What Is The Worst That Could Happen...?

[Narcosis]

Here is the entire article for Marc Green's article. Six Laws of Attention

 

 

Thanks for presenting this.

[faffi]

"it's easier to make something happen than to keep something from happening"

 

 

 

Which is good if you stop to prevent an accident from happening, like hitting the brakes in time. Less good if you place yourself in the line of a collision

 

 

I think it boils down to awareness and making things automatic. If Stoner hears another engine, he knows somebody is close to him. Chances are he will then act in a fairly predictable manner to avoid a collision should the rider behind be too close. I doubt he waste much energy on this, it comes naturally.

 

In traffic, it comes down to seeing the important things and ignoring the insignificant matters. Let's say you have the right of way. A car is stopped, waiting to enter. Some will simply ignore the car because it is stopped and also because they have the right of way. Experience, however, tells us that quite often drivers do not see riders. Hence chances are that the driver will suddenly pull out in front of you. In other words, it pays to observe the driver and the car. You do not have to stare on it or give it your full attention, but you should be able to observe even the slightest movement, whether it's the driver's head turning or the wheels rolling ever so slightly.

 

In my experience, if you are frequently startled in traffic, whether you drive or ride, your focus wasn't were it was supposed to be for whatever reason. Or you live in India

[khp]

And yes, I took that to be the gist of it, as well. It sounds sorta obvious when you state it so simply (good job with that, by the way), but I have heard enough "advice" to "always be on your guard" or "prepare for the worst" or "expect the unexpected" that it seemed a question worth exploring.

 

Mr Green is obviously right that we cannot anticipate everything that could go wrong, since there are infinite possible ways for things to go wrong. But I think he's missing a fine point: you don't need to focus on "unexpected", but rather the "standard picture". And when things start to move away from the standard or expected behaviour/picture, then is the time to pay attention and react.

 

I wasn't drafted into the military, but I've heard and read that this is similar to what is taught in the military: in order to know when something is wrong, first you need to know what the normal situation is.

 

Of course there are also a number of 'classic' danger signals that tells me to pay extra attention to a certain driver (like two cars coming down an on-ramp on the freeway. Is the one in the back annoyed by the guy in front and will make a wild swing into my lane in order to make a pass? It happened some years ago in Denmark, and the biker was doing 200kph when he hit the car. The biker didn't survive).

 

Kai

[mugget]

My thoughts on this have always been that yes, it's very beneficial to think about certain accident/disaster situations - but not while you're riding, by then it is too late and that would just use up your concentration and attention. But while I'm away from the bike, usually just sitting at home or doing some task that doesn't require much thought, I will think about things like "what would I do if an Elk ran out in front of me on a 300 mile ride?" I go through the whole scenario in my mind - will it stop on the road? Will the Elk continue across the road? Should I swerve? Should I brake? What distance do I need to be able to stop? What will I do if it runs into the side of me and knocks me off the bike? Regardless of the actual chances of it happening, I've found that it's a good opportunity to think about all your options, to reinforce the correct use of the bike controls, and even to prepare yourself to 'just relax' if you do end up crashing. I really think it's better to think about these things beforehand, because when an emergency situation does present itself you will just react, not think about the best course of action. But if you react based on some amount of previous understanding of the situation it will be better than a panic reaction.

 

Thinking about this now I've just thought about another reason it could be dangerous to imagine certain situations while you're riding - say you were riding along and thinking about what would happen if an Elk ran in front of you... but then a rabbit really did run out in front of you? What would you do? Would you be more likely to react in an extreme way as if the rabbit was an Elk? A little rabbit is probably not as much of a threat as an Elk.