Driving tips: breaking the stare
What happens before most collisions? The driver is staring. This is why the most common comment after a collision (other than “It’s not my fault!”) Is “I just didn’t see it.”
Breaking your gaze is a challenge for all drivers, not just beginners. Remember, if you stare at an object for more than two seconds, you begin to lose your peripheral vision (the vision that allows us to detect movement from the sides).
So how do we break the staring pattern? There are several ways. Here are a few that you might like to train while in the vehicle with your teen driver.
Turn your head slightly before entering and pass intersections without lights or signs. (The tendency here is to look ahead; never assume other drivers will yield or stop.)
- Look in the mirror before slowing, changing lanes, or turning and again after turning.
- Use SMOG for your lane change sequence.
- Turn your head to scan the intersection for a 1-2-3 count after the vehicle in front of you has started moving (this occurs when you are back in the pack at a traffic light and the light turns green; wait until the vehicle directly in front of you moves before you start your count).
- Use comments as you clear intersections.
Yes, there are more things you can do to break staring and in the next e-post, I’ll discuss how you can develop a figure-of-eight search pattern to help make your eye movements more fluid.
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