Things Going Wrong

Author : Alan Sidorov
This is getting sickeningly stupid. Year after year goes by, studies are funded, kind words and hot air expended in press conferences. Well-meant safe driving lectures only address part of the problem. What is being missed is that every single driver, man, woman, child, dog, or cat, needs and deserves advanced driving instruction. A qualifying statement is needed. This would not mean an end to all crashes, but should reduce them. There will still be wrecks, regardless of driver skill. All it takes is a big enough mistake or lack of attention.Here is a story. A kid I know just stuffed his Mom's car into a snowbank. He is no dummy, a first rate athlete and as far as I know, generally responsible. He took a graduated licensing program. Yet when things went wrong, a little too much speed into a slippery corner, he responded incorrectly, in part through target fixation, which is looking at what you think you are about to hit rather than where you want, and hope, to go.You read this advice everywhere, and it is simple enough. I guarantee that many of the safety experts who write driving advice didn't do this right the first time they took an advanced driving school, and a fair number would not do it now. The reason is simple. In a moment of crisis, when a driver is out of the comfort zone and panic looms its ugly head, this is extremely counterintuitive and difficult to do. It is a learned, practised, rehearsed skill, or it is empty words and wasted paper.The comfort zone differs for each driver. I remember reaching mine in turn one of Pocono racetrack, an oval layout in Pennsylvania. I was driving a prototype Ferrari, at a little over 170 mph, when the outside rear tyre exploded. It was instantaneous, and took out the suspension on that side plus half the bodywork. I have never, before of since, had a car try to spin out as violently. My comfort zone at that point had probably left for home. What saved me was not dazzling skill, wit or good table manners. It was the nagging internal voice that was literally yelling at me "don't look at the wall, look at turn two." This was a good half mile away, and if I replay the scene, I can still see the tyre blackened asphalt in the distance. When I got the car stopped, it was a paper's width from the wall. Had I even glanced at that barrier during the slide I would have missed the only information of use, where I wanted the car to go.Lest you think experience matters in this business of where to look, it usually doesn't. I've sat with thousands of drivers of all ages on the skid pad and racetrack, and when things get hectic, it is the correct use of eyesight that fails first. This is usually accompanied by random pedal applications, like a confused pianist.It is the sabre-tooth tiger syndrome. I suspect most of our ancestors, when confronted with that beast, froze and stared at impending doom. A few clever ones looked for an escape route and at least had a chance. Panic occurs when the brain perceives no alternative for action. For words of driving advice to have any effect at all, the person hearing them has to take them to heart like a mantra, lock them in the brain, believe that while difficult to do it is crucial to try. Of course, it would be far better to have actual training, with expert drivers. A skilled instructor is more than a talking head, it is someone who has an intimate understanding of how cars really work, who can demonstrate right and wrong moves, who makes the whole affair understandable.Our politicians and bureaucrats more frivolous travel budgets travel budgets would have paid for real, hands on driver education for tens of thousands. So would the money wasted on the committees to study committees and so on. The peripheral savings in health care would help that budget as well. Okay, that money is never coming back, and lots more will be wasted. However, if a driver were paying for a top notch one day school out of pocket, it would run between five hundred and a thousand dollars, plus travel. If that sounds like a lot, consider what people spend on fancy wheels or stereos, or even a few dinners out, none of which have any life saving potential.The classroom lectures and safety procedures of today's driver's education do have significant benefit, as a guideline on how to stay out of trouble. That is vitally important, and is generally improved with training and experience. However, sooner or later, just about every driver, no matter how cautious and attentive, will cross the line into the zone where panic starts to fill the mouth with the taste of old pennies. It is good to be ready for that moment with something less inane than "steer into the skid and pump the brakes." The eyes have it.Alan Sidorov is an experienced racing driver, development tester, and automotive journalist. He runs Sidorov Precision driver Training in British Columbia, Canada. The courses include specific winter driving skills and tactics, and are available to individuals and corporations.
Keyword : Teenagers, driving skills, advanced driving instruction, winter driving