Safe Driving with Driverthink

One of the most important things we can do to avoid mishaps on the road is to identify Road Hazards.  One of the tools in our arsenal that helps us do this, is Profiling drivers and the different types of vehicles that they’re driving in.

Now most of us would agree that the concept of Profiling has taken on some rather dubious controversy.  It’s not exactly “Politically Correct” nor is it something that’s particularly easy to talk about.  But hey, we’re not pulling over people here, nor are we handing out tickets.  That’s not our job as everyday drivers.

What we are trying to do – is to stay alive on the road.

Anything that can help us do that, whether politically correct or not, is something we might want to Driverthink about.  Besides, it’s not like we have to share our profiling biases with anyone and face the wrath of a politically correct media.  All we want to do is increase our odds of identifying a Road Hazard when we’re chugging down the boulevard at whatever speed we choose.

We always want to be identifying Road Hazards.  Why?  Because Road Hazards are a whole lot easier to deal with when they’re hazards, than when they actually become Road Emergencies.  A Road Hazard is by definition, something that could quickly become a Road Emergency.

It’s time for an obvious disclosure.  When we Profile our fellow road residents, we’re doing exactly that.  It’s an “odds” thing.  It doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone or every vehicle in our profiled group is a Road Hazard.  It just means that to us, the odds are in favor of our having a problem and we definitely want to watch the situation more closely.

Another disclosure.  We’re not going to identify any specific groups here.  We’re not looking to embarrass or insult anyone.  Besides, profiled Road Hazards can be different from one area to another.

Throughout a long driving career I have always picked up on the fact that certain types of drivers or certain brands of vehicles fall into certain types of driving styles – and some of them can be Road Hazards.  These profile groups fall into two general categories.  First there are the drivers themselves, and then there are the buggies they choose to drive.

First let’s watch the drivers.

Obviously, if I see a driver hunched over the steering wheel with their face glued to the windshield and a tense and nervous look on their face, I tend to back off.  But there also are drivers who fall into different groups.  It’s these groups we want to identify, whether it be by age, gender, size, haircut, gene pool, or any combination of the above!

In order to properly profile our risks, we might want to discard some of the obvious biases out there, and start fresh.  Not all older drivers are slow and dangerous, nor are all young drivers careless speed freaks.

It’s probably safe to suggest that a driver on a cell phone or busy text messaging deserves special attention.  But even a driver on a cell phone doesn’t strike me as an automatic Road Hazard.  It’s no different than chatting with a passenger.  It isn’t about the cell phone, it’s about the conversation.  Is it a casual chat that still allows attention to driving, or is it an animated or serious discussion that will divert attention from the driving thing?

It’s fairly easy to profile drivers.  All you have to do is watch them for a minute or two.  Most of us do this anyway, sub-consciously or otherwise.

Profiling the vehicles gets more interesting.

Profile groups seem to change over time – from year to year or period to period.  But there’s no question that certain makes of vehicles seem to attract certain types of drivers.  Some of them we can profile as “Instant Road Hazards until proven otherwise”. 

Some makes of cars will just always seem to do unexpected things if we watch them long enough.  Others will fall into the “either good or bad” category and yet others, we might group in a “somewhat aggressive but usually safe and skilled” category.  Of course there are many that simply can’t be grouped at all.  It really gets kind of interesting. 

How can we profile our fellow drivers?  It just takes a little focus.

When we see a car or driver acting in a certain way, we make note of the type of car and who the driver is.  If we start to see the same make of car or same type of driver doing the same kind of tricks, we’ll automatically begin to build our own profiles. 

Profiling may be a sensitive issue but it has saved many drivers from many a Road Emergency over the years.  Yup!  We saw it coming!