Is your driving based on opinion or fact?
I love life. Just about every day you have the opportunity to learn something. Sometimes what you may learn is very subtle, but there’s still something to take away from your daily experiences. This is all true, provided you’re open-minded enough to want to learn. I can safely say the same thing about drivers. Many drivers are open-mined enough to learn something new, but others seem to be a bit stubborn and stuck in their ways. Which are you?
Shortly after I became a driving instructor for Young Drivers of Canada I began the challenging task of re-training licenced drivers. Many of whom had been driving longer than I had been alive. The reason I knew this? They told me. However, that didn’t discourage me. I began showing them things from our program and when they saw how well it worked, they began listening to me more intently and seemed eager to try other “new” things.
You see, these weren’t really new things. To some, they were different things. Things they never really knew. Some of their knowledge came from their many years of driving experience, but other knowledge came through conversation alone. The dangerous part of the latter was it was never proved to them as a driver. They were only taking someone else’s opinion that it worked, that it was the way it should be. Is that considered stubborn? Naïve? Trusting?
Don’t you think there needs to be some proof? After gathering new information, sit and think about it. Determine if there’s value with what was explained to you. Be open-minded enough to believe it, but skeptical enough to try it before making up your mind that it works or doesn’t work. Where do I get my facts? It’s from being involved in road safety for 27 years. It’s from watching drivers attempt those same skills to either get immediate success or find out they don’t work, time and time again. It’s from practical experience, not just opinion.
I was recently speaking with drivers about the value and myths associated to all-wheel drive and 4-wheel drive vehicles. If you give it some thought and understand what each of those vehicles can do, those types of vehicles provide power to each of the wheels instead of just the front. It has a better chance to get the vehicle moving in deep snow or icy roads. That’s about it. Too much power and the wheels will spin. Go ahead and try it. Too much speed around the corner and the vehicle can lose traction. Remember inertia? I wouldn’t want anyone to try that on purpose just to see if it’s true, but I do think it’s worthy of thinking through the process.
These are facts and can be found in each manufacturer’s guidelines. However, one of the drivers I was speaking with said it provides traction. When I asked how they came to this conclusion, he just said “