Safe Speed Forums

In another topic the following appeared:



Now that's a little bit overcomplicated for me, I think.

I'd like to propose for discussion that a drivers (/riders) sixth sense is no more and no less than anticipation.

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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

Over complicated?

Although this is not my idea (sadly, because I really like it), I think it explains ‘anticipation’ beautifully. It explains why we need to build up a bank of possible alternatives to any situation.

As I said, it could simply be called ‘road sense’.

Isn’t sixth sense generally reserved to describe premonitions? Those ‘gut feel’ situations that are beyond logical explaination.

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

probably it's all to do with an empathy with other road users (not totally happy with empathy as a word but..)...... not only anticipating what they should do but what they might do given your experience of their behaviour so far.

also picking up on more subtle cues like variations in speed/gear/engine speed, dithering, road position.

hmmm....

Perhaps it is just experience linked with anticipation. For example when I drive through the Queens way in Birmingham. I get a feeling about which drivers are going to drift across lanes. I don’t know how, I just know, so I won’t go round the corners beside them, so they drift in front of me.
I don’t know what it is, it’s like when I overtake on single lane carriage ways, I get a feeling about when to overtake, even when it appears safe to the eyes I don’t overtake, then something happens to make me glad I didn’t.

Stops rambling.

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Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
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I think so... Look at this:

"The ‘Seventh Sense’ is where we develop the ability to ignore the result the brain delivers and fill in our own possible options on what is missing or what might happen."

It contains an implication that 'self' is somehow outside the brain.

I prefer to consider that the brain improves its understanding of the total situation and makes fewer false assumptions as time goes on (/experience builds).



If 'premonition' is predicting the future, then so is 'anticipation'.

I also think that experienced drivers anticipate 'beyond logical explaination' frequently. And especially so when the 'logical investigation' is shallow - as it frequently is.

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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 it describes the difference between sub-conscious thought and conscious thought.

If ranideg tihs is esay, tehn yuor biarn is tkanig the esay ruote and you are not sneieg waht I hvae wretitn.

To actually read the garbage above you have to take control. It’s the same on the road. We must step in and take control of our automatic thoughts.




Exactly. That’s what it boils down to. We must consciously add to our bank of knowledge.



Nice argument, but aren’t we really talking about the Spookily Weird premonitions with sixth sense? I think that’s beyond our normal anticipation skills. But it does happen.

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

To me, what you are are talking about is the result of observation combined with anticipation and experience (learning) this results in "intuition" in its real sense (eg as it maths) where outcomes are deduced from what is going on...

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likewise gold and jewels,
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to sink your ship of fools

Yep, but what I’m also saying is, there has to be a very conscious effort to explore all possibilities in any given situation, (at least in the early stages of our learning experience).
If we don’t make that conscious effort we will rely on our subconscious, which is likely to come up with a poor result based on lack of information.

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

By way of support for GOB's point, I invite you all to read - fairly quickly - the following passage.

Now go backk and read it slowly. I find it much easier to read it at speed. Is this why I find it safer to do otherwise empty autobahns at 3-figure rather than 2-figure speeds?

Interesting. As you say Roger, it's easy to read if done fairly quickly; however, I've noticed many words become impossible to understand if looking just that word in isolation (covering up adjacent text).

aulaclty means nothing to me, but when placed within I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd the word made sense. Sometimes I had to read forward then go back again to be able understand the two words. Is this in support of seventh sense?

More than anything else, this effect tells me that most brain processing works below the conscious level.

And so it is with driving (and riding). We tend to get our best performance when the conscious layer is quietened and the subconsious rhythm and flow shines through. We've called it 'being in the zone' and 'super concentrated' in the past.

The conscious layer is much more important when learning, especially in the early years.

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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

What it supports, I think, is GOB's point - that the brain fills in the gaps to make the picture. Read things quickly - see the start and end point of each word in the cluster and a nominal mix of letters, commit that lot to the VERY POWERFUL unconscious brain and it will reconstitute in reasonably quick time - a plausible set of words, while the conscious brain directs the eyes further ahead.

For "fast" driving, I think this is similar. The eyes are looking 5 seconds or further ahead (in every sense, not just in the tiny angle in front, but in the mirror, to the side ahead for things about to join the carriageway etc), having already given the all-clear to the next 5 seconds of motoring more than 5 seconds ago. It would have done so with adequate checks for hazards, without knowing or caring if, say, the animal which we're going to not interfere with by a country mile that may leapfrog the carriageway ten seconds after we go past the "non-collision" point is a deer or a large domestic cat, whereas if out walking, or "Sunday driving" we might be hanging on the animal's genus, wrestle in our minds the non-recognition, to the extent of grabbing the binoculars around our neck or looking it up on the web when we got back home.

Edit - only just seen Paul's post above and I concur fully. He expresses things more concisely than I do. Obviously drives faster

Strangely, that's absolutely the exact opposite of what I think. The more I concentrate the harder it is to read.



If sixth sense is "Spookily Weird" to you, then I have no argument. You're entitled to your definition. But sixth sense to me is just something that's outside or beyond the usual five. In this, 'anticipation' fits the bill very nicely indeed in the driving context.

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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

Actually - joking apart - I think replace "fast" in my post above with "concentrating properly" - having elevated one's progress to the optimum speed point for safe progress. The lower concentration mode occurs when one chooses to travel slower than that optimum speed, be it because one is deliberately in Sunday mode - sightseeing with the family - or when enforced to do so by cameras and legislation.

Yes - true. However, had the jumbled prose been composed of correct word middles but erroneous start/end letters, I'm confident the premise would have been correct. I'm equally sure, stretching the analogy, that had the start and end letters not allowed the brain to bridge a plausible road situation together, the discerning driver would have slowed down, probably to a speed below that of the average punter in the same situation.

Try the following - first fast, then slow, as before:
I'll tell you what I've done after a while (although you can fairly easily work it out) but humour me please - try reading it at a fair pace first.

It's obvious to me that there's a decision tree, working from the barest details towards ever-increasing detail until the pattern match is sufficient.

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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'm not quite so sure..

When I launch at the latest variation of the conundrum, I start off at a good pace. Unlike the first, where I continue with good pace and, at least prior to initiaition, didmn't eaven realise I'd glossed over the jumbles, I stop almost dead in my tracks, only speeding up cautiously toward the end of the piece when I have come to terms with the score (experience if you like).

You misunderstand me, (thinks to myself: "Why do I ever start these things?")

Apart from one or two words, I have written rubbish. Your brain does not expect rubbish and therefore turns it into something that makes sense. It turns it into something that doesn't exist.
The brain is fooling you.

I suggest it's the same on the road. If we only see a bit of a picture, our brain will try to make sense of it and substitute the closest matching scenario that it has stored. Until we develop a massive bank of possible solutions, it is likely to come up with an incorrect answer.

When I find it, I'll post the Seventh Sense article (which made sense to me at the time).



Well, that's fine. None of this is my definition and I guess it doesn't really matter.

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

Sorry. But it's still causing trouble...



Really? I don't see that at all. The message is 'hidden' by the jumbling, but the brain sorts it out in a flash to reveal the original intended message.

Sorry again.

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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