A sharp mind and a keen eye: The importance of Situational Awareness

The modern roadway for the unexperienced prospective driver appears to the meek as a imperiled zone of perpetual danger, rife and filled with giant metal contraptions flying around at speeds that a vast majority of humans that have ever lived have never come close to traveling at. On the other hand, the reckless see it as a place of adventure and opportunity, not to mention challenge, to be utilized at will for any desire – travel, of course, but also exercise, showmanship, and braggadocio. An environment containing denizens of such disparities of these is a rarity in our times and is nearly unheard of in antiquity. Neither side is wholly correct, as the driver who, in fear of some catastrophe, drives twenty miles per hour under the speed limit on a two lane country road, which is not at all uncommon where I live, leaves the ever-increasing parade of vehicles behind him to not only despair, but rage, leading the poor soul to engage in risky maneuvers like shoulder-passing and sudden turns, that, were the timid driver moving at the speed the road demands, he would not have attempted. Likewise, the unnecessarily feckless and asinine driver will also leave the cars behind him in a similar scenario, but for the reason that his driving twenty miles over the limit caused him to collide with any number of hazards on our nations’ roadways, undoubtedly causing an extreme degree of damage to his vehicle and, if he is particularly stupid or reckless, himself. Such drivers do exist, but they are rare. Instead, most drivers find themselves somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. In order to do so, one must bridge the gap and pick for themselves a range in which they reside using the knowledge and experience they have garnered thus far. This combination of knowledge and experience can be summed up succinctly in a single term: situational awareness, which is the only metric with which one may determine the ‘skill’, in a sense, of a driver. Situational awareness, for our purposes, can be defined as the interpretation of sensory data, knowledge of the environment, and the use of known facts of physics and logic to estimate the events of the near future in order to procure an appropriate response to the situation at hand. The lack of such a skill is the precursor to disaster, and the presence and utilization of it is the earmark of a good driver.

My mother had begun to teach me this skill many years before I began to drive, for it useful in many aspects other than driving, although it holds more significance to life and limb in driving than any other common scenario I can think of. She insisted on an underlying principle, the key to situational awareness: “Caleb,” she would tell me when I was young, and for that matter still tells me now, “always drive like someone is going to make the most moronic decision you can think of.” I learned this firsthand when a woman waiting at a stop sign moronically decided to dart right in front of me to make a left turn as I was traveling fifty miles an hour on a major thoroughfare through the beautiful town of Rockwall. Thankfully, I had my seat belt on and airbags equipped, so no major harm befell me or the woman who had, for no apparent reason other than a fabricated urgency, thrust herself and her property into the throes of incredible danger so that she might win the fabulous, decadent, and surely worth-it prize of not having to for a period surely not exceeding three seconds to proceed on her merry way. I escaped the situation with little more than a busted lip and a bruised ego (even though a month later it would be conclusively proven that it was NOT MY FAULT), although the lady, who surely has done this maneuver several times before, blissfully unaware that she had dared fate with her soul each time, watched her premiums skyrocket as her erstwhile friends had to fork over cold hard cash to little old me to replace MY car for which she had held in such callous disregard as to believe that it was a mere figment of her imagination, a mirage that when intersected with would disappear entirely. Alas, it was not so, and I am consoled in the loss of the gallant steed I had waited so long for to end up of use to me for the grand total of seven months only in the fact that my new car, paid for in large part due to her impatience, is now there to occupy the void left by the removal of my dear vehicle from me by unjust forces over which I have no control. The whole experience left me with a new car, which thankfully has not fallen to the level of the old one, and firsthand lesson in what my mother had taught me years ago. The basics of situational awareness lie on the predictable motion of other vehicles while also keeping in mind the eminent possibility that one of the many, many drivers one will encounter over their journeys might for no explainable reason take instantaneous inspiration from the kamikaze pilots of World War Two.

