How’s Your Aim?
Knowing how to aim to stay on your side of the road is one of the crucial things that you’ll have to do if you’re going to stay safe while driving.
I do, however, don’t find it surprising at all that some learner drivers and even some newly licensed drivers can’t drive confidently. Imagine that, having a licence and not feeling confident enough to drive on your own. It DOES happen…OFTEN! I regularly do “I-can-drive-but-please-help-me-with-my-confidence” lessons.
Now let’s understand ONE thing – THERE IS NO SHAME in admitting that your confidence is still lacking after being licensed!
One of the things that still leaves me dumbfounded is how some instructors teach learner drivers to aim, also called targeting your path of travel. The other day I was, yet again, reminded of the variance in instruction out there in the driving school industry.
Now imagine that you can remember allllllllll the way back to the time when you were a toddler…
You crawled around and soon enough that got so boring that you started pulling at table cloths, groping the living room couch, and basically getting ready to walk. Then one day, you found the power from somewhere to actually pull yourself upright and stood on wobbly legs, just to fall splat onto your butt. THAT didn’t stop you at all. You persisted. Then one good, fine day, to the amazement of your parents, you pull yourself up….annnnnnnnnnd… take an unsteady step forward…
THAT is the day your potential for driving begins. No, I’m not crazy – I’ll explain.
You see, that day when you started walking was the day your natural bodily orientation started. You know, which way is forward; which way is back; which way is up, down, far, near….etc. Short before long, you could toddle along unassisted, taking aim to reach Mom or Dad’s safe arms a little distance away from you, and even though it started out as a bit of a mission, you were soon on a mission of your own…you even ran away from having a bath n’all. Remember?
Then comes the day you start driving… Oh, joy :-\
Your driving instructor asks you to do all weird and wonderful stuff that feels strange and downright dangerous until your body builds up some memory of the actions, your mind starts comparing incidents of the negative and positive effects filed in your memory bank, and soon enough you can sorta cope.
Now hear THIS: Coping is ultimately NOT the point! You should steadily move past coping, to managing, to confident action..and then progress to the beginnings of mastering all the required skills of which confidently staying in your lane is a MAJOR confidence booster….from the earliest possible lesson.
I’ve heard of many techniques to get a learner driver to build up the aiming/targeting judgement they need. Most are good, I guess, BUT only as starters that should make way for proper technique as early as possible.
Me? I use your body’s God-given talent for knowing where it’s going, since pretty much the day you started walking. Mother Nature, you know? That feisty ol’ bird that knows best.
I’ll compare two techniques to give you an idea of what I’m on about:
CORNER TECHNIQUE:
With this technique you are instructed to keep a watch on the bottom right corner of your windscreen, since you drive on the left hand side of the road. The white line in the middle of the road should always run in that position and then you should be in the middle of your lane…or so the theory says.
What I have a problem with:-
1. You will most probably fixate on the corner of your windscreen completely or intermittently, which may serve as a major distraction…or worse.
2. As long as you travel in a straight line, you could feel fine, but as soon as you need to take a turn your aim might be out, causing discomfort….or worse.
3. For as long as you look at anything other than where you’re going, your body will fight the system, and you may remain uncomfortable for longer than is necessary.
4. For as long as you use this system, you are forced to mostly rely on your peripheral vision to observe traffic flow…if at all.
5. For as long as you use this system, your central vision is limited and impaired, by virtue of being, in the grand scheme of things, focussed very close and rather low….like the white line.
6. Using this system can be compared to watching your feet when walking – not very effective at avoiding all sorts of surprises.
7. In my humble opinion, this technique is very effective at (sub-consciously) teaching Target Fixation – something you wanna avoid at all cost.
MOTHER NATURE’S TECHNIQUE:
With this technique I ask you to “aim high”, in other words, to look as far ahead as possible and use your body’s natural orientation to get the feeling where the middle of the road and the middle of your lane is. You will use the same “homing beacons” exactly the same as you would when walking, riding a bicycle etc. I normally customise the technique and can get quite creative to suit the driver – whichever way it works best for them.
What you may have a problem with:-
1. At first, you may want to focus on a short distance – this is your body’s way of keeping alert and prepared for imminent danger.
2. At first, you may want to fixate on pavements and white lines – stuff you don’t want to hit and stuff you don’t want to cross over.
Ultimately, Target Fixation is your biggest challenge in any method, but once you overcome this, confidence follows in leaps and bounds. I’ll post about Target Fixation in a post all of its own – it’s just too fascinating a concept to lump in here, OK?
In either method you can ill afford to spend less than 95% of your attention on focussing on the road ahead, waaaaaaaaay ahead…where you’re going.
TIPS
1. Whenever you get the urge to look where you’re going – LISTEN!
2. Your body knows best – It KNOWS where straight down the middle is!
3. All you have to do is relax and let your body guide you.
I have all the patience in the world and I get goose bumps when I see you get relaxed enough to get it right – it really is like a whole new world opening up, you’ll see what I mean. Contact me so we can put it into practice, OK?
See ya in my driver’s seat!
