Safe Driving with Driverthink

I just finished reading Change Your Brain Change your Life, by Daniel G. Amen, M.D. Three Rivers Press, New York.  It rapidly became one of the most important books I’ve ever read.  It’s a very positive book but it’s also very scary, particularly from a Safe Driving point of view.

The crux of Dr. Amen’s book is that a lot of us are struggling with deficiencies that are caused by the physiology of our brains, either defects caused by inheritance, or perhaps as often, by a long forgotten brain injury.  We can see ourselves and almost anyone we ever knew in the good doctor’s review of these problems of the brain – but to varying degrees of seriousness.  Many of these problems can be confirmed by doing a SPECT type of brain scan imaging to be followed up with various methods of therapy.

The good news is that there are fixes to many of these brain problems.  The bad news is that people suffer with the problems, not knowing that there are often easy cures.  The scary part is that many of these problems are serious – and they’re often on the roads with us!  Yikes.

Ever wonder what causes Road Rage?  Maybe it’s a problem in the dominant temporal lobe compounded by issues with the cingulate or prefrontal cortex, caused by a minor brain injury that happened years ago.  I’ll never do the good Doctor justice in this brief article, but such stuff can cause a person to lean to excessive violence.  Not good.

When we ride the roads with other drivers, we’re also riding with their brains.  Dr. Amen has caused me to go back and re-visit some of the many road interactions I have had with other drivers over the years – or more specifically, that my brain has had with theirs. 

When I dealt with that angry driver who jumped out of his car to threaten me, was he just a nasty wiseguy , or perhaps was he dealing with a brain disorder suffered from a fall off of a swing, many years ago when he was just a little kid.  Didn’t matter much to me at the time because he quickly changed his tune when I got out of the car to meet him (I’m kinda tall, kinda strong, kinda ex-military and can be kinda’ physical myself if I have to), but it begs an interesting question.

Driving a vehicle safely at any speed takes a lot of focus.  Sure, it’s easy to just tell someone to focus on the road, but what if their prefrontal cortex is simply not going to let them?  The prefrontal cortex also affects judgment which I suppose could be a critical factor in operating a boogy buggy – especially at significant speed.  Oh, and what about impulsive behavior in the cockpit?  Not too good either.

Ever feel abnormally anxious or fearful when getting behind the wheel?  Could be, if you have an issue with your basal ganglia.  Not a good thing when driving, to be too anxious.

The cingulated gyrus affects our abilities to shift our attention.  Do we ever have to do that when driving?  Uhm, maybe a thousand times a minute!  Am I getting this right, Doc?

We could go on for quite a while longer but the point to be made here is that we’re driving on the roads with these issues – whether they’re someone else’s issues or perhaps even our own.

So what’s to be learned here, from a safe driving point of view?

Not everyone we’re going to meet on the road has the same mental abilities as we may have – and we’ve got to be ready for actions by others that we may not be expecting.

While some of these “driving brains” may have nominal and controllable issues, others (including our own perhaps) may be just a teensy bit more serious.

If we should see ourselves with some of these driving brain issues, just understanding them and how they may affect us will at least give us a “heads up.”  We can try to either fix the problems or at least recognize that maybe we need to develop a “work around.”

As for the others around us?  Let’s remember that, when we’re driving we really never know who that other driver is.  We don’t need to fear every other driver we meet on the road, but respecting their possible limitations, and not judging them by perhaps our own, will make us more alert, safer drivers – at whatever speed we choose to drive.

Change Your Brain Change your Life.  One of the best reads I’ve seen in a long time.  Try to get a copy of this book.

Understanding your brain and the brain of others when you’re driving, may very well Save your Life.