Advanced Driving Techniques

Chapter Three :: Advanced  Driving Techniques

"Never rely on other road users to do the correct thing!”
(Extract  from the DSA Driving  Manual) 

Risk Awareness & Avoidance

While you may feel that as a driver, you do not take excessive risks yourself , it should be obvious that the biggest risks come from other road users or from the road itself. Risk assessment and evaluation is not taught as a subject, the only area of risk that is covered relies on understanding such principals as "Right of Way" and "Priority" - both of which are fairly vague legal terms.

To understand Risk, we have to first accept the basic principal that when driving our vehicle , we can never remove all risks - merely .reduce them to what we would consider to be "acceptable". This is a dif­ficult concept to grasp at first as we often consider that we have driven carefully and taken every pre­ caution possible during a particular journey. The fact that we arrived safely however, is more to do with statistical possibility than simply our own ability.

We love to share stories of the most unlikely happenings - in other words areas of extremely low risk that nevertheless actually took place. Here are some  examples:-

  • A lone golfer, who hit an unfortunately wild shot on a course in Africa, brought down the entire air­ force of a neighbouring country. All four aircraft were flying in close formation when the ball shattered the canopy of the lead aircraft, and killed the pilot - this caused the aircraft to go out of control and so collide with the other three. The odds against this are astronomical - but it  happened!
  • A woman driving down 5th avenue in New York back in 1992 suddenly heard a loud crash and felt something hit the rear of her car. Upon examination she found that a meteorite had gone straight through her boot and buried itself in the road. Not only was this the last thing that she expected, but she was very lucky that it was only her boot that it went  through!
  • A man sitting in stationary traffic in the middle of Paris back in 1995 was quietly picking his nose, when suddenly he was rear-ended by a late-braker and unfortunately his finger was pushed up into his brain and killed him. He wasn't discovered for another couple of hours as the traffic simply drove round him and the person who caused the accident left the scene without checking on the other driver .
  • Finally, there is the famous story of the van driver who was driving past the RAF base at Northolt when his van was broad-sided by a Learjet crossing the road having overshot the runway. He cer­tainly wasn't expecting it but as this was the 33rd such incident since 1960, perhaps he needed to un­derstand the aircraft warning sign a little  better.

Let us start with that last example of an extreme risk, that of being hit by an aircraft - 1:50,000,000 sounds like fairly low odds and we probably wouldn't worry about it. However the same odds apply to winning the National Lottery and millions of people work themselves up about this every week. This shows that the perception of statistics is that if they are about something beneficial we feel that they are shorter than if they are about something  dangerous.

We consider being diagnosed with Leukaemia as being extremely serious to us as individuals - and yet we consider ourselves to not be taking excessive risk if we are a low mileage company car driver or simply a road user. Yet the statistics show the fact that the risks are much higher in both categories - and unlike Leukaemia, is more easily reduced.

So what about those of us who drive considerably more than the 25,000 miles mentioned - well naturally as the mileage increases, so does the risk - but it is the proportion that is interesting. Between 25,000 and 50,000 miles the risk is double, but add a further 10,000 miles and the risk multiplies by a factor of five. This clearly illustrates the limit of human ability in terms of high mileage driving - and this is without the added risk of driving which working as in the case of a Pl or security operative , or the use of radios or mobile phones while driving. Consequently this additional risk must be estimated and considered care­ fully when trying to assess your position in the overall chart.

What is interesting in these last figures is that the risk to the typical Company Car driver are identical to those of the average coal-face worker or somebody who contracts the Flu but has no form of medical assistance. The comparison is that while most of us would never consider working on a coal-face as  we understand the possibilities for death or injury, we do not mind driving high mileages for our employer and would not even consider Flu as more than a minor inconvenience. This is a clear example of how identical risks can affect different people in wildly differing ways.

Risk is something that is seen as essential in life. Understanding it may also be the most difficult thing to comprehend. If you can establish an early understanding of this most critical area then there's no prob­lem. In reality, the easiest way to approach the subject is simply to look at why it exists in the first place.   A risk is very easy to define, the dictionary definition is:

The possibility of meeting danger or suffering harm Vs  Exposure to the chance of injury or  loss.

The table on Risk of Death is an excellent example - I have never seen anybody not be amazed at how their view of Risk varied from the reality shown in the chart. There are those who will say that because they smoke 30 cigarettes a day, the added risk of driving 25,000 miles is hardly worth worrying about. Others will point out that they have never had an accident in 30 years, or that they are better than the average driver. Simply pointing out that it's not only they who can cause the accident, but any drivers hat they meet on any day is a sobering point. Reminding them that while they may not have had an ac­cident in 30 years, do they know for sure that they have never been the cause of one? Or ask how many near-misses they have had and point out that that it is only a matter of time before one of these is not a near-miss .

This resistance is common because these statistics bring home a reality that we would rather not face. However, it can be overcome if approached as part of a larger picture such as a corporate decision to beat the normal odds or it is seen as a challenge to prove that your staff can better the average. Most companies only employ "above average" people and so the provision of skill-based training to provide "above-average" safety is common sense. However you choose to impart this information to your opera­tives, you need to fully understand the true nature of the problem yourself, so gathering and reading as much information on these areas as possible is not only sensible but can be essential.

People who take risk in their lives as part of their daily activities tend to find that this satisfies their   "need" and so are generally more placid and calm in all other aspects of life. Bungee jumpers tend to be laid back individuals at other times, as do surfers, skiers, professional pilots or scuba divers. They sel­dom see the need to drive fast or own a flash vehicle , they tend not to drink heavily or smoke, and cer­tainly not while driving. This phenomenon is puzzling dozens of scientists who make it their job to study and understand risk taking. The truth is that we do so to compensate for our otherwise mundane exis­tence and need to replace the hunting or combative elements of life that we no longer are involved  in.

The modern "combat" takes place in traffic and the "hunting" element comes when we are carved-up by another motorist or feel aggrieved that they are not driving in the same way that we are.

It is unfortunate that I have no publicly produced material that can more clearly show the risk to you as an operative, which is not to say that such information is not available, but is actually classified in the only format that I have seen it. What you can do is assume that you are well into the high risk category as an "average" individual, which is why this manual is designed to impart information to you that can make you an above average operative. Only by doing this can you be satisfied that you are not taking on an addition to your other Pl activities that is above and beyond what you envisaged the job being:

I think that after studying the full chart and allowing yourself a true picture of the risks you are taking in your work, you will realise the need for the enhanced training that this manual provides and you may  even wish to add to this by taking further training in a practical form. Whatever effect it has on you, it is doubtful that you could study these figures and not be surprised by the number and variety of categories that you may well fit in to. Having completed this, we must now consider the best way of reducing the  risk to an acceptable minimum. The first part of this involves improving our powers of   prediction.