Safe Speed Forums

I recently had a 'Eureka' moment.

Having said that, many of you will think I'm stating the bleeding obvious, but to me it was a revelation. A revelation that was too bizare to even say out loud, but beautifully logical at the same time.

I have decided, with some trepidation, to share my thoughts with you.

This 'Eureka' moment came to me a few days ago as I was riding to work. I was mulling over some Safespeed forum chats about the use of hand-held mobile phones. Paul had been fairly adamant that the dangers of phone use had been grossly exaggerated. I had expressed the opinion that I welcomed any measure that saw their demise.

And then it came to me.........

Of course! They can NEVER, in isolation, EVER cause an accident.

And then my brain, such as it is, rushed head-long into the sweeping conclusion that I now wish to confess:

NOTHING we do can EVER, on its own, cause us to crash; (except a deliberate act such as driving head first into a brick wall, for example).

I am tempted to leave it there with a final - Discuss.........but the fear of expulsion from Safespeed is an encouragement to explain. I have, believe it or not, thought this through and it seems to hang together.

We could drive along withour eyes shut and be 100% safe from a crash unless something else happens. There may be a bend in the road, a junction, a slower vehicle in front, etc., the list is endless but the inescapable fact remains - something else must occur to cause a crash.

We could drive down the motorway at 80mph, 2ft from the car in front and be 100% safe from a crash unless the vehicle we're following suddenly reduces speed.

So, a plethora of examples can be analysed, and they all fit the same pattern.

Now, what makes an action 'dangerous' is the degree of likelihood that something else might happen. Driving with eyes shut would be crazy, because something else is bound to occur. Using a mobile phone? Not so likely.

So, is it the degree of likelihood of other events happening that ranks the degree of dangerousness of an action? I think it is.

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It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

Lovely post! Excited. Modest. Interesting. Not the sort of thing to get you thrown out, let me assure you! I suppose at a push we might manage to classify it as an ad hominem attack on yourself...

But I think Steve Haley wrapped it up with his 'speed, surprise and space' risk model: http://www.safespeed.org.uk/sss.html and of course in MIND DRIVING.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Firstly, thanks for the kind comments.

And then, with the greatest respect to you and Steve Haley, I must say that I don't think that article is saying quite the same thing.

He is talking in general terms about risk management (all terrific stuff). I an attempting to quantify the various things we do. Those actions which are classified as dangerous.

They all need to be handled the same way, ie to anticipate what may occur and what to do about it.

When I look at my examples, tailgating has only one thing that can go wrong - the car in front brakes faster than us. And there is only one corrective action - increase the space. I believe that may be why many people drive too close. It's uncomplicated. Only one thing to worry about.

Other things have more that can go wrong - right up to driving blind-folded!

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It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

Are you not talking about managing 'surprise' and / or 'space'?

As far as I understand it, right now, Steve's risk model is just about perfect. So are you saying one of the following:

- the risk model isn't perfect ibecause...
- this effect is outside of the risk model ibecause...

I can't see what you're getting at that isn't built right in.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I wasn't even thinking of this risk model when I threw my heart open. I was simply excited to be able to explain to myself a bit of the mechanics of crashing. Quite simply, the fact that nothing, in itself, is dangerous.

Looking at it, I suppose I'm adding to the model. I wouldn't presume to say it isn't perfect. I'm sure it is.

I'm probably adding to the 'surprise' bit. I'm looking at how many surprises there might be in a given situation and using that to rank how 'easy' it is to exist in a 'dangerous' state without crashing.

Perhaps it also explains why some poor driving habits or actions are so common.

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It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

So maybe it's that we end up with a margin for error after operating our risk models? As typified by the fact that we don't have to emergency brake much?

Is that getting closer?

Or is it that most crashes require simulaneous failues by TWO parties - one who causes the danger and one who fails to avoid the danger?

If we're causing or failing to avoid 1% of the time each we get an 'error mitigation multiplier' of 1% x 1% and redce the risk from 1 in 100 to 1 in 10,000?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Hang on. I think we're both losing each other here.

I'm only thinking about how (non-advanced) drivers manage to do so many things which 'we' consider unsafe, without actually crashing.

Everything needs something else to go wrong to cause a crash. (Not necessarily another driver.) The number of different 'elses' will complicate the situation.
Tailgating, for example. Only one thing to surprise them. Easy peasy - they can see that without wonderful powers of anticipation. The act of tailgating alone can never cause a crash.

That's all I'm saying.

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It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

The truth is I don't really understand your point.

I'll leave it a couple of hours - or even overnight then read the thread again. Unless anyone else want to help us out?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Because, as you say, the act itself is not necessarily unsafe when done in isolation or to the exclusion of other factors. What it may do is leave you less well prepared when one of those 'what ifs' materialises.
Which is why we are encouraged to drive with both hands on the wheel, at a safe distance from the car in front, maintaining good concentration, not using a handheld mobile etc etc, because across the board those acts erode the margin we give ourselves to play with when something else goes Pete Tong.

