Safe Speed Forums

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This topic has been split from another thread here.
S





For gawds sake, COAST is just a cute acronym for a set of principles which are self evident to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. I mean C = concentration - do you need to be taught that concentration is a sine qua non for conducting a ton of machinery at high speed through a hazardous environment?

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Well I learnt about many things from the many journeys in the family car when a child, then as I was taught further to pass the test my tutor taught me to drive to pass then how to drive after the test too. From there it wasn't long before I met Paul, but we have been talking about all teh COAST principals and a (lot) more since then.

[Please Note 'you' (below), is 'one' and not directed at any poster here.]
I do agree that a driver can learn without knowing acronyms (and there are many), but that is not the point, that I believe was being promoted above.
Unless a driver 'thinks' particularly about their driving skills and abilities, and ask the 'what', 'why', and 'how', you might do each task better, you are unlikely to ever get anywhere near e.g. COAST concepts, ever, you need guidance and education, it is not necessarily 'obvious'.

This does not say that driver's / riders, don't concentrate at all, but that when a driver catches themselves thinking other thoughts, until they have been guided or educated, it may not be that obvious to some, that their lost concentration is ever that much of a problem or could lead to a serious problem.
Through education and guidance, you can start to appreciate the importance of each skill and ability, and thus gain crucial knowledge. Learning that concentration is extremely important is a prime route to good driving (one of 'prime' skills anyway).
By going through many of the good driving principals, you encourage and enthuse yourself, to know how to start to be a really good driver. Patting yourself on the back, when you have anticipated a potential hazard, and acted appropriately, preventing an incident or stopping (or other action) early as the other driver/rider thanks you (you hope) for that early thinking that stopped them or you getting into bother, is incredibly satisfying!
This beginning to better driving, can help drivers/riders to start to appreciate a level of driving, that they may not have been previously aware.
it is this ongoing downturn in skills, abilities, knowledge, judgment and risk awareness that is beginning to be become a real issue on the roads. When people drive/ride in a manner that fails to acknowledge another's rights, they can easily become frustrated and angry, and guess what this is exactly what is happening. people are rude to each other.
By all road users attempting to be as good as they can be, with only the minority, who may never understand this, the vast majority will retain the better level of driving skills on the road, and so the roads get safer.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

Given the fact that few appear to concentrate on the job of - I would say that most need teaching how to do it properly. Far too many fail to observe und even then they cannot risk assess the hazard properly und decide what to do properly.

These folk are complacent und some have been judged to be "institutiionally complacent" too.

_________________
Nicht ganz im Lot!
Ich setze mich immer wieder in die Nesseln! Der Mad Doc ist mein Mann! Und ich benutzte seinen PC!

UND OUR SMILEYS? Smile ... und the the world smiles with you.
Smiley guy seen when you read
Fine me for Safe Speed
(& other good causes..)

Greatest love & Greatest Achievements Require Greatest Risk
But if you lose the driving plan - don't lose the COAST lesson.
Me?
Je ne regrette rien!

No - they need teaching that concentration is necessary not how to concentrate. I would have a detailed psychological profile as part of the driving test. People who do not fully appreciate, at a deep visceral level, the enormous responsibility involved in driving a motor car should not be allowed to drive.

_________________
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Hi dcb


I think in my early post defining COAST .. I described "C" = concentration" as a "relaxed one". The sortyou apply when watching a good film/play or reading a book. Engrossed . but relaxed and alert to other things in life.


Yes .. I agree that some attitude testing should feature a lot more when we test drivers. We do apply this to our RPU trainees.. but we are aware that some will slip thought the screening net. Let's put it this way.. we are usually dubious of those who come forth because they like the idea of "fast driving testing them to their extreme limits" Our candidates have to apply in writing and present their reasons for wanting to do this tough job - and I am sure one safespeeder will testify that this is one tough first hurdle to get through.

Once through the written submission . we interview each candidate intently. We need to establish motive . commitment as well as inherent talents.. and some come to us with IAM etc . but the better ones are really 100% trained up by us with none of the acquired nonsenses

We teach to COAST - extended OAP per Roadcraft ,, but much more in depth.

