When I deliver road-safety or driver-training lessons, people notice I never use the word ‘accident' when referring to the carnage that occurs on the roads. This in itself is not an accident; I deliberately avoid using the word. I opt, instead, to use a word best describing the factual event that has taken place: a crash!
The word accident implies that the crash was unavoidable or that no one was to blame. However, we know that almost always at least one of the drivers is to blame. Accidents or mishaps do occur in everyday life, but not in driving.
To understand fully why they are crashes and not accidents, we must examine why they happen in the first place. The number one cause of any road crash is driver error. In a nutshell, driver error translates as lack of concentration and it is this lack of concentration that results in most crashes.
The police know this all too well. When they turn up at the scene of an accident, one or more of the drivers may pass a comment such as "the other driver came from nowhere" or "I didn't see him" or even the old classic, "Officer when I looked he wasn't there". The drivers who make these statements are not lying; they believe what they saw to be true. But how can someone appear from nowhere? Isn't that just impossible?
Driving needs 100 per cent concentration, 100 per cent of the time. If this were adopted, there would be fewer crashes.
Think about that for a moment. A driver is operating not just a piece of machinery, but a piece of machinery that he is sitting in and which is capable of travelling at very high speeds.
It has become the norm here for people to attempt to do their business development by phone whilst driving. In fact, it seems to be acceptable to do anything else but concentrate on the task at hand - which is driving. It should become habitual for people to do everything that needs to be done, including urgent phone calls, whilst in the office or at home and to use their vehicles just to get to their destination. Only this will ensure that they take the task of driving a motorised vehicle seriously.
Even stray thoughts about what you plan to do when you arrive at work or what you are planning for that evening can mean that you miss a vital piece of driving information which may result in a crash that could lead to death.
Remember: driving is a means to an end, not an end resulting in you going home to your country and your family in a body bag.
When you drive, concentrate for the whole journey and you will be less likely to be involved in a crash.
Join ANM's Click! campaign: www.facebook.com/ClickCampaign
You can write to him at…
Road Safety,
Friday, Gulf News,
PO Box 6519,
Dubai,
UAE
Fax: 04 3421039
friday@gulfnews.com
