New Skills For Staying Alive on the Road
The Campaign for Safer Roads Through Better Driving has as its primary objective the minimisation of all road crashes regardless of severity.
Since drivers are the common denomimator in every crash, our contention is simply that “Better Driving Saves Lives”.
The Mind Driving approach to driving skill reduces crash risk. It reveals the untaught skills that really make driving safe. These are the ‘thinking skills’ that allow drivers to control danger and which expert drivers use instinctively. These skills had not been explained before the book was written.
Initially written as pages on a website, Mind Driving was soon published as a book by the Driving Instructors Association who saw it as “a genuine breakthrough in the field of road safety that could revolutionise the way people learn to drive”.
Regrettably, even with strong support among driver trainers and examiners, police advanced drivers and many other professionals, the ideas were rejected by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (the DSA as it was then). The need for such fundamental change did not sit well with them.
It started simply……
……with an experienced driver being fascinated with why his children’s driving was so different from his own after passing their test. Determined to not brush it off as ‘just experience’, he looked for a more genuine and useful understanding.
The first observation was that their physical ‘hands and feet’ car control skills were fine. They could put the car accurately where they wanted. But in stark contrast, there was a big difference in how they decided what they would do. This is the ‘thinking’ side of driving.
Critically, this is not covered well in the normal training and test system, even to this day. Instead, it is left for novice drivers to find loosely for themselves as they ‘gain experience’ – risking tragic crashes in the process.
Thinking skills
It thus became clear that safe driving is actually a mainly thinking task – which in itself has very specific skills that the word ‘experience’ is used to avoid. From this, a set of ‘thinking skills’ was developed and defined – and then described in a form that is both teachable and learnable.
Sense of Danger / Risk Model
One of the clearest thinking skills is understanding and assessing danger – realistically, quickly and effectively. This goes way beyond mere hazard perception. The ‘Sense of Danger’ skill formed naturally around seeing that there are always three factors that determine a level of risk. They are always in play and interacting with each other. This is the ‘Speed, Surprise and Space’ Risk Model.
Understanding this can begin with a simple question: “How is it safe for planes to fly us around the world at over 500mph?” It is VERY fast, but most people have done it – and without feeling they would die. So… what is controlling the risk, and balancing the high speed to make it safe?
Two things are at work:
First, events are very predictable for the pilots – they are rarely surprised, and
Second, the space is vast.
This identifies the three fundamental elements of risk – Speed, Surprise and Space, which must be kept in balance, and they sit together very simply:
- increasing Speed or Surprise will normally tend to raise risk but
- increasing Space will normally lower risk – often dramatically.
As a memorable picture, this is:
(Note, though, that this is a ‘model’ to help understanding, not a mathematical equation to put numbers into)
Safe driving with Mind Driving is centred on keeping these three levers of control in balance which with use, as often happens, becomes increasingly instinctive.
Two substantive skill chapters in Mind Driving show how to do this in detail. These are ‘Observation’ and ‘Risk Assessment and Control’.
If we really want to manage risk therefore, so as to reduce the incidence of crashes on our roads, these are the levers of control – the three essential components in how it is done.
Implications For Policy Makers
The Risk Model has been tried and tested by drivers and trainers at all levels over many years now and has proved to be profoundly true.
It gives drivers a deeply practical and robust Sense of Danger and a far more genuine control of driving risk. Regrettably, however, it has still to be acknowledged by the DVSA and reflected in their requirements for both driver training and licensing.
It is crucial for policy makers to understand, therefore, that no one element of the Risk Model can be considered in isolation to the other two without compromise to road safety. It is essential for them to grasp this realisation because this is what makes the model profound.
The emphasis on speed alone leads drivers to wrongly assess risk. It thereby sub-optimises road safety and does crash victims an enormous disservice
If three factors appear to be more for drivers to consider than a single factor such as “speed kills”, in practice it is no harder to grasp than half a page of the Highway Code.
Keeping the three factors in balance forces drivers to think. And it is a valid model of genuine risk.
What People Said About Mind Driving
| “There are lots of good ideas here, and a new approach like this is urgently needed. Driver skill is still the biggest untapped potential in road safety.” |
| Kevin Delaney, Traffic and Road Safety Manager, RAC Foundation (formerly head of Metropolitan Police Traffic Department) |
| “It is intriguing to see an approach to driving skill that is so different. The Sense of Danger model is very simple, and really does work. For any driver, these new skills will change the way they think – and definitely build better safety.” |
| Andrew Howard, Head of Road Safety, AA Motoring Trust |
| “What a refreshing and open-minded insight into driving skill! Packed with new ideas, this really captures the thought patterns to bring out any driver’s best ability. This is how to stop crashes, and get the death rate falling again as it should be.” |
| Pete Garvey, corporate Defensive Driving instructor and consultant, RoSPA and Diamond advanced examiner, ex-police Class 1 instructor |
| “This is the future of driver training. It is a breath of fresh air, and a new way forward for road safety. In my company we are dedicated to preventing casualties by developing thinking skills – and SKILLDRIVER shows even more clearly how to achieve that in our training. A superb piece of work.” |
| Adrian Shurmer, Chairman Driver Awareness Ltd, former police Class 1 and VIP Protection instructor. www.driverawareness.com |
| “This is dynamite! Exactly the breakthrough and fresh thinking on skills that will make safer drivers – at all levels. With this approach there is no longer any excuse for neglecting driver skills as the most important element in road safety.” |
| Mark McArthur-Christie, RoSPA Gold Class driver, IAM Local Group leader, ABD Road Safety spokesman |
| “This is brilliant! Especially the explanation of the thinking processes, and the focus on active risk management. Crashes are caused by people, and these are exactly the skills to help drivers prevent them.” |
| Graham Ellis, Crash Investigator, 20 years |
| “We have been waiting years for this – a new approach to road safety.” |
| Nigel Humphries, Road Safety Campaigner |
| “At last someone has thought through driving skills from the beginning and slain the sacred cows. Its rigorous, its sensible and it works.” |
| Naomi Harrison, campaigner for better driving standards |
| “This is excellent, and I strongly recommend it to all drivers. It should be compulsory reading for all ADIs (driving instructors) and Members of Parliament!” |
| IAM Senior Observer |
| “It definitely showed me how to compensate more safely for other people’s lack of awareness and ability.” |
| Christianne Torrence, high mileage experienced driver (car, bike, ambulance) |
| “SKILLDRIVER provides a unique insight into the process of safe driving. Much of the content is known to the safest drivers but has never previously been seen in print. It is ESSENTIAL reading for drivers and anyone involved in road safety.” |
| Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign www.safespeed.org.uk |
| “Congratulations on an excellent site! Shows a superb grasp of where the responsibility lies, and encourages the driver to take full accountability for what happens. As a Driver Training organisation in South Africa, it is encouraging to see an “international” approach to road safety. This has led to changes in our training material.” |
| Eugene Herbert, Managing Director, RAC Driving Solutions, South Africa. www.racsa.co.za |