In my first definition of COAST .. I think you will read that I remarked that if we concentrate on concentrating . then we are not concentrating on the real task. Driving requires that relaxed state of concentration which I can only define as being close to that level when you are following a film on the telly but still aware of what your wife is nagging you over

It's not at all easy to define and you wil find that I do update the COAST skills as we learn even more about human behaviour and driving too. Nothing remains static and I find I learn more each day

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

DCB, I think this could raise an important debate and I don't really want it to dilute the original thread. Would you mind if I split the thread from your post of 06:59:32 - Thu 23 Apr 09 ?


Why not both?
(I'm assuming a comma was missed)


I would love to agree, and in an ideal world I would; attitude is a big problem.
Unfortunately, our reliance on automated enforcement has let many unlicensed drivers slip through the test net; making the test harder would drive yet more people to circumvent it. Those who fail such a profiling are likely to be those who wouldn't take any notice of it anyway, or simply wouldn't bother with it. One thing we’re leaning with the yoof of today is not to label them as 'feral' – the impressionable tend to believe, or act out, the label others give them.

I'm open to thoughts here. I think we need people to want to take and pass this test, and reward those who pass (as opposed to penalise those who don't).

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Views expressed are personal opinions and are not necessarily shared by the Safe Speed campaign

Excellent idea. I hope it does provoke a debate



Ideal. But the point I was making was: if a person does not accept the need to concentrate then teaching them how to is useless. You might as well teach me the fine points of buying a new car



I agree that it is not a very practical idea to test for attitude but it is the most important thing that we should try to teach and it isn't part of COAST.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

dcb - we've posted up the Lancs SAC mark sheet before boht on here and on PH . DIS apparently follows the same format. It's proof that COAST is official. It's also mentioned in later pamphlets that those offering SAC/DIS send after the course. We have this evidence from those we know to have completed these courses. I have removed all names from this form.

As you can see each part of COAST gets assessed before , during and after the training. ATTITUDE is also marked per this form.

Sorry Steve .. maybe you can move this to wherever you do the "splits"

_________________
If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

Thanks DCB, 'tis done.

Feel free to change the thread title as you see fit.
If anyone wants a post moved over from the other thread, or returned back, please let me know.

What I wouldn't give, to see something like that form, find its way into Amerikan road testing.

I can only speak for two states - California and New York - but Amerikan road testing, to be brief, is merely the road equivalent of the written 'learner's permit' test.

As long as the applicant proves their ability to follow the rules in a suburban setting, they will pass and get a license, yet are quite likely completely inadequate for parkway/expressway/highway driving, as well as dense urban and metropolitan driving, since 'learners' are NEVER trained in these areas, which is precisely where COAST skills are in the highest demand.

In particular, the test is given in an area selected specifically beacuse it is significantly underpopulated.

The steady increase of multitasking while driving is being closely shadowed by carmakers developing so-called 'smart' technologies. Among the latest, new Volvos can prevent rear shunts up to 19 MpH without any intervention from the driver.

(Wonderful. All I have to do now, is stay under 20MpH, and I can blame Volvo for anything awkward.)

The message being driven home to drivers on numerous fronts has nothing to do with COAST skills. If anything, whatever message the average driver is getting regarding the driving environment has numerous subtle implications which collectively create a static hum that makes the COAST message that much harder to hear, much less grasp and implement.

_________________
The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

I would like to see a [brief] description of concentration.
I (for instance) do not drive with any in-car-entertainment on....none. I find it terribly distracting. It has its place when in slow, boring, crawling traffic jams/s....but that's it.
Others, I have noticed, find that having to do two tasks at the same time is a mental feat they are unable to accomplish, so driving gets put on the back burner (wailing kids in the back).
Others close-down at the sound of a horn and become wide-eyed statues.
Given the difference between people, and the same people at different times, how you are going to devise a "model of concentration" that people can be educated to would seem to [me] to be extremely difficult [if not impossible].
If training police officers to do that [given that they are already a selected stream, of a selected stream] is hard, how much more difficult is it going to be in people with no specific ability ?

_________________
The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

R2. You can switch off



Am immune :pocorn: as ist Mad Doc


yes. but humans do adapt pretty well und why I marvel at nature..

_________________
Nicht ganz im Lot!
Ich setze mich immer wieder in die Nesseln! Der Mad Doc ist mein Mann! Und ich benutzte seinen PC!

