Accident avoidance

[Lawman]

On a few ocassions I've had a car pull out in front of me, turn left in front of me, or stop suddenly and unexpectedly in front of me. I've never collided yet but only because I've been able to stop or slow sufficiently in time. I've noticed that on each ocassion my focus is on the vehicle in front of me instead of looking for an escape route. It's almost as if I'm picking the point of what seems to be the inevitable point of contact instead of trying to avoid contact..I've noticed the same thing about suddenly and unexpectantly seeing an object on the roadway that is in my path..When I look at it, it makes it that much more difficult to avoid it..For me, it's just my nature to look at the threat..It's true that I go where I look..Avoiding this tendency seems like something that is difficult to practice..Can anyone else relate to this and if so is there any way to practice emergency/panic accident avoidance?

[Huzband]

Sounds like target fixation to me.

 

The only way I know of for changing the tendency is to practice hard NOT doing it. I used to be real bad about it, but with constant effort, it very rarely happens anymore.

 

Although, in your line of work, target fixation is a good thing.

[Paul Mihalka]

With cars and so on it is tough. You have to see where they are going or what they are doing. With things on the road like junk, dead animals, stones, I try to train myself to conciously focus on the clean pavement spot next to the junk. It seems to work.

[Ken H.]

One suggestion, practice it when you are not in an sudden avoidance situation. When going down the road with everything perfectly normal consciously think about, 'if that ______ does ________ where will I go right now? And actually look there and visualize yourself doing it. Heck, if the situation around you allows it safely, actually do it. Go there.

[ShovelStrokeEd]

Yup, if you don't work on swerving, braking before swerving, braking while swerving, braking and not swerving, how do you expect you will be able to bring these skills to bear when a real awsh!t shows its ugly face.

 

If the highway is clear enough, I'll ease over in my lane a bit and then work on seeing how close I can come to a Bott's dot without hitting it. Rules are that I have to do it in one move and recover back to my original position before the next dot shows up. Braking drills are done both formally about 1 day a month and casually when I'm sure my 6 is clear on the road.

 

I've gotten some stern looks from LEO on occasion but never pulled over for it.

[Knifemaker]

I am a firm believer in travel distance especially in heavy traffic. When stopped I will advance slow to make sure of NO left hand turners...When moving in conjested traffic I will drop back further and keep a CAREFUL eye on any lane of traffic that a vehicle can pass me on. This allows me more stopping distance if necessary and also allows me to decrease or increase my following distance as I deem necessary.

[Firefight911]

Practice with a wrench!!

 

"If you can avoid being hit with that, you can play Dodgeball!!!"

 

 

 

On a more serious note, I agree with Danny. Target fixation. Now that you know what it is, you can start to pay attention to it happening and retrain yourself to avoid doing it. It will take time though!

[russell_bynum]

I see "accident avoidance" as a few different issues.

 

First is bike control. Fortunately, that's fairly easy to get...it just takes practice. None of us are likely to be able to acclerate/brake/turn as well as a professional racer or a trials champ, but we can do pretty well with fairly minimal practice.

 

Then you've got what I'm going to call mental agility. That is your ability to react when something unexpected happens and make a decison about what you need to do to avoid it. (i.e. brake, accelerate, or turn)

 

And finally there is situational awareness....which is your most powerful tool since it will actually let you avoid situations where you need mental agility and bike handling skills to stay alive.

 

For me, the most important thing that I ever did with my street riding, was when I decided two things: 1. Nobody is responsible for my wellbeing but me. and 2. I am invisible.

 

Until you make those decisions, you are likely to sit there shocked and dumbfounded, possibly flashing your lights, honking your horn, or revving your loud pipes and waiting for "the other guy" to take responsibility for your wellbeing and do something to keep from running over you.

 

That is all time wasted. And that attitude will prevent you from reaching true enlightenment since you'll always be expecting someone to conform to your idea of how the world should be rather than watching what is actually happening and adapting to it.

 

 

Now...how do we get there?

 

I have no idea. For me, my intro to street riding (after riding dirt bikes as a kid, then not having bikes for 10 years) was commuting 120 miles/day in LA traffic. Sort of a trial by fire, I guess. First, was scared. Then I was very tense. Then, eventually, I discovered that I was actually very relaxed, but tremendously focused. It's hard to describe...I wasn't actually consciously thinking about riding. I.e. "Gee, that red car is going to move over, so I should change lanes and accelerate into that spot over there." Instead...I was just doing it...it had become second nature. I don't really know when that transition happened.

 

I do know this...it's a learned skill and it takes practice to maintain it. I can't do that anymore because I'm out of practice and it's work for me to move through traffic now.

[Silver Surfer/AKAButters]

or stop suddenly and unexpectedly in front of me

That is the key. Get to the point where nothing is unexpected. When I was a younger rider, peolpe would jump out in front of me all the itme, cut me off, and nearly run me off the road. I did not take responsibility and I was one to see the wrong in what everyone else was doing. Very stressfull, very dangerous and vey unproducitve. Fortuntely, I was also very lucky. Since I have changed my perspective, I have very rarely caught off guard, and when I am, I can usually reflect on what I could have done differently to avoid such occurrences.

