other drivers. Understand that, for many, the act of driving is secondary or lower in their concerns and you're most of the way there.
The multidrop delivery driver, the LGV driver with a traffic clerk asking when he's going to get to the drop, the tradesman wanting to get to the next job to earn a crust, the salesperson tasked with n calls a day, the mum doing the school run, then tea and off to whatever activity the kids want.
Driving is not seen, by most, as a discipline worthy of attention in its own right.

Can you be specific about what particular 'actions of yours' & what it is about those particular actions that you see as creating/elevating risks?

[daz6215]

WG, you talk about not being pressured by others on the road. What about your own internal state?

I'm not an expert in this by any means, but I can spot some of my own flaws, and I feel it's an interesting discussion.

As they happen, but before they manifest as relevant behaviours, can you identify undesirable attitudes in yourself? Examples:

• inattention (wrt observation & anticipation) through tiredness
  
• inattention through being preoccupied about something else
  
• 'helmet fire' - unable to fully deal with the task at hand, for whatever reason
  
• irritation, anger, spite; maybe looking to blame others
  
• disinterest or boredom
  
• impatience

Failing that, can you catch yourself doing something bad after these factors do manifest as behaviour? Examples:

• missing early observation/anticipation of something important
• neglecting something minor, e.g. indicator left on, forgot to switch off lights coming out of a forest
• loss of control
• poor decision making
• personalising other road users, e.g. "this doddery old fool is doing 40 in a 60"
• something where the risk balance was different to your normal acceptance, e.g. a rash overtake or close following
• finding yourself doing something badly that you normally care about doing well, e.g. smoothness, progress

Either way, having realised your temporary weaknesses, is there any mitigation you can take at that time? Examples:

• relaxing/backing off
• deliberately reducing exposure to risk, e.g. stop looking for every workable overtaking opportunity
• using the projected impact of something bad like a near miss, and inflating its significance into something you seriously want to avoid, e.g. written off car, your family losing you, someone else's death
• manipulating your physical environment, e.g. temperature, music/radio
• trying to influence other environmental factors, e.g. passenger behaviours like the conversation topic
• explicitly trying to do the opposite - e.g. personalising road users? -> treat them as machines
• trying to remap your behaviour by rationally comparing it to your long-held ideals of what a good driver looks like
• actively get distractions out of the way; if lost, stop and read a map; if late for an appointment, stop and ring up your contact
• specific mitigation techniques like commentary

All pseudo-psychology and navel gazing, but it's not hard to see how it can make you safer.

As I said in the other topic, which I thought was a very insightful thread, the aviation community is full of this stuff. There, however, risk and mitigation is thought of very differently, in everything from training to post-accident. Bluntly, crash a car and it's about blame; crash a plane (not necessarily literally) and it's about avoiding that happening again.

Good post

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

Please snip when quoting ...

[vonhosen]

........lengthy post on previous page.

Indeed, but rather than you compiling the list it's best if you help him compile it by drawing it from him. It's his realisation that it is possible to change things & he sees the options open to him to do so. Contract some commitment to one or more actions & a review process etc.

[vonhosen]

Then... ho ho ho... if the above was useful, you could even go another level down the rabbit hole and look at behaviours/attitudes/thinking that prevent you effectively using the above identification and correction process.

Examples:

• Rationalising your poor behaviours and glossing over the fact they compromise your beliefs
• Downplaying the significance of an actual, tangible error ("but Sir!")
• Downplaying the likely future significance of your behaviour
• "It's not me, it's him"
• Exaggerating the importance of your current crisis, or downplaying the benefits of mitigation, e.g. "I must get there on time, it's too late now to stop and ring up"
• Being temporarily uninterested in this process - again, you probably do care at heart

So, can you catch those attitudes? Rinse and repeat until you're a Zen master.

Yes, if there is a problem occurring at one level then it is likely the cause is actually on a deeper level.

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

[7db]

Albert Einstein was a brilliant mathematician and theoretical physicist -- it's unclear what credibility should be adduced from the suspect adding of his name to quotations about everything from politics to psychology - Winston Churchill.

[vonhosen]

Albert Einstein was a brilliant mathematician and theoretical physicist -- it's unclear what credibility should be adduced from the suspect adding of his name to quotations about everything from politics to psychology - Winston Churchill.

Says a politcian

[trashbat]

........lengthy post on previous page.

Indeed, but rather than you compiling the list it's best if you help him compile it by drawing it from him. It's his realisation that it is possible to change things & he sees the options open to him to do so. Contract some commitment to one or more actions & a review process etc.

Makes sense, although I can see a trap there of only addressing things they've already brought to the conscious foreground, rather than arming them with an open-ended toolkit.

In the same vein as your post, you could also draw them into the whole process of self-analysis itself, rather than starting with such reflective abilities taken as a given, as I did with my post.

Yes, if there is a problem occurring at one level then it is likely the cause is actually on a deeper level.

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

I like both of these - hadn't looked at it quite like this, but fits very well.