A Good Driver – A Reality or Myth?

Part–Two

So, is it real or myth? Are all drivers equal? Are some better, some worse than others? Are some dreadful whilst others are excellent? Are you the same as everyone you see out there on the roads? Clearly not, and what about the 80⁄20 Rule?

In any human endeavour, 80% will struggle to make mediocre whilst 20% will be good to very good. Take that 20% and apply the 80⁄20 Rule and you have less than 4% who will be very good and far less than 1% who are in reality the most effective drivers.

Recognising A Good Driver

So, how would you recognise one of the very good or the most effective drivers? What defines them, their style, their skills and their difference?

Surprisingly, there are only 7 real secrets to highly effective driving, and what is even more surprising, they are almost always the opposite to what most drivers do! That’s right, opposite, as in 180 degrees about.

Let’s take a look into this little known world in which the roads are the same, but the reality of these drivers is so different.

How do most drivers tend to position their
vehicle in relation to those ahead?

The answer is simple — too close! Well inside their own thinking distance, and frighteningly so. All too often, well inside their available braking distance as well. No thinking distance at all in which to react to trouble ahead, let alone pro–act.

Exploring Drivers Visibility

Now, bear with me, and please try this as you read on. Put one hand up in front of your face, at arm’s length with the palm toward your eyes. Now move it closer and closer. What happens to your overall vision? Where does it close down? So, now you know, that as well as shutting down your react options, you’re also closing your visual options.

What can you see from here?	Is that more calm and relaxed?

Whilst some may say that observation in the No.1 key–critical area in road driving, you firstly need space in order to take in more information. Before you can develop ‘Broadband Vision,’ as I call it, you need room to see! You need distance. Room to breathe. Room to observe.

How many times have you found yourself cringing in the passenger seat of someone’s car whilst reaching for the invisible brake pedal when being driven too close to the vehicle ahead?

What’s a good rule of thumb for following distance?

Certainly not the 2–seconds oft quoted. It’s flawed. It’s often too close for the ‘old’ brain to work out what’s happening in front relative to its surroundings. 3–seconds seems to work at all speeds quite well, but drop back further when appropriate is better at high speed. Try it. 1 second per 10 mph is ideal, but not always achievable with varying traffic density and flow, but more distance is good!

In the motorway picture above there is a line of more than 11–vehicles in lane–3 and they are all travelling in excess of 60mph. If they were all parked at this distance from each other in a street near you, how easy would it be to park your car between any two of them? Can the driver of the black Vauxhall Corsa see what is ahead of the white van? Can the Corsa driver even see what is ahead of the car immediately in front?

How few do you see on fast flow systems following ‘comfortably?’ At least 85% are dangerously close most of the time. They have taken their ‘urban’ sub–30mph following distance out into high speed scenarios unaltered. It’s back to that habit thing, which affects us all. That’s why training is so important in all human activity.

Looking at the picture above, the cars in lane–3 are all travelling between 65–70mph. If they were stationary, could you park your car betwen them? Would you consider driving at 30mph this close to the car you were following if you were the driver of the blue car at the back of the line?

The brain will only provide information that has been put in

The brain is like a computer. Output is only as good as the software and the info that goes in to it. It can’t do what it doesn’t know how to, or what it doesn’t have available to work on. Put another way, limited programming equals limited effectiveness, whilst limited input equals limited output. So, you have to train it. Lay down effective habits, otherwise you just end up with ‘pschosclerosis’ – a hardening of the habit.

If the habit is limited so will be the output, regardless of the years you are using it. It won’t suddenly upgrade, update or improve all on it’s own. In fact, much the opposite.

Levels Of Driver Training

If we take The Test and receive no relevant appropriate driver training, input or upgrade, that’s where we’ll tend to stay in terms of operational skillset. Call this Level–1 if you like.

So what next? How do we move up a gear? Move up to the next level? We’re driving at a pleasant, relaxed distance behind the vehicles in front. Is that better or what? Room to breath; what a pleasure to be driven like this, isn’t it? However, the next bit might just escape your notice, because if you could go behind the eyes of the next–level driver, to see what he’s looking at, what would be different to most other motorists on the roads?

Target Fixation

Unlike most, who are fixated and hard focused on the vehicle in front, your driver would be looking as far up the road as conditions allowed. With the vehicle in front in soft focus, he would be looking over, through, around, and where appropriate, underneath it too. This way more information becomes available.

The hard focus is set much further forward, and continuously altering to home in on areas of interest, continually scanning left and right whilst seeking a cross–view where the road turns and bends. Looking for the Limit Point on bends ahead whilst always aware of who or what controls the flow in front, and pacing accordingly, as will be appropriate or relevant.

The natural human sight pattern
is not suited to driving, but suited to walking

It takes time and practice to develop the eye muscles to achieve this. Our natural eye angle is down. Check it out. How far ahead do you look when walking down the street? 3 or 4 paces perhaps, and with the occasional look up?

It’s the same in conversations. Have a look next time, and become aware of your own eye angles and movement, as well as those of others. It’s literally eye opening. So our eye muscles, like any other muscle in the human body, need to be trained to deal with new demands, strengthened through exercise so as to be honed and tuned to become fitter.

With practice the amount of time your eyes are able to stay up will increase, with a natural dropping or reeling–in for rest as needed. That’s natural, but, and this is a big BUT, what does this do for the amount of visual information reaching the brain; your input? Does it double? Yes, and more....... Treble? Keep going...

In fact, the amount of visual information can easily increase by 500% and more. That’s 5–times more input for you and your brain to base decisions upon than your fellow motorist! All for just dropping back and learning to raise and move the eyes. Raise your eyes and raise your game — big style. It begins to take us away from reactive driving to another realm: to that of proactive driving.

In those two steps alone we leave 99% of drivers behind in their twilight zone as we drive on out into the light. You might like to go out and give this a try.

First Published September 2008

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A Good Driver – A Reality or Myth?