Advanced Driving Hub

It's true, mental commentary is much easier they a vocalised one. It's also true that different people are able to do a vocal one more or less easily than others. Maybe down to the way each individual's brain is wired?

I hadn't considered the workload to filter the commentary before. It just seems to fit with the mental process of driving/riding (for me).

The commentary comparison is interesting. Many IAM Associates initially find it difficult and attempting it often reduces the quality of the drive. However, at IAM Masters level a relevant, informative and fairly fluent commentary is required alongside an impressive drive. There are a lot of successful candidates. I think practice makes all the difference here. At the risk of being flippant, maybe my extensive practice at using a hands free phone while driving enables me to do it with less prejudice to my driving than for some others.

The conflict -- or one of them -- lies in the use of the visual cortex.

Search for: "distracted driving visual cortex".

I recently read a book called "Will it make the boat go faster?", about an Olympic rowing team training and competing. Spoiler: they got Gold.

Perhaps using a phone while driving could have a similar challenge: will my driving deteriorate or improve? If deteriorate, a. how will you tell; b. what's acceptable; c. how will you objectively monitor it?

Horse wrote:I recently read a book called "Will it make the boat go faster?", about an Olympic rowing team training and competing. Spoiler: they got Gold.

Perhaps using a phone while driving could have a similar challenge: will my driving deteriorate or improve? If deteriorate, a. how will you tell; b. what's acceptable; c. how will you objectively monitor it?

There is also an interesting perspective around acceptable levels:
- if the average driver is an acceptable level of driving
- and the AD takes their driving above that level
- is it okay for the AD to then add in distraction and reduce their level of driving back to the same level or above as the average driver...

i.e. AD should give more contingency in driving - are you therefore free to choose to use that contingency (higher speed / more distraction / etc.)
There could be different legal and ethical answers...

Alasdair

Did you get involved in improving your driving to end up just 'average'?

no - but a part of improving my driving is to increase contingency (being risk-adverse) - so it means that where the average driver while tired / ill / distracted falls below average (which is generally considered acceptable in society), by being above, you only fall down to something which is still acceptable if that makes sense!

improving driving lets you push the boundaries more, or make the current ones safer - different benefits for different times...

Alasdair

Horse wrote:I recently read a book called "Will it make the boat go faster?", about an Olympic rowing team training and competing. Spoiler: they got Gold.

Perhaps using a phone while driving could have a similar challenge: will my driving deteriorate or improve? If deteriorate, a. how will you tell; b. what's acceptable; c. how will you objectively monitor it?

I don't think it is as simple as that as it all depends on circumstances. For example you might be distracted by the prospect of being late or not being sure of your final destination. A short phone call could put your mind at rest and improve your driving. On the other hand you might be trying to put in a technically perfect 'progressive' drive on a ROADAR re-test or negotiating B roads at speed, in which case a call, however anodyne, would cause a deterioration.
Incidentally that 'deterioration' might in certain circumstances actually be planned to engineer safety into accepting the call (loss of speed, increased following distance etc.).

So do you mean accept short term safety deterioration in anticipation of safety gain from potentially improved direction finding? You could, of course, achieve gain-gain by stopping to make the call, couldn't you?

Matt1962 wrote:

Horse wrote:Perhaps using a phone while driving could have a similar challenge: will my driving deteriorate or improve? If deteriorate, a. how will you tell; b. what's acceptable; c. how will you objectively monitor it?

Incidentally that 'deterioration' might in certain circumstances actually be planned to engineer safety into accepting the call (loss of speed, increased following distance etc.).

If you always do that, then that's the mitigation I was asking about. How do you determine the necessary amount?

By deterioration, I meant aspects such as reaction time, not the mitigation.