Flaming drivers
Posted on Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Traffic Tom Vanderbilt Allen Lane 2008
We all know that statistically speaking we’re far more likely to be killed driving to the airport than going down with the plane, but many of us still feel far more nervous as the aircraft takes off than we ever do on the road. The difference is that the driver feels in control, and since most drivers believe they’re above average, they don’t need to worry. (Their passengers may feel differently, but that would have to be their nerves, how could it be bad driving?) And yet, though thankfully the trend is downwards, around 3,000 people a year die in road accidents in the UK, with up to 30,000 seriously injured, and nearly 250,000 road casualties overall.1
As is often said, if death and injury was happening on this scale through plane crashes, or terrorist attacks, or violent assaults, there would be outrage. Something Would Be Done. Most serious road accidents, however, feature only briefly as an impersonal sentence in the traffic news: ‘a lorry has overturned’, 'one lane is blocked while a car is recovered’. The regular, grim, weekend reports of teenagers killed in a late-night crashes don’t lead to breast-beating about the state of society the way a teenage stabbing does. And yet the vast majority of road casualties are caused by human error or actions. They are preventable.
I’ve been prompted to write this by reading Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt, which I’ve reviewed here, though it’s long been an interest of mine. Back in 1990, shortly after becoming an Advanced Motorist, I had an article published in Third Way magazine called ‘The driving of Jehu’, asking among other things why so many Christians I knew were scary drivers!2 I know I’m far from perfect myself (see below), but at least I recognise that and try to evaluate and improve. One of the aspects of Traffic I found most fascinating was its discussion of what goes on inside a driver’s head. The question, Vanderbilt says, is not why some drivers are homicidal maniacs but ‘why we all act differently’, why ‘we struggle to stay human.’ (p.21) He discusses the way mild-mannered people turn aggressive behind the wheel, honking or making rude gestures or yelling when another driver makes a mistake. The nature of traffic and its speed make it difficult for us to communicate subtly. I’m reminded of a story I read years ago of a woman who was doing a complicated manouevre in her car. Another driver wound down his window and shouted, ‘Why can’t you give a signal!’ To which she replied, ‘Sir, there is no signal for what I am trying to do.’ We shout or honk at other drivers’ mistakes, but if we do the same thing – e.g. get in the wrong lane at the roundabout - it’s not our mistake, it’s the fault of whoever designed the junction.
Vanderbilt compares this to behaviour online: ‘Being in traffic is like being in an online chat room under a pseudonym. … the normal constraints of life are left behind.’ (p.27) Psychologists speak of the ‘online disinhibition effect’, where the ‘individual swells with exaggerated self-importance.’ Whether online or on the road, there is no consequences for being rude or harsh. You can ‘flame’ someone and sign off. Personally, I don’t tend to be aggressive as a driver – if someone honks I feel guilty rather than angry. But I do get self-righteous when I see drivers reading maps at the wheel, or, like one driver I observed from the London coach, carefully pouring milk onto the bowl of cereal in his lap! And I do have to try very hard to avoid priggishly calling out ‘Get off the phone!’ at drivers using mobiles.
I found Vanderbilt’s discussion of this area very informative. There’s a perception that we can talk on the phone and drive perfectly well. A driver on the phone may lower their speed and drop back. Their eyes may stay on the road once they’ve established the call, and they feel in control of their car. Except that even if their eyes are on the road, their mind isn’t. When we try and do two things at once, the quality of both tasks drops, yet we don’t realise how distracted we are. People may be able to cope with standard driving in this mode, but they can’t deal with the unexpected. The largest analysis of driving to date, says Vanderbilt, showed that nearly 80% of crashes and 65% of near crashes involved drivers not paying attention to traffic for up to 3 seconds before the event. A 2-second look away is enough for them to start to lose track, yet drivers drive as if world will not have changed when they look back, as if it was ‘live pause’ on the TV. But we only need to take that 2-second glance away at the wrong time for a crash to happen. Dialling or texting from a phone is clearly risky, but so is anything which takes our eyes and mind off the road, even lots of short glances.
cartoon from http://www.xkcd.com
I’ve never used a phone while driving, but I have to admit that in the past – and contrary to Advanced Motorist training - I have taken my eyes off the road for more than 2 seconds to tune a radio or glance at a map. It’ll only take a moment, I think. But thanks to Vanderbilt, I’ve taken on board how much can happen in a moment, like a car ahead braking or a pedestrian stepping out. I’ve been reminded of the importance of seeing the human being behind the wheel, and I’m trying to promote tolerance and courtesy on the road through the way that I drive.
I have also wrecked our car.
Yes, my first ‘at fault’ car insurance claim in 30 odd years, ironically coinciding with all that thinking and planning on being an even better driver! (Could I have been thinking too much?) The car was in a slightly different position in the garage, which contributed to me misjudging our narrow garage entrance by a couple of millimetres as I reversed out and catching the edge of the bumper. If I’d stopped then, it would have been no more than a small scratch, but I interpreted the crunchy noise as my tyres hitting the frozen gravel. Only when I saw the front of the car lying on the driveway in front of me did I realise my mistake. I was mortified. It is, says my husband, being surprisingly nice about it, 'money in the bank' for him. It's a lesson for me about how easy it is to make a mistake behind the wheel, and a deflation of my self-righteousness.
1. See http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/accidents/casualtiesgbar/roadcasualtiesgreatbritain20071
2. The moneysavingexpert.com car insurance job picker http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/car-insurance-job-picker/#sectors reveals how car insurance premiums might vary for different religious jobs. I know it doesn’t really signify, but it amuses me imagining why nuns are worse risks than Baptist Ministers, Prison Chaplains better drivers than mere Chaplains. Try the tool and see. And if that's not fun enough, buy the brilliant card game Guillotine and experience the Bad Nun for yourself.
