Critical self-analysis
Discussion
In a previous thread, I wrote:
I occasionally "self examine", whereby I consciously look at how I'm driving and I noticed that I was rushing 1st to 2nd. It's an easy one to rush because you've normally just pulled away from stationary and your attention is on the hazard you're negotiating rather than what's happening "in-car".
The problem isn't my technique - I'm perfectly capeable of carrying out smooth changes. The problem is that I've stopped thinking about the change altogether and my attention is elsewhere. By the time I've remembered, I've already thrown the lever into second and it inevitably leads to a "D'oh" moment.
I've mostly sorted it now, but I can feel a post on self-analysis coming up...So, as promised, here it is - a post on critical self-analysis.
When was the last time you tested yourself? By which, I mean when was the last time you looked critically at your own driving?
Its not as easy as it sounds. The first hurdle is our natural tendency to think we're better than we are. Ask your friends and family if they think they're good drivers and a huge majority (over 90% in a very short straw poll in my office) will assess themselves as above average drivers. Mathematics alone shows that they can't all be right. No-one will ever admit to having a weakness at driving. In much the same way that no-one will ever admit to having a poor sense of humour. Or being bad at sex.
But as we all know, there are plenty of humourless people out there, and plenty of poor lovers.
Take a drive - any drive of any length and you'll see some poor, and some appalling driving. Its clear, then, that many of the 90% of people who assess themselves as above average must be way off the mark in judging their own skill levels.
So how do you accurately assess your own abilities? How do you address your faults? Its as much about the psychology of driving, and how to develop a critical thought process, as it is about the physical and mental skills of just driving, so lets start with some basic psychology and see how it applies to driving.
The Four Stages of Competence
Many of you may be familiar with the four stages of competence. I first encountered this theory when I was on a management course a couple of years ago and I immediately recognised its relevence to driving skills. I've shamelessly lifted the following quote from Wikipedia...
Sound familiar? I think its almost a perfect description of the development of a new driver, from their first lesson, through learning, passing their test and then the first year or so of independant driving.
The thing is, though, these four stages can be reapplied to any driver of any experience level. At 25 years old, with 8 years driving experience, a few years in panda cars, and a mk2 Golf GTI, I thought a was a good driver. In fact, I thought I was a great driver. Then I went to the police driving school for my advanced course and after the first day of lectures and a demonstration drive by my instructor - Dicko - the cold realisation hit me. I was rubbish. In fact, it was amazing that I'd actually survived the past 8 years with all 4 limbs intact.
Fast forward 4 years, I'd achieved a good first class pass on my advanced course, and been driving traffic cars, chasing stolen cars and generally rushing round for a few years. I was pretty handy in my opinion. Then I went on my car instructors course. First day, demonstration drive by my instructor - Ricky this time - with full instructional commentary, and I realised once again that I was rubbish and we were back to rung 1 - unconscious incompetence again and 6 weeks to get through all 4 stages of competence.
The point I'm trying to make with these exampes is that the four stages of competence aren't restricted to just learning new skills. They are just as relevent to improving, correcting and polishing the skills you've already got. It doesn't matter how good you are - the first principle of assessing yourself correctly is to recognise that you can always, always be better. There is always room for improvement.
Here's another good point I've unapologetically nicked from a psychology textbook...
Overestimating Your Ability
Whilst almost everyone overestimates their skill level, knowledge and abilities, their degree of overestimation goes down as skill/training/education/practice goes up. So your assessment of yourself after studying something in a formal fashion with evaluation and comparison grows closer to your actual skill.
In other words, the more training and experience you get, the better you become at realistically assessing your own abilities.
Here's another one I've taken from the management course which I think relates very well to driving...
Justifying Bad Behaviour / Habits
This might ring true with some of you, so brace yourself for a dose of cold reality...
We have a very strong tendency to view other people's mistakes and misdemeanors in a very different way than we view our own. If someone cuts you up in traffic or pulls out on you at a roundabout, it's because they're an inconsiderate, incompetent pillock, and they deserve to die in a fiery ball of crumpled metal (or at least to suffer your wrath with a toot from the horn - the horror!).
But when the shoe is on the other foot and its you who has made the mistake, it's not because you're a numpty - its because you're in a rush, you've other things on your mind, you're late for a very important appointment and, well, nobody died and you're a good driver really - aren't you?
