Safe Speed Forums

A telephone conversation I had this week included a brief discussion comparing the process of learning to walk with the process of learning to drive.

Walking is incredibly complex, although of course we regard it as absolutely trivial. It is 'second nature'. If we were asked about how we do it, we'd say something like 'I just walk'. Probably. In reality walking is pretty close to controlled falling - there's an unstable stage where our CoG isn't above our footprint. But we don't know that. We don't think about that. We just walk.

Driving is even more complex, especially the risk management parts. But like walking we take it for granted. We (most folk in society) don't question what it is we do or how we do it. Most of the actions are programmed at such a low (subconscious) level that they happen without conscious intervention.

Can we learn more from the comparison?

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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

Walking is something that requires continual active involvement of the body. You can't accidentally forget you are walking, if you stop 'doing' it, you stop walking. Driving is different: if you stop being involved in it you keep on going. You need to keep the mind involved in the process, otherwise it will wander off and you end up just reacting. This leads to surprises, which imo is why accidents happen.

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Peter Humphries (and a green V8S)

Hmmmm. Be careful what you say Paul! Even as I type, I bet there's a government department working on legislation to stop people walking and using mobile phones!

Indeed - entitled the Ministry of Silly Walks

The point that I was hoping to develop was as follows:

Driving and walking are similar because they are complex mental activities, but in each case the processing required goes on subconsciously. Consequently we tend to be completely unaware of the complexities.

And the hoped-for benefit of considering the issue was:

An illustrative point which reveals to folk without visible special skills that they are actually doing something very sophisticated.

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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

Having just come back from a 24hr walk-camp-walk, I never want to walk again.

Where are my car keys....

I think there are some very strong similarities in the way we negotiate our way through a busy crowd, and the way drivers avoid each other on the streets. In both cases it's a complex game of guessing where the other people will go and indicating how you plan to avoid them. The main difference I think is one of scale - driving you have to cope with much greater distances and speeds, and when it goes wrong instead of a mildly painful shoulder check you get bent metal and people in hospital. The underlying algorithms are the same though.

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Peter Humphries (and a green V8S)

And even more so when ice skating in crowded public sessions. With a little planning and a lot of ducking and weaving you can go 2 or 3 times faster than the bulk of folk. I have often wondered if doing a lot of ice skating when I was 12/13/14 helped me to drive in traffic.

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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 think my anticipation and dodging skills were honed while growing up in a seaside resort and walking/cycling around town. Like your skating maybe those skills transfer to some extent to all of the transport modes you use.

Physical control of a car (except in extremes like rallying) is pretty easy compared to walking or a pogo stick - ever tried a unicycle? The collision avoidance is the hard bit. A lot of people seem to take little notice where they are walking and what is going on around them and I have often thought that probably translates to their driving.

There are two aspects to both.

one:mastering the control of the 'vehicle'

two: mastering the 'rules of the road' and spacial awareness.

You get 'clumsy' kids who haven't properly mastered control of their body (me throwing a javelin at 14!!).

Until you are confident with the control of the vehicle you can't hope to be a safe driver.

Vehicle control should be as instinctive as walking.