NORTHERN IRELAND’s

It is, unfortunately, an
established fact that young,
inexperienced drivers are
much more likely to be
involved in collisions than
their older, more
experienced fellow drivers
and one of the key issues
involved here is the ability
to identify the POTENTIAL
danger in situations and to
begin to respond to these
situations much earlier.
In simple terms, in the
activity of Driving there are
basically two types of
danger - ACTUAL danger and
POTENTIAL danger. One of
the very highest skills in
driving is to be able to
identify POTENTIAL danger
before it becomes ACTUAL
danger because, quite
frankly, becoming aware of
ACTUAL danger is simply too
late!
Large numbers of young,
inexperienced drivers find
themselves in the middle of
ACTUAL danger because
they did not have the
mental skills necessary to
identify the POTENTIAL
danger before it became
ACTUAL danger and, as a
result, could not avoid a
collision.
I spend all day, everyday,
working with already
qualified and often highly
experienced individuals,
across the whole Island of
Ireland, who drive as part of
their everyday jobs and
most of them are surprised
at how much more they can
develop their Risk
Awareness skills so the
development potential with
young, inexperienced drivers
is immense!
The first step in beginning
to acquire the skill is to
begin to become aware of
just how many POTENTIAL
risks actually exist in driving
and the number is virtually
endless. We normally only
get one chance to avoid a
collision and if that chance
is missed, the consequences
can be completely lifechanging.
The most effective way of
developing these very high
level skills is to experience
very good quality training
and then to learn how to
manage TIME and SPACE
when driving.
This involves learning how
to gain more TIME to
evaluate situations and then
put an effective response
into effect so that we are
always able to create,
manage and maintain
SPACE.
Every driver though can self
develop their skills to higher
levels by constantly selfassessing
their experiences
while driving and asking
themselves the simple
question - “If I was to
encounter a similar situation
again - would I deal with it
differently next time to
produce a higher overall
level of safety for both
myself and other Road
Users?” Remember that
driving on a public road is
effectively a TEAM game!
I have personally always
worked on the principle that
a true expert in any activity
in life is someone who
realises that the more they
learn about a particular
subject the more they
realise there is so much
more they actually do NOT
know! There is no subject
about which that is more
true than Driving!
Ronnie Knox
is the Owner of Driver
Decisions which is a Driver
Training business operating
in the highly Specialist area
of Occupational Driver
Training and Fleet Risk
Management.
Email:
ronnie.knox@driverdecisions.com
page # 79