Unfortunately, there is no good way to teach situational awareness, no matter how hard the diligent instructor will try, to someone who cares not for safety or driving at all. One may invoke the popular adage “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t him drink” to explain the situation, and it is a good one, but I would rather retool it a bit and say that “You can teach a man everything in the world that there is to be taught, but you can’t make him wise.”. This, I believe, is a more fitting saying, as it delineates the proper skills needed for successful long-time operation of a motor vehicle, among other pursuits. You can lecture a pupil for months about the mechanics of the car, traffic rules, traffic signs, turn signals, hand signals, and so on and so forth without ever conveying to him the wisdom or experience he needs to be a good driver. You have taught him to drive, but you have not taught him how to behave while he is driving in public, you have that him the who, what, where, when and how but not the why. Without this it is all in vain, for you would rather have him not drive at all than drive poorly. This is the problem that educators the world over face. Now, let me preface this by saying that I have respect for those who try to teach safe driving in a school-like environment – your cause is noble and your intentions just, but your modus operandi is irreparably flawed. The impressionable youth who will soon sit in the driver’s seat need not only the know-how of driving – you have that covered – but also the wisdom, the situational awareness, to know how to act while doing so – this is where you falter. Far too many go without situational awareness – the driver knows how to drive, but he is stumped when he is tasked with consistently driving well in different environments. He may know how to drive in the neighborhood, but he is flummoxed when he encounters a freeway, a tunnel, a bridge, a one-way, a city street, a bus lane, an exit, a four-way stop, and especially the night. Such knowledge only comes through situational awareness, which I like to call driving wisdom. My mother took the initiative to introduce me to this at an early age so that it had time to ferment and take root, and I encourage all other parents to do the same. For others, it can be taught in tandem with an inspirational speech about the differences I have just delineated between knowledge and wisdom, for some it comes only with experience, and for some it never comes at all. Such people must be avoided and kept off of the roads at all costs, but for the driving sort, it is often impossible to discern such an undesirable trait until it is too late. For the biking sort, such behavior is self-evident, as only a suicidal maniac would take his bicycle onto the roadway where motor-powered vehicles will surely put him in incredible danger as they naturally travel at much higher speeds. None of the fault here goes to the driver, as he inhabits the space literally built for his vehicle to travel at high speed, and all of the fault goes to the dunderhead who insists on using this space for his agonizingly slow children’s toy. Now that I have finished my brief complaint, in order to improve the education of drivers, the educator must understand that he must engender in the driver wisdom, that being situational awareness, foremost alongside proper regard to his own livelihood and those of others with the knowledge of driving a necessary second part. These initiatives will surely reduce the number of accidents, and thereby tragic deaths by the tens or hundreds of thousands, as a result of the decline of people on the roads who in all technicalities know how to physically operate a vehicle without the wisdom to operate it within the bounds of the situation.

In order to really make the roads safer though, one must know that a driver’s education is not complete when he exits driving school. Driver education is very important in establishing the basics of driving and compelling the student to wisdom, but it is impossible to teach the pupil everything they need to know in order to drive well. In this case, as well as in many other cases, the best teacher is experience. In order to improve, the driver must practice, and after he graduates, he exercises his skills every time he drives. Practice makes perfect, the old adage says, and driving may be the foremost example in proving it true. I feel like I’m a good driver. I felt like that when I passed my driver’s test and I’m sure I’ll feel it forevermore, but I know, deep inside, that there is much more for me to know, more than anybody could ever tell me. At this point, after all the education and adages, the only way for one to better themselves in driving is to drive more. In doing so, he recognizes in own weaknesses, and all in all, that is how driving will improve across the board. Teach wisdom, not only in situational awareness form, but also in that no one exits the womb a perfect driver. Time is the best teacher, and the driver who studied with the utmost rigor and reverence will find that the first time he drives unsupervised, under his own power, as well as every time after that, something will be learned and added to his subconscious and his wisdom. In this, he will become what we all desperately need and strive for – a good driver. A good driver drives not strictly along the book or stringently adheres to every principle, but he drives as the situation requires him to. A good driver cares for himself and those who they hold dear, and will in all humility, knowing that they themselves are imperfect and still yet constantly learning, advise those whom he sees behaving irresponsibly, earnestly trying to convince them so that their lives, and lives of innocent others, may be saved. In essence, anybody can drive well – but it takes a good person to be a good driver.