Hammer's Hard Knocks Vol #1

Can you see the future? Do you know it's the single most important skill a safe driver can possess?

You may think I'm joking, but I'm deadly serious. It's the goal of any defensive driving philosophy. Putting this skill into practice will make you a proactive rather than reactive driver, another way to put it is you'll always be in front of your truck mentally, rather than behind it. In aviation and the military, it's called "Situational Awareness." This blurb from an article about diving covers it well.

The Best Rescue Divers Don’t Have to Rescue

Can you see how this relates to driving? You've not only already analyzed possible outcomes of traffic situations, but also your responses. This greatly reduces your reaction time, as it's much quicker to verify options you've already planned than to analyze them as events unfold. Sure, you can still get surprised but most of the time you'll have seen the incident before it really starts, and are often reacting before the vehicles involved even know there's a problem. You have effectively seen the future, and that puts you a step ahead when it comes to accident avoidance.

How do you get there as a newer driver? Part of it is recognizing when you're operating in the opposite mode of Situational Awareness, which is Information Overload. When, not if, you find yourself in reactive mode, always behind the truck, you have to learn to back off, to break the cascading chain of events that leads to trouble. Failure to break that chain leads to stupid trucker tricks, and you'll be internet famous.

But getting there. The Smith System sounds corny in its simplicity, but reality is that every safe driver uses those tenets whether they realize it or not. Those of you who ride should take the MSF's advanced courses, as the ideas the teach transfer quite well. Driving like you're invisible helps ingrain the defensive mindset. That doesn't necessarily mean driving timidly, BTW.

Keep your audio down when in heavy traffic or navigating tight streets. Minimize your distractions to allow more of your brain's processing power to deal with analyzing what's in front of you. Don't be afraid to slow down if you need to, if you're in I. O., you have to break the chain of being behind the truck. Experience will help polish your crystal ball, but recognizing you're behind the curve is a major step in avoiding blindly operating in overload.

Life is much easier out in front, too. You'll see the slow truck you're catching, or the traffic coming down ramp, and you can grab a break in faster traffic to move over. You'll find that the sooner you deal with issues, the less likely they are to stack up and become an major problem.

See the future, and drag that truck along behind. It's so much easier than living in the past.