Anyone have an article on looking ahead/forward planning?
Discussion
Big Fat F'er said:
Mark - the simple counter-argument is that you can't know that it is the most important thing unless you look at all the other things too.
Absolutely. Well said. End of discussion.
P.S. get rid of your friend. He/She is a liability on the road!
Well, with respect, I would have thought the thing to do would be to try to help your friend to see a better way of doing things - not get rid of him/her.
Best wishes all,
Dave.
Looking at the vehicle infront & what it does is only secondary information. If you deal in secondary information you will purely react to what they do infront. They brake, you brake.
A good driver deals in primary information. This can be found ahead of the vehicle infront (or even all the vehicles visible ahead) & by accurately assessing the primary information you can anticipate the coming secondary information. You see the bend ahead of the two cars infront & judge that they are too fast for it. They are going to brake or at least come off the drive, so you come off the accelerator early. They brake & you don't have to bother because you have lost the speed smoother on acceleration sense already.
Avoid reactionary driving where ever you can & looking no further than the car ahead is not the way to do that.
You should be looking to have more room to lose speed than the car immeadiately infront & to do that you'll have to be looking ahead of them. Otherwise if they brake in relation to something they see late, and you brake in relation to their braking (secondary information), if their vehicle can out perform your brakes, you may find yourself imbedded in the back of their car.
If you look ahead of them & see early what they see late, you can anticipate their braking & start losing speed early. Even if they can out perform your braking you will now be able to stop without hitting them & also be able to extend your brake lights (secondary information for the vehicle behind you) so that they won't hit you in the rear, even though those behind you also believed you only needed to look no further than the vehicle infront.
>> Edited by vonhosen on Saturday 29th April 23:31
A good driver deals in primary information. This can be found ahead of the vehicle infront (or even all the vehicles visible ahead) & by accurately assessing the primary information you can anticipate the coming secondary information. You see the bend ahead of the two cars infront & judge that they are too fast for it. They are going to brake or at least come off the drive, so you come off the accelerator early. They brake & you don't have to bother because you have lost the speed smoother on acceleration sense already.
Avoid reactionary driving where ever you can & looking no further than the car ahead is not the way to do that.
You should be looking to have more room to lose speed than the car immeadiately infront & to do that you'll have to be looking ahead of them. Otherwise if they brake in relation to something they see late, and you brake in relation to their braking (secondary information), if their vehicle can out perform your brakes, you may find yourself imbedded in the back of their car.
If you look ahead of them & see early what they see late, you can anticipate their braking & start losing speed early. Even if they can out perform your braking you will now be able to stop without hitting them & also be able to extend your brake lights (secondary information for the vehicle behind you) so that they won't hit you in the rear, even though those behind you also believed you only needed to look no further than the vehicle infront.
>> Edited by vonhosen on Saturday 29th April 23:31
Both Road Craft und Cycle Craft have good chapters on COAST skill building. Page 50 of Cycle Craft in particular adds more flesh to the Observation chapter in Road Craft to my mind.
You could also nip across to Paul's site where lieber IG spell out how to COAST when sharing his Hendon notes
You could also nip across to Paul's site where lieber IG spell out how to COAST when sharing his Hendon notes
TripleS said:
Mark - the simple counter-argument is that you can't know that it is the most important thing unless you look at all the other things too.
Absolutely. Well said. End of discussion.
P.S. get rid of your friend. He/She is a liability on the road!
Well, with respect, I would have thought the thing to do would be to try to help your friend to see a better way of doing things - not get rid of him/her.
Best wishes all,
Dave.
But what if he has already tried to help his friend, who then doesn't want to know. Isn't it time to come down hard on bad drivers?
Regards
Sally
>> Edited by Lady Godiva on Tuesday 2nd May 12:47
>> Edited by Lady Godiva on Tuesday 2nd May 12:48
Lady Godiva said:
Mark - the simple counter-argument is that you can't know that it is the most important thing unless you look at all the other things too.
Absolutely. Well said. End of discussion.
P.S. get rid of your friend. He/She is a liability on the road!
Well, with respect, I would have thought the thing to do would be to try to help your friend to see a better way of doing things - not get rid of him/her.