UND OUR SMILEYS? Smile ... und the the world smiles with you.
Smiley guy seen when you read
Fine me for Safe Speed
(& other good causes..)

Greatest love & Greatest Achievements Require Greatest Risk
But if you lose the driving plan - don't lose the COAST lesson.
Me?
Je ne regrette rien!

Liebchen .. Merci vilmal

_________________
Nicht ganz im Lot!
Ich setze mich immer wieder in die Nesseln! Der Mad Doc ist mein Mann! Und ich benutzte seinen PC!

UND OUR SMILEYS? Smile ... und the the world smiles with you.
Smiley guy seen when you read
Fine me for Safe Speed
(& other good causes..)

Greatest love & Greatest Achievements Require Greatest Risk
But if you lose the driving plan - don't lose the COAST lesson.
Me?
Je ne regrette rien!

Rush . I should send to you as private message perhaps.

As I bear soul a bit. Thank you for kind words on nice news with the new children. I am in process of making a blogsite for folk here to access .. which I want to be enjoyable .. funny .. you laugh with us und at us.. intended. Life . . we only live the once. We must enjoy it all . each important second.


You .. YOU UNDERSTAND EXACTLY the COAST message We think we state the blinking obvious .. but we know too may just do not DO this. They are complacent. Some institutionaly so too. too.

It hard to accept COAST perhaps. It seem so obvious .. but there are the inner twists within it. all the same und why I will support the SAC/DIS courses in essence. I have problems with HOW Lancs/Staffs etc select their candidates per scam ping all the same. I think they invite the safer candidate und not the real idiot who need it.

I admit it not so clear cut but will say the 33-37 mph error pale toward the serial blatter who would benefit more here.

To our lurks .. spindrft und his chums.. we Swiss are not the anti-christ. We have not suggested "devil may care styles of driving " nor have any of us on line suggested aboltion of speed limits.. buthave suggested full objective reviews all the same.

We have suggested MORE plod. BETTER training. Fair cams in hot spot zones which we all know no engineering would correct.

Full audit of all speed limits .. objective review.

Hardly "dissident .. renegade.. nasty ... irrreverent illegal wrong'un" stuff But GANZ UND GAR NORMAL by any standard of human decency.

I try to suggest here that spinny unc chums accept we promote the SCP with COAST if concerend with saving lives as they claim. . Or ist the issue that by doing
so . we reduce potential revenue to these fools.. which prove their hypocrisy here.

Given the vitriiol und virtual character assassination attempts which seem to show the same desperation as used against the late Paulie . .. we are left to conclude that safety not an issue. Our fighting them with their own fire with COAST (which we ACCEPT TO BE VALIDLY CORRECT ) would seem to prove their insincerity to a safety cause . whereas our stance prove our truly felt commitment,

_________________
Nicht ganz im Lot!
Ich setze mich immer wieder in die Nesseln! Der Mad Doc ist mein Mann! Und ich benutzte seinen PC!

UND OUR SMILEYS? Smile ... und the the world smiles with you.
Smiley guy seen when you read
Fine me for Safe Speed
(& other good causes..)

Greatest love & Greatest Achievements Require Greatest Risk
But if you lose the driving plan - don't lose the COAST lesson.
Me?
Je ne regrette rien!

Having read the thread, that it would appear started because of a comment I made, I'd never been taught the acronym COAST, aspects of what it required were taught badly to me. For example when I did my advanced my observer was quite surprised and worried at how far ahead I was looking, I however, was looking as far as I had been taught as a learner driver (bearing in mind that I also did M-way driving after passing as I took the Pass Plus course).

Comparing how thorough my driver training was compared to say my military training, my scuba diving course or confined spaces course there did seem to be something very lacking in the quality, content and depth.

As an 'experienced' driver I can now see this and would not use that driving instructor again, but how, as a trainee driver can I judge an instructor's competance ?

_________________
Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

May I give it a go?

Concentration (as pertains to driving): the ability to keep one's mind on finding, measuring, and managing risks in a road environment by selecting information pertaining to that context as imperative, while disregarding - passively or actively - information irrelevant to the task of driving.
I'll bet it has much to do with children's education, long before they are even thinking about driving.