Emergency response drivers are notorious for this kind of thing. So much so that it's been given a label - "noble cause risk taking". It's much easier to justify making an error or taking an unnecessarily risk - even a life threateningly dangerous one - if you're on the way to a bank robbery, or a heart attack, or a kitten up a tree.
This leads me on to my next point quite nicely...
Learn From Your Mistakes
Try to develop a different attitude towards your mistakes. Instead of justfying them, or beating yourself up, or ignoring them, try to use them as a learning tool.
I strongly believe that driving students - at any experience level - need to be allowed to make mistakes. As an instructor, your job is to teach the correct methods, but rather than trying to talk students through every single situation (overinstructing), you should, instead, let them make some mistakes so that they have a genuine memory of the consequences upon which they can then build their experiences.
Not very serious, dangerous mistakes of course, but enough to allow you to say to them "remember last time" on the approach to a similar situation.
You need to adopt this approach yourself with your own driving. Mistakes are an inevitable part of any journey - there is no such thing as a perfect drive - so try to mentally "bank" your mistakes, think about what went wrong and what you could have done differently, and then apply what you've learned in your future driving.
Can you see the four levels of competence running through that last paragraph?
Here's another good tip...
Work On Your Weaknesses, Not Your Strengths
We all know what we're good at, and we all know what we're not so good at. The trouble is that we have an inbuilt tendency to stick with the things we're good at because we like them, and avoid addressing the things we're not so good at, because they tend to be the things we don't enjoy.
So, if you're good at making progress on "A" roads, but you're nervous on motorways, you'll tend to stick with the "A" roads and avoid the motorways. Your "A" road skills will, of course, continue to improve, but avoiding the motorways means that you never improve your motorway driving skills.
So you should learn to push yourself - by which I mean that you should seek out the situations you don't enjoy and which concern you, because only by practising and making mistakes, will you improve in those areas.
I used to hate giving presentations to groups of people. The very thought of giving a lecture or lesson filled me with dread and led to sleepless nights. I avoided anything which required these skills for years.
Then I found a job I wanted. It was a great job, but required me to give occasional presentations. I bit the bullet, underwent some training, and took every opportunity to carry out public speaking. Nowadays I'm perfectly happy to give public presentations to large groups - often with a minimum of notice without becoming stressed at all. Avoiding public speaking was the mistake & I learned from it.
You can pull together all the different aspects I've covered by regularly...
Testing Yourself
To start with, have an idea in your own mind what standard you're going to test yourself against. Those of you who have undertaken some form of advanced training may want to use the "test" standard on whatever course you took. Those who haven't had the benefit of training may want to consider a chapter from Roadcraft, an article on driving that they may have read, or (Gofd forbid!!) something written on an internet forum by an "expert".
Don't set out an a special drive just to test yourself. Instead, carry out your "self test" on an ordinary journey. To or from work, for example, or any other journey you undertake on a regular basis.
Drive as you normally would, but at the same time, try to imagine what a critical third party would think of your driving. Would they be happy with that overtake? Would they think you were too close to the car in front? Would they approve of your position on the approach to this corner?
I also try to imagine an instructor sat next to me, talking me down the road. There were a couple of instructors I had for whom I have a huge amount of respect and I like to think "what would Ricky or AJ be saying to me now?"
You don't need to do it on every journey, but if you self-test every month or so, you will keep your skills up and recognise mistakes before they become long term, habitual faults.
Its a bit like rebooting and reinstalling your own operating system every few weeks.
In a previous thread Reg said:
There are plenty of bad habits though. My first to second gearchange is bloody awful at the moment.
Which prompted the following exchange:R_U_LOCAL said:
waremark said:
Is it true? I admired the accuracy of your rev matching in the gear changing video filmed in the MX5 a few years ago.
Just a bit of critical self-analysis which I used as an example of how bad habits can develop unconsciously and then inevitably become long-term driving faults.I occasionally "self examine", whereby I consciously look at how I'm driving and I noticed that I was rushing 1st to 2nd. It's an easy one to rush because you've normally just pulled away from stationary and your attention is on the hazard you're negotiating rather than what's happening "in-car".