We all know that statistically speaking we’re far more likely to be killed driving to the airport than going down with the plane, but many of us still feel far more nervous as the aircraft takes off than we ever do on the road. The difference is that the driver feels in control, and since most drivers believe they’re above average, they don’t need to worry. (Their passengers may feel differently, but that would have to be their nerves, how could it be bad driving?) And yet, though thankfully the trend is downwards, around 3,000 people a year die in road accidents in the UK, with up to 30,000 seriously injured, and nearly 250,000 road casualties overall.1
As is often said, if death and injury was happening on this scale through plane crashes, or terrorist attacks, or violent assaults, there would be outrage. Something Would Be Done. Most serious road accidents, however, feature only briefly as an impersonal sentence in the traffic news: ‘a lorry has overturned’, 'one lane is blocked while a car is recovered’. The regular, grim, weekend reports of teenagers killed in a late-night crashes don’t lead to breast-beating about the state of society the way a teenage stabbing does. And yet the vast majority of road casualties are caused by human error or actions. They are preventable.
I’ve been prompted to write this by reading Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt, which I’ve reviewed here, though it’s long been an interest of mine. Back in 1990, shortly after becoming an Advanced Motorist, I had an article published in Third Way magazine called ‘The driving of Jehu’, asking among other things why so many Christians I knew were scary drivers!2 I know I’m far from perfect myself (see below), but at least I recognise that and try to evaluate and improve. One of the aspects of Traffic I found most fascinating was its discussion of what goes on inside a driver’s head. The question, Vanderbilt says, is not why some drivers are homicidal maniacs but ‘why we all act differently’, why ‘we struggle to stay human.’ (p.21) He discusses the way mild-mannered people turn aggressive behind the wheel, honking or making rude gestures or yelling when another driver makes a mistake. The nature of traffic and its speed make it difficult for us to communicate subtly. I’m reminded of a story I read years ago of a woman who was doing a complicated manouevre in her car. Another driver wound down his window and shouted, ‘Why can’t you give a signal!’ To which she replied, ‘Sir, there is no signal for what I am trying to do.’ We shout or honk at other drivers’ mistakes, but if we do the same thing – e.g. get in the wrong lane at the roundabout - it’s not our mistake, it’s the fault of whoever designed the junction.
Vanderbilt compares this to behaviour online: ‘Being in traffic is like being in an online chat room under a pseudonym. … the normal constraints of life are left behind.’ (p.27) Psychologists speak of the ‘online disinhibition effect’, where the ‘individual swells with exaggerated self-importance.’ Whether online or on the road, there is no consequences for being rude or harsh. You can ‘flame’ someone and sign off. Personally, I don’t tend to be aggressive as a driver – if someone honks I feel guilty rather than angry. But I do get self-righteous when I see drivers reading maps at the wheel, or, like one driver I observed from the London coach, carefully pouring milk onto the bowl of cereal in his lap! And I do have to try very hard to avoid priggishly calling out ‘Get off the phone!’ at drivers using mobiles.
I found Vanderbilt’s discussion of this area very informative. There’s a perception that we can talk on the phone and drive perfectly well. A driver on the phone may lower their speed and drop back. Their eyes may stay on the road once they’ve established the call, and they feel in control of their car. Except that even if their eyes are on the road, their mind isn’t. When we try and do two things at once, the quality of both tasks drops, yet we don’t realise how distracted we are. People may be able to cope with standard driving in this mode, but they can’t deal with the unexpected. The largest analysis of driving to date, says Vanderbilt, showed that nearly 80% of crashes and 65% of near crashes involved drivers not paying attention to traffic for up to 3 seconds before the event. A 2-second look away is enough for them to start to lose track, yet drivers drive as if world will not have changed when they look back, as if it was ‘live pause’ on the TV. But we only need to take that 2-second glance away at the wrong time for a crash to happen. Dialling or texting from a phone is clearly risky, but so is anything which takes our eyes and mind off the road, even lots of short glances.
cartoon from http://www.xkcd.com
I’ve never used a phone while driving, but I have to admit that in the past – and contrary to Advanced Motorist training - I have taken my eyes off the road for more than 2 seconds to tune a radio or glance at a map. It’ll only take a moment, I think. But thanks to Vanderbilt, I’ve taken on board how much can happen in a moment, like a car ahead braking or a pedestrian stepping out. I’ve been reminded of the importance of seeing the human being behind the wheel, and I’m trying to promote tolerance and courtesy on the road through the way that I drive.
I have also wrecked our car.
Yes, my first ‘at fault’ car insurance claim in 30 odd years, ironically coinciding with all that thinking and planning on being an even better driver! (Could I have been thinking too much?) The car was in a slightly different position in the garage, which contributed to me misjudging our narrow garage entrance by a couple of millimetres as I reversed out and catching the edge of the bumper. If I’d stopped then, it would have been no more than a small scratch, but I interpreted the crunchy noise as my tyres hitting the frozen gravel. Only when I saw the front of the car lying on the driveway in front of me did I realise my mistake. I was mortified. It is, says my husband, being surprisingly nice about it, 'money in the bank' for him. It's a lesson for me about how easy it is to make a mistake behind the wheel, and a deflation of my self-righteousness.
1. See http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/accidents/casualtiesgbar/roadcasualtiesgreatbritain20071
2. The moneysavingexpert.com car insurance job picker http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/car-insurance-job-picker/#sectors reveals how car insurance premiums might vary for different religious jobs. I know it doesn’t really signify, but it amuses me imagining why nuns are worse risks than Baptist Ministers, Prison Chaplains better drivers than mere Chaplains. Try the tool and see. And if that's not fun enough, buy the brilliant card game Guillotine and experience the Bad Nun for yourself.