Have you ever entered a room where the combined IQ of the people inside it was large enough to solve all of the world’s problems? That’s the feeling I got every time I entered a session at this year’s Transportation Research Board in Washington, DC. This scholarly and well-run 87 year old event, has hundreds of sessions, with researchers focused on some aspect of road safety. Enter the TRB world and you can attend sessions with catchy names like “Advanced Pavement Analysis,” or “Load and Resistance Factor Design of Concrete Bridge Superstructures.” Wow. So what is a safety boy like me doing in a place like this? From first glance it does seem that the construction engineers have the inside track, but a closer look reveals a lot of interesting discussion around driver behavior, teen driving behavior and crash prevention technologies—now we’re talking!
Attending these driver behavior sessions (with more earthly titles such as “Teen Driving – Status and Research”) you can’t help but wonder why car crashes still happen. I mean, there is no lack of data as to why crashes occur. If anything, there is an overabundance of such data. Researchers have diced and segmented the modern driver’s soul into thin slices testing every aspect of driver behavior, psychology, motives for driving, skill variations per mile driven, etc. Chances are that if you can name it, someone plugged a sensor into it, observed it, composed a questionnaire on it, or ran a study about it. So with all of this data out there, why are car crashes still on the rise??
Maybe its time we shift from the why (why crashes happen) to the what (what actions we can take to improve our own personal driving safety). Researchers have overloaded us with statistics, many pointing to the same set of facts about why crashes happen, and we know that 95% of crashes are at least partially caused by human error. So, let’s start considering driving less a right of entitlement, and more a behavior decision with inherent risk that should be handled with a lot of care. What if we all decided to start being more proactive, and more responsible with our own driving behavior? What if we agreed that safe driving is a decision that we make every time we enter our cars? There are numerous things every one of us can do to reduce crashes. Here are my top 5, and I’d love to hear what others have to say:
1. Enjoy your trip, allow enough time, and be relaxed. As soon as you enter your car, decide you are taking your time. There is no rush to get anywhere.
2. Don’t surprise, don’t be surprised. Give others (and yourself) plenty of room and time to react
3. Wear a big skirt. Well, not literally, but imagine you are wearing a big skirt around your car. You don’t want anyone stepping on it, so keep a safe distance from anyone or anything.
4. Stop lying to yourself. When you are tired – you can’t drive safely. Many have proven this by trying and failing, so there is no need to try it for yourself
5. Stop fantasizing in traffic. You are not a NASCAR driver, and the road leading to your office is not Talladega. Start scoring how well you drive, by how safely you drive; leave the performance driving to the pro’s, or go to a specifically designated racing track.
Let’s all start spending a little time and effort investing in our individual driving safety--now. Who knows, maybe by the next TRB all the researchers will wear puzzled faces, having to explain how crashes around the world suddenly began to decline. It could happen…
I’d love to hear from you about your top 5 safe driving tips. Please email me at hodf@greenroadtech.com
Drive safe, it’s worth the effort,
Hod Fleishman
Founder, GreenRoad Technologies
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