Best wishes all,
Dave.
But what if he has already tried to help his friend, who then doesn't want to know. Isn't it time to come down hard on bad drivers?
Regards
Sally
Hiya Sally,
a) Keep trying with the friend unless there really is no hope, but in the majority of cases I expect some progress can be made - given the right approach!
b) Yes, by all means deal with bad drivers, when we can decide what this means and they have been properly identified.
Best wishes all,
Dave.
Fortunately, there's a great aricle on p.140 of this month's Bike magazine about observation and forward planning. Perfect.
Despite being in a bike magazine, the article's excellent for all; I'd equally commend it for car drivers too.
I'd highly recommend car or bike Observers to obtain a copy for their Associates to read
It's a shame these sorts of article are much rarer in car magazines.
Cheers
I leave coming down hard to the police! Personally, gentle suggestion is my preference.
Despite being in a bike magazine, the article's excellent for all; I'd equally commend it for car drivers too.
I'd highly recommend car or bike Observers to obtain a copy for their Associates to read It's a shame these sorts of article are much rarer in car magazines.
Cheers
Lady Godiva said:
Isn't it time to come down hard on bad drivers?
I leave coming down hard to the police! Personally, gentle suggestion is my preference.
Anticipation not reaction
Simple task for your friend: get them to ask themselves did they simply react or anticipate with the last manouver.
I'd say 80% of the drivers only react, which is quite astonishing really. 95% of motorway driving in this country appears to only be reactionary. Reactionary drivers are in my book some of the most dangerous, they often are the rear end shunters, the motorway tailgaters, late indicators, and those who constantly can't time a manouver for easy progress. When your friend uses the motorway do they constantly have to use the brakes? as a passenger do you have lots of heart stopping moments? haw mishaps have they had?
Drivers look at you in astonishment when you move over a lane, in advance of them indicating as they have to pull out round a slower car ahead. The fact I moved before they indicated sets their alarm bells ringing & their faces say "how did he know I was going to do that?" or "he must be telepathic!"
The simple fact is I was looking ahead, thinking that lorries only doing 56mph, so that car catching up at some point wants to move over. So I anticipate this & move over a lane accordingly, the other driver only notices the lorry when he gets to it (reaction) then realises it's going slower & brakes (reaction) then wants to move out, so indicates and often has to sit and wait or dive in if they really want to get past. This in my book warrants an outright ban & back to school the lot. Sod bloody speeding sort out the crap (sorry poorly educated) drivers first.
Drive in Germany & the opposite is true for the percentages & then you get to belgium 
>> Edited by cptsideways on Friday 5th May 09:25
Simple task for your friend: get them to ask themselves did they simply react or anticipate with the last manouver.
I'd say 80% of the drivers only react, which is quite astonishing really. 95% of motorway driving in this country appears to only be reactionary. Reactionary drivers are in my book some of the most dangerous, they often are the rear end shunters, the motorway tailgaters, late indicators, and those who constantly can't time a manouver for easy progress. When your friend uses the motorway do they constantly have to use the brakes? as a passenger do you have lots of heart stopping moments? haw mishaps have they had?
Drivers look at you in astonishment when you move over a lane, in advance of them indicating as they have to pull out round a slower car ahead. The fact I moved before they indicated sets their alarm bells ringing & their faces say "how did he know I was going to do that?" or "he must be telepathic!"
The simple fact is I was looking ahead, thinking that lorries only doing 56mph, so that car catching up at some point wants to move over. So I anticipate this & move over a lane accordingly, the other driver only notices the lorry when he gets to it (reaction) then realises it's going slower & brakes (reaction) then wants to move out, so indicates and often has to sit and wait or dive in if they really want to get past. This in my book warrants an outright ban & back to school the lot. Sod bloody speeding sort out the crap (sorry poorly educated) drivers first.
Drive in Germany & the opposite is true for the percentages
& then you get to belgium >> Edited by cptsideways on Friday 5th May 09:25
Mark SV: I wrote a short article that may help: www.bespokedrivertraining.co.uk/5%20-%20Observations.pdf
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