Is it that we routinely manage 'surprise' to a low level?

Is that the core point?

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Well, I did say in my OP that I was probably stating the 'bleeding obvious', so I supose there's not much point to it really.

I just found it 'exciting' when I realised that - nothing we do will, in itself, cause us to crash. Sad I know, but that's the simple, boring truth.

That lead me to think about how many things could happen which would compound the initial action into a crash.
My two extremes are driving with eyes shut (infinite things can happen next) and tailgating (only one thing can happen next).



Yes, that's likely to be true and it might explain why many drivers tailgate. They only have to think about not hitting the car in front.

Sorry these aren't pearls of wisdom

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It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

I think they do not feel threatened or their impatience overrides the threat of injury. As a biker, occupying the same space at the same time as another object is very threatening, a car driver will feel less threatened as they are surrounded by a shell designed to protect them from this. The idea would be that road users perform at what they perceive to be an acceptable threat level as opposed to a maximally safe level.

I can see your point in as much as it applies to dynamic events, however a bend, for instance, does not 'happen' it simply is. Unless you are talking about sitting in a static vehicle then driving is dynamic so you can never really say you are doing nothing. I am not so much disagreeing with your proposition so much as pointing out a logical inconsistency in your statement.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Ah! I'm really pleased you brought that up.

If I drive accross the salt flats in America with my eyes closed - I'll be perfectly safe until I hit something. The same MUST apply to driving on the road.
If the bend wasn't there, I wouldn't crash.

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It's tricky doing nothing - you never know when you're finished

I think we are referring here to the 'incident chain'.

Every incident comprises a chain of unfortunate events, some of which we can influence, and some we can't. Only one of these events needs to be removed to break the chain and avoid the incident.

Rather than seeing some activities as safe 'unless', I would rather see them as identified, actionable links in the chain, and sieze upon them as an opportunity to break it.

So you drive with your eyes open so you can see the bend.
You keep your brain focussed on the task so you can properly assess it.
You maintain a safe gap to the vehicle ahead in case the driver brakes for something.
You approach and negotiate it at an appropriate speed so you don't fly off into the scenery.
You keep both hands on the wheel so that if you (say) strike a pothole it isn't wrenched out of your hands.
You position yourself throughout the bend to afford yourself the best view of the road ahead without compromising other vehicles progress.

So the facets of safe driving that we bring to the task prepare us for the dynamic environment in which we are operating. We are ready for the eventuality that a child runs out into the road, a statement I have never believed needs taking literally, it is a broad metaphor for the 'surprise' event that can take a million different forms.

If we extend that to say any incident free journey is a continuous series of broken 'incident chains' then we are not far from the OP's assertion.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

The job we're trying to do here is to micro-analyse road safety from a systematic perspective. It's absolutely essential that we keep throwing things at our developing model(s), and finding out:

- if they fit in
- where they fit in
- if they break the model(s)
- if they help refine the model(s)

You're helping the process, and believe me, I'm grateful. Please don't stop. I also value your experienced input and your 'out of our groove' perspectives. There's a very fair chance that you are going to make an observation or ask a question that we haven't already dealt with.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

This is a very interesting perspective, which I don't normally or routinely use at all.

In driving, we're managing a margin for error and as long as we're successful we really don't allow the 'incident chain' to start building. It's only when the margin for error is eroded that the chain starts to form. I'm not sure how that might help, but hey, this is brainstorming.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Thats the way I see it too. Virtually everything we do in some way breaks the incident chain; braking in time, steering in time, observing other vehicles paths etc etc, its a natural aprt of the process.
The 'what ifs' are a crude attempt to insert a link into the chain that wasn't there at the time (you did something 'risky') but might be next time. In which case you'd break the chain earlier on.
Unless you had eroded your margin for error too far....

I don't think we disagree.

Perhaps I shouldn't have referred to all the links in the chain as 'unfortunate events' but simply 'events'. You start the chain by getting in the car, being in a certain place at a certain time, where the other links can join up just so and you reach the incident. Yes, you could break the chain by braking, or steering, or not folowing so closely, but you could equally break the chain (albeit without knowing) by leaving 30 seconds later!

The true value of conceptualising the chain is the knowledge that up until almost the very last moment you can still break it, by simply removing one link, without the need to tidy the whole thing up, if you get my meaning. Recognising that some thing(s) have gone wrong, and a chain may be building, but that an accident has not yet happened, means that you still have the opportunity to take action to avoid it. Putting those 'links' behind you, attaining/regaining and maintaining the focussed state of mind discussed elsewhere and moving oon means that any not-yet-crashed driving can be easily brought back to a safe standard.