In regards to target fixation, I rode for years without understanding the concept, and again luckily, struggled around obstacles, but I alwyas felt drawn to them. Now that I understand the concept and have practiced not fixating, it is no longer difficult to avoid just about anything. It really works with a little practice.

 

Best regards,

Rich

[Lawman]

I think it's my situational awareness that has kept me alive in spite of my poor bike control and most of all what you call mental agility..My mental agility consists of "OH SH T...how fast can I stop this s.o.b."

[Misti]

When I first started riding I would complain to my friends that people kept cutting me off. A friend of mine, Scott, one day said to me, "well you should see them coming Misti." I got defensive at first because I thought for sure it was the car's fault but he was absolutely right, I should have seen and anticipated them coming. When I worked on that, things changed and I no longer was surprised by cars cutting me off. A lot of people know that they should look far ahead of themselves when driving or riding but few think about how far they should extend thier vision out to the sides.....how wide would you say your vision is when you ride now? Half a lane? A whole lane? Two lanes? What would some of the benefits be of having wider vision?

 

Misti

[Lets_Play_Two]

When I first started riding I would complain to my friends that people kept cutting me off. A friend of mine, Scott, one day said to me, "well you should see them coming Misti." I got defensive at first because I thought for sure it was the car's fault but he was absolutely right, I should have seen and anticipated them coming. When I worked on that, things changed and I no longer was surprised by cars cutting me off. A lot of people know that they should look far ahead of themselves when driving or riding but few think about how far they should extend thier vision out to the sides.....how wide would you say your vision is when you ride now? Half a lane? A whole lane? Two lanes? What would some of the benefits be of having wider vision?

 

Misti

 

I just went to a Skip Barber driving school with my 16 year old son at Sebring. While this was about car handling and safety, I think the awareness issues apply equally. I think you should always know what is going on in the lanes on both sides of you, if there are lanes. If you keep up the scanning ahead, to the sides and behind you are ready to move to the right spot if something does happen without wasting the time to "look again". Keeping the right following distance is also important. I know I am guilty of following closer on the motorcycle than I do in a car...I don't know why, but not any more.

[Troper3]

Have you ever tried to practice in a parking lot with a parked car and make a fast run then look to see which end is best to go around? I would start slow and work on looking for the outs.

[Miriam]

... suddenly and unexpectedly seeing an object on the roadway that is in my path. When I look at it, it makes it that much more difficult to avoid it. For me, it's just my nature to look at the threat. It's true that I go where I look. Avoiding this tendency seems like something that is difficult to practice.

Lawman, you’re right. And it works like this for a reason. Our eyes can only really focus sharply on a very small area within our field of vision, everything outside this area is out of sharp focus. We don’t really experience it like that because we constantly moves our eyes, but if a danger shows up, like an object in the road, your (involuntary) brain is telling your eyes to keep that danger in the sharp focus so it can assess what must be done. So you stare at it like the rabbit in the headlight. Obviously you now have a serious conflict of interest as you’re on the bike and the bike goes wherever you’re looking.

 

As this is a survival response it is very hard as you noticed to go against it, and with good reason. So what to do? I have asked the same question here not too long ago: How to practice to do what does not come naturally? I have no simple answer but there are a couple of things you can do:

 

- Be aware of how it works;

- At all times practice looking away consciously from an object you find yourself staring at (a small stone/tar strip/bit of paper in the road), whether you’re on the bike, in a car, on a bicycle, someone else is driving;

- Always be aware of where you’re ‘exits’ are in any given situation;

- Learn to be more aware of ‘seeing’ with your peripheral vision. There are techniques for that.

[K2R1150RS]

This is indeed a time when target fixation is part of the problem. IMHO, the important thing is not so much the why (what goes into target fixation, etc) as the what; i.e. what do I do to overcome the fixation. I would suggest finding a spot (large parking lot or something similar) where you can get up to 35 mph or so. Set up cones or other marking devices to create an approach lane with an truck sized obstruction at the end and two escape routes. Have an assistant who stands in a safe place about 50 feet prior to the obstruction and when you are about to pass them, they signal you which escape route to take. The rules say you can't brake until they signal you which way to go. Start at about 20 mph and work your way up to 35 or so. Repeat this until you start making mistakes (in which case you take a break) or it gets too easy. When it gets easy, stop having the assistant choose your escape route and choose it yourself. Then move the decision point closer to the obstruction. About 30 repetitions will make you a lot better at avoidance. This will mean that you need to understand how your braking will affect your bike's handling, as well as what your bike's limitations (and yours) are. Watch that you don't move the decision point so close to the obstruction that your braking affects your swerve and upsets the balance of the bike so much that you take an unscheduled flight

[Lawman]

"- Be aware of how it works;

- At all times practice looking away consciously from an object you find yourself staring at (a small stone/tar strip/bit of paper in the road), whether you’re on the bike, in a car, on a bicycle, someone else is driving;"

 

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Good tips along with practice exercises..

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[Troper3]

 

Too bad we do not have tv adverts like this to help with rider awareness.