The problem isn't my technique - I'm perfectly capeable of carrying out smooth changes. The problem is that I've stopped thinking about the change altogether and my attention is elsewhere. By the time I've remembered, I've already thrown the lever into second and it inevitably leads to a "D'oh" moment.
I've mostly sorted it now, but I can feel a post on self-analysis coming up...
When was the last time you tested yourself? By which, I mean when was the last time you looked critically at your own driving?
Its not as easy as it sounds. The first hurdle is our natural tendency to think we're better than we are. Ask your friends and family if they think they're good drivers and a huge majority (over 90% in a very short straw poll in my office) will assess themselves as above average drivers. Mathematics alone shows that they can't all be right. No-one will ever admit to having a weakness at driving. In much the same way that no-one will ever admit to having a poor sense of humour. Or being bad at sex.
But as we all know, there are plenty of humourless people out there, and plenty of poor lovers.
Take a drive - any drive of any length and you'll see some poor, and some appalling driving. Its clear, then, that many of the 90% of people who assess themselves as above average must be way off the mark in judging their own skill levels.
So how do you accurately assess your own abilities? How do you address your faults? Its as much about the psychology of driving, and how to develop a critical thought process, as it is about the physical and mental skills of just driving, so lets start with some basic psychology and see how it applies to driving.
The Four Stages of Competence
Many of you may be familiar with the four stages of competence. I first encountered this theory when I was on a management course a couple of years ago and I immediately recognised its relevence to driving skills. I've shamelessly lifted the following quote from Wikipedia...
Wiki said:
1. Unconscious incompetence
The individual does not understand or know how to do something and does not necessarily recognize the deficit. They may deny the usefulness of the skill. The individual must recognise their own incompetence, and the value of the new skill, before moving on to the next stage. The length of time an individual spends in this stage depends on the strength of the stimulus to learn.
2. Conscious incompetence
Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, as well as the value of a new skill in addressing the deficit. The making of mistakes can be integral to the learning process at this stage.
3. Conscious competence
The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires concentration. It may be broken down into steps, and there is heavy conscious involvement in executing the new skill.
4. Unconscious competence
The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it has become "second nature" and can be performed easily. As a result, the skill can be performed while executing another task. The individual may be able to teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned.
So, in other words, before you start to learn a new skill, you don't know how to do it and you don't know why you don't know how to do it. Then you start to learn, and you realise what you need to do, but you can't do it. Then your skills improve, but you still need to think about what you're doing. And then finally, you're able to easily carry out the task without giving it much thought.The individual does not understand or know how to do something and does not necessarily recognize the deficit. They may deny the usefulness of the skill. The individual must recognise their own incompetence, and the value of the new skill, before moving on to the next stage. The length of time an individual spends in this stage depends on the strength of the stimulus to learn.
2. Conscious incompetence
Though the individual does not understand or know how to do something, he or she does recognize the deficit, as well as the value of a new skill in addressing the deficit. The making of mistakes can be integral to the learning process at this stage.
3. Conscious competence
The individual understands or knows how to do something. However, demonstrating the skill or knowledge requires concentration. It may be broken down into steps, and there is heavy conscious involvement in executing the new skill.
4. Unconscious competence
The individual has had so much practice with a skill that it has become "second nature" and can be performed easily. As a result, the skill can be performed while executing another task. The individual may be able to teach it to others, depending upon how and when it was learned.
Sound familiar? I think its almost a perfect description of the development of a new driver, from their first lesson, through learning, passing their test and then the first year or so of independant driving.
The thing is, though, these four stages can be reapplied to any driver of any experience level. At 25 years old, with 8 years driving experience, a few years in panda cars, and a mk2 Golf GTI, I thought a was a good driver. In fact, I thought I was a great driver. Then I went to the police driving school for my advanced course and after the first day of lectures and a demonstration drive by my instructor - Dicko - the cold realisation hit me. I was rubbish. In fact, it was amazing that I'd actually survived the past 8 years with all 4 limbs intact.
Fast forward 4 years, I'd achieved a good first class pass on my advanced course, and been driving traffic cars, chasing stolen cars and generally rushing round for a few years. I was pretty handy in my opinion. Then I went on my car instructors course. First day, demonstration drive by my instructor - Ricky this time - with full instructional commentary, and I realised once again that I was rubbish and we were back to rung 1 - unconscious incompetence again and 6 weeks to get through all 4 stages of competence.
