basingwerk wrote:
This is all about personal perceptions and psychology. I think no driver can be sure they are having an on-day, nor an off-day. Only other people can assess that, we are too involved with our own perceptions of ourselves. It is common to sit in the passenger seat and be aware of all the 'mistakes' other drivers make, yet as people, we are often totally blind to our own inadequacies. This is especially true of men, who are programmed genetically and socially during childhood to compete and be afraid to show weakness to their peers. This is a veil that stops proper, objective thinking dead in it's tracks, and shackles us to subjectivity. It may be better for road safety to admit our vulnerability to fickle fate, and drive accordingly.
That's quite an interesting reply. There's not much I actually agree with, but I do think it's helpful in advancing the debate.
I do have concerns that the judgement of an "off day" may be coloured by subjective assessments. But there are easy and obvious "off-day" metrics which really don't depend on subjective value judgements. It's things like getting in the wrong lane, fluffing a gearchange, or braking late.
But "off days" seem to me to have more to do with rhythm and flow. These measures are more subjective, and it's possible that such off days are a matter of perception rather than reality. To complicate matters even further, there's a feedback system too. If we think we're having an off day then our confidence may drop a little and that in turn may lead to mistakes or a loss of rhythm. In other words, thinking that you're having an off day might make you have an off day.
Basingwerk also asks, quite correctly, if we have the ability to judge ourselves. There's evidence that suggests we can't judge our driving ability against any absolute standard. This is usually expressed as: "90% of drivers think they are above average, and that can't be true". I am worried about drivers' ability to make absolute judgements about their own quality, but here and now we're not talking about absolute quality. We're talking about relative quality as it varies from day to day. I have no doubt that we can make worthwhile relative judgements.
Basingwerk suggests that we are shackled to subjectivity, but there are excellent objective measures that we can all use. We need to count (and evaluate) our own mistakes. I'm quite sure that the majority of us would be only too pleased to make worthwhile judgements of our own driving if only we had been told what the measurements should be.