Driving is a complex activity. Drivers have to make a lot of decisions — some life-or-death — quickly and accurately. But according to the information in chapter three of Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt, humans have a hard time paying attention to the task at hand:
As the inner life of the driver begins to come into focus, it is becoming clear not only that distraction is the single biggest problem on the road but that we have little concept of just how distracted we are.
Add to this the apparent fact, also cited by Vanderbilt, that the human visual system is designed operate efficiently and accurately at speeds of about 20 mph or less, i.e. about as fast as a human can run.
Now, how sharp are you at paying attention? Here’s a British public service announcement that might make you question your confidence (via Kim Komando).
You’ll find this PSA and another like it here. What this demonstrates is visual and mental priming, i.e. you are told to expect one thing and instead get something else. This is exactly what you get on the road. You expect to go from point A to point B. But every drive is different. And every moment is filled with distractions — some self-imposed, i.e. texting, chatting, and grooving to your favorite tunes.
If I could wave a magic wand and pass a law, I would require every person to read, and pass a test on, Vanderbilt’s book before being issued a license. I’m not kidding.
Just keep this number in mind: 40,000.
Comments 5
Human factors is a very important thing for cyclists to understand. Even attentive driving is a complex enough task that the human brain unconsciously edits out what it deems extraneous information.
Sometimes what registers as extraneous is culturally driven. For example, Orlando (and other Florida cities) have utterly abandoned pedestrians. There is zero enforcement of crosswalks. Pedestrians don’t even bother asserting themselves. So Orlando drivers literally do not see pedestrians approaching a crosswalk — they have edited them out of consciousness.
For the most part, the editing of extraneous information is necessary. The rules of the road are set up on the principle of maximizing predictability and directing the driver-focus forward (allowing them to edit out rearward activity). It allows a complex system to function. (This is exactly why urban bike lanes break the system.)
One of the primary causes of cyclist injuries is that cyclists too-often operate outside the century-old system of predictability and primary attention. They do this because they’ve been beaten down by motor-centric propaganda that they need to stay out of the way… and because many bike facilities encourage it.
This is where I have some problems with the awareness test videos. The videos don’t address the core problem AND they don’t tell the CYCLISTS how to be more visible and predictable. It’s wishful thinking that the primary audience for a cyclist safety piece is anyone other than cyclists. Cyclists love these things, they make them viral—sending them around to all their cyclist forums and friends. Non-cyclists don’t care. If they watch it at all, it has very little lasting impact on them.
As cyclists we have a primary interest in our own safety, yet as a community we’ve taken a passive stance that we are at the mercy of everyone else’s behavior. Yet crash evaluations overwhelmingly show cyclist behavior to be a huge contributing cause.
We are far more vested in our own safety than the audience we keep trying to reach. So if we really want to have an impact on cyclist safety we need to target cyclists and teach them how to be visible, predictable and in control of their safety.
We do need to fix the problems of inattention and driver irresponsibility. But I don’t think that’s accomplished by admonishing drivers to pay more attention to their blind spots (as one of the awareness videos does)… that will actually lead to less attention to what’s in FRONT of the them!
Despite all the problems we know exist with inattentive drivers, we can ride hundreds of thousands of crash-free miles by following some simple principles of visibility and predictability.
Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 9:56 am ¶Keri… The PSA is interesting to me primarily as an example of priming — something bicyclists suffer from, too. How effective is it in changing minds? I imagine it is not effective at all. It is merely interesting.
And then there’s the body count — equal to roughly one 9/11 every month or two jumbo jet crashes per week. Wow. Can you imagine the outcry if those were regular occurrences?
Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 11:07 am ¶Yeah, it’s amazing (disturbing?) how desensitized we are to traffic carnage. Do you think that by the time we reach mid life we’ve all known someone (a loved one, friend, acquaintance) who has been killed in a car crash? My acquaintance with traffic death started at age 2 when my aunt was killed.
Is it too commonplace? Is that why we have such a disconnect between our actions and the reality?
I feel like a question machine … I wish I was an answer machine
Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 1:00 pm ¶Keri… No clue. But I suspect part of it involves the primacy of the automobile in our cultural identity. How many people do you know who think there is absolutely know way they could live without a car? How many people do you know who buy cars based on emotional needs (e.g. image) versus practical needs?
And another thing it might be: We’ve built this country around the car such that we’ve made it difficult for many to live without one.
Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 1:16 pm ¶“I suspect part of it involves the primacy of the automobile in our cultural identity.”
I think you’re right.
I still wonder what the psychology is that makes people disconnect the behavior from the vehicle. Cars themselves wouldn’t be inherently dangerous (at least in the crash-risk sense) if people we’re reckless and irresponsible.
Posted 12 Jun 2009 at 4:02 pm ¶