The point I'm trying to make with these exampes is that the four stages of competence aren't restricted to just learning new skills. They are just as relevent to improving, correcting and polishing the skills you've already got. It doesn't matter how good you are - the first principle of assessing yourself correctly is to recognise that you can always, always be better. There is always room for improvement.
Here's another good point I've unapologetically nicked from a psychology textbook...
Overestimating Your Ability
Whilst almost everyone overestimates their skill level, knowledge and abilities, their degree of overestimation goes down as skill/training/education/practice goes up. So your assessment of yourself after studying something in a formal fashion with evaluation and comparison grows closer to your actual skill.
In other words, the more training and experience you get, the better you become at realistically assessing your own abilities.
Here's another one I've taken from the management course which I think relates very well to driving...
Justifying Bad Behaviour / Habits
This might ring true with some of you, so brace yourself for a dose of cold reality...
We have a very strong tendency to view other people's mistakes and misdemeanors in a very different way than we view our own. If someone cuts you up in traffic or pulls out on you at a roundabout, it's because they're an inconsiderate, incompetent pillock, and they deserve to die in a fiery ball of crumpled metal (or at least to suffer your wrath with a toot from the horn - the horror!).
But when the shoe is on the other foot and its you who has made the mistake, it's not because you're a numpty - its because you're in a rush, you've other things on your mind, you're late for a very important appointment and, well, nobody died and you're a good driver really - aren't you?
Emergency response drivers are notorious for this kind of thing. So much so that it's been given a label - "noble cause risk taking". It's much easier to justify making an error or taking an unnecessarily risk - even a life threateningly dangerous one - if you're on the way to a bank robbery, or a heart attack, or a kitten up a tree.
This leads me on to my next point quite nicely...
Learn From Your Mistakes
Try to develop a different attitude towards your mistakes. Instead of justfying them, or beating yourself up, or ignoring them, try to use them as a learning tool.
I strongly believe that driving students - at any experience level - need to be allowed to make mistakes. As an instructor, your job is to teach the correct methods, but rather than trying to talk students through every single situation (overinstructing), you should, instead, let them make some mistakes so that they have a genuine memory of the consequences upon which they can then build their experiences.
Not very serious, dangerous mistakes of course, but enough to allow you to say to them "remember last time" on the approach to a similar situation.
You need to adopt this approach yourself with your own driving. Mistakes are an inevitable part of any journey - there is no such thing as a perfect drive - so try to mentally "bank" your mistakes, think about what went wrong and what you could have done differently, and then apply what you've learned in your future driving.
Can you see the four levels of competence running through that last paragraph?
Here's another good tip...
Work On Your Weaknesses, Not Your Strengths
We all know what we're good at, and we all know what we're not so good at. The trouble is that we have an inbuilt tendency to stick with the things we're good at because we like them, and avoid addressing the things we're not so good at, because they tend to be the things we don't enjoy.
So, if you're good at making progress on "A" roads, but you're nervous on motorways, you'll tend to stick with the "A" roads and avoid the motorways. Your "A" road skills will, of course, continue to improve, but avoiding the motorways means that you never improve your motorway driving skills.
So you should learn to push yourself - by which I mean that you should seek out the situations you don't enjoy and which concern you, because only by practising and making mistakes, will you improve in those areas.
I used to hate giving presentations to groups of people. The very thought of giving a lecture or lesson filled me with dread and led to sleepless nights. I avoided anything which required these skills for years.
Then I found a job I wanted. It was a great job, but required me to give occasional presentations. I bit the bullet, underwent some training, and took every opportunity to carry out public speaking. Nowadays I'm perfectly happy to give public presentations to large groups - often with a minimum of notice without becoming stressed at all. Avoiding public speaking was the mistake & I learned from it.
You can pull together all the different aspects I've covered by regularly...
Testing Yourself
To start with, have an idea in your own mind what standard you're going to test yourself against. Those of you who have undertaken some form of advanced training may want to use the "test" standard on whatever course you took. Those who haven't had the benefit of training may want to consider a chapter from Roadcraft, an article on driving that they may have read, or (Gofd forbid!!) something written on an internet forum by an "expert".