Ideas ...
Riding a bike as early / young as reasonably possible
Who here plays 'spot the numpty' with their kids? I love that one. Teaching kids observation and risk management before they have to drive is brilliant
Speed chess - potentially a big one

To paraphrase myself from before, I think that the educational system and the mass media may or may not realize that they tend to put pressures on the mind that discourage the attitudes and techniques needed to - for example - allow one to move across six lanes in five seconds with the minimum possible jeopardy to all involved, if road and traffic conditions allow [and the urge bites me].

_________________
The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

I fear that part of the reason that I understand 'COAST', is that I consider it, and driving, a significant portion of my identity.

To me, driving is an end, and a beginning. To most people, it is a means, and perhaps a necessary evil.

It may be hard to accept COAST if one thinks of driving primarily in the mental model of stimulus / response. If the majority have nothing to gain by driving except getting there safely while getting to chose who keeps them company on the trip, and the impetus to drive doesn't come from within, then driving is not its own context to them, so they use rules as proxies for safety, because they are not prone to really thinking about it, except as stimulus / response.

Me? Most of the things I do with my day, are, to varying degrees, excuses to drive.

Depending on the time of day, and the density of traffic, many posted speed 'limits', redlights, stopsigns, etc., would be unnecessary, if people didn't lean so hard on the rules to keep them safe. They enable the taxation of common driving behaviors.

I will say again and again, take away every posted speed 'limit', redlight, stopsign, and all the yellow and white lines, and I'm more sure than most that I'll make it home safe. I may not be able to guarantee it, of course, but I know my odds are that much higher because of how I mentally model the activity of driving.

To play my own devil's advocate: Even if they really wanted to, politicians could not [allow themselves to] get SafeSpeed's message anymore than I could abide the idea of telling people that statistically normal behaviors should be fined.

WildCat: Einmal ist keinmal.

_________________
The Rules for ALL ROAD USERS:
1) No one gets hurt
2) Nothing gets hit, except to protect others; see Rule#1
3) The Laws of Physics are invincible and immutable - so-called 'laws' of men are not
4) You are always immediately and ultimately responsible for your safety first, then proximately responsible for everyone's
Do not let other road users' mistakes become yours, nor yours become others
5) The rest, including laws of the land, is thoughtful observation, prescience, etiquette, decorum, and cooperation

Exactly Rush

C>O>A>(A)>S>T is actually a lot more involved than folk think or want to think. Those who dismiss it are the muppets who cause and have more accidents than most .. the complacent. COAST requires actually thinking about the way one drives, evaluating and being prepared to learn as constant.






I also say for debate puproses ...

that we cannot concentrate on "concentrating" - but that this concentration is more "subconcious mind humming in the background" which springs to alert "wake-up" when required?

I once described it as the "loose concentration" which we apply when reading a book or watching a fim''s denouement. As in "absorbed to follow the plot" but still alert to others.

_________________
Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

But "evaluating and being prepared to learn as constant" is the normal behaviour of an intelligent person. I've been doing it, without the benefit of a cute acronym, for decades not only with driving but in my professional life, in mountaineering, in DIY, in every aspect of my life.

And I'm not boasting. Most of the people I know accept the need to continually evaluate and improve.

_________________
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

This is true for 99% of the population I would think. It also has a name "Experience". For most it is a life long journey.

What do you think would happen if somebody was given a tool to help accelerate and continue that learning curve? Particularly the groups most at risk of error.

I was asked once "Do you ride the motorbike or operate it?". In my arrogance at the time I said ride it. However on reflection I realised I just operated it a significant amount of the time. I am just now beginning to ride it. This is also about the time a lot of people make their biggest mistakes. This is mirrored in the crash stats for nearly all groups of road users. People learn to a point and feel (mostly without realising it) that that is as much as they need to know.

We are always hearing of the deterioration of driving standards. Maybe this is because we are teaching the new to just operate the vehicle that they are learning in/on. Rather than to drive/ride the vehicle. Even the new testing systems that have and are being introduced are in practice no better. They just make it take a little longer to get to the set standard. No encouragement or reward is made to better the set standard.

There is one group that will eventually give a reward for less errors, the insurance companies. However they do not reward improvement they just, for the most part, reward past avoidance. It will be a hard habit to break to get them to reward someone in advance for their abilities. How they prove their abilities is a whole different can of worms.