Don't set out an a special drive just to test yourself. Instead, carry out your "self test" on an ordinary journey. To or from work, for example, or any other journey you undertake on a regular basis.
Drive as you normally would, but at the same time, try to imagine what a critical third party would think of your driving. Would they be happy with that overtake? Would they think you were too close to the car in front? Would they approve of your position on the approach to this corner?
I also try to imagine an instructor sat next to me, talking me down the road. There were a couple of instructors I had for whom I have a huge amount of respect and I like to think "what would Ricky or AJ be saying to me now?"
You don't need to do it on every journey, but if you self-test every month or so, you will keep your skills up and recognise mistakes before they become long term, habitual faults.
Its a bit like rebooting and reinstalling your own operating system every few weeks.
daz6215 said:
You have to learn to let go of mistakes too
Quite correct. Previous post on this very subject "forgive yourself" below:http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
Onehp said:
What could a psychologically sound strategy be to improve such attitudes on a larger scale that may lead to improved driving? Without blame and shame, or the flawed penalty system?
It's a very good question.At the moment, tackling poor driving standards is a bit like treating drug addiction. There is plenty of enforcement, but it's not generally the right kind of enforcement and it doesn't really address the root problem. Those with bad habits (drug habits or driving habits) will not change their ways unless they really want to.
Just telling people what they shouldn't do is the wrong way to get the message across. People need to see that there are better ways to drive, and that there are real benefits to improving their driving.
I'm not just talking about ordinary motorists either (by which I mean those motorists to whom driving is a chore). Have a look around the other forums on PH - it's populated primarily by motoring enthusiasts, but there are some incredibly misinformed and uneducated views expressed in some of the threads on here.
Now, I'm not criticising people for their ignorance. If I can ever contribute to these threads by clarifying or clearing up misunderstandings & falsehoods then I will do and I'll try to do it in a non-condecending manner. Its the root of these misunderstandings which interests me.
Firstly, there is a huge anti-speed lobby which has been allowed to develop over the last 10 years or so. Inappropriate use of speed is a problem, of course, and is a contributory cause to many accidents. But the key word there is "contributory". Its not the only cause of accidents. Poor judgement, inattention, carelessness, driving too close, driving whilst impared, unroadworthy vehicles, and careless actions of pedestrians and cyclists are just a few of the other causation factors in road accidents.
But the overemphasis on speed above all other factors seems to have introduced a myth that if you stick to the speed limts you're a safe driver - irrespective of all your other driving skills (or lack thereof). I believe this is also one of the major causes of what someone in another thread referred to as "overtake haters". They are travelling slowly so they are safe. You wish to travel more quickly by overtaking them so you are a danger.
Secondly, there aren't any real role models for good, skilled road driving. Top Gear is a brilliant entertainment show and I've never missed an episode, but they will be the first to admit that they are just that - an entertainment show. Occasionally Clarkson will drop in a little comment about driving skills, but its usually just the prelude to a joke and then they're out drifting, wrecking tyres and crashing caravans. Like I said, its great entertainment if you don't want to think too hard on a Sunday evening, but its never going to be the platform to promote good road driving.
I enjoy Chris Harris's videos, but again, he's driven by the requirements of his audience and they almost always include loads of sliding and drifting, which looks great, but isn't the most appropraite skill set for a good road driver.
So in my opinion, the general road safety emphasis need to move away from speeding a little and encourage better and more attentive driving, and it would be useful if some clever media type were to come up with an entertaining way of promoting better driving without immediately causing 99% of the audience to switch over to "Big Brother In The Jungle Factor."
MC Bodge said:
How many "good drivers" do people on here know?
Thats an interesting point. I can think of three people who I would consider to be very good drivers and probably half-a-dozen more who are good drivers.Of the three very good drivers, two are very highly trained instructors and, interestingly, one has never had any further training beyond his DSA car and bike tests, but is just a naturally smooth, safe and competent driver.
All three very good drivers are interested in cars and motorsport and would include motoring in their list of hobbies.
Two of the six people I consider to be good drivers have no interest whatsoever in cars or motoring and are those annoying types who are just naturally good at anything they put their hand to.
Of all those drivers, unless you knew what you were looking for, you wouldn't really notice anything special if you were a passenger. Pay attention though, and you'll notoce smooth progress, great positioning, and a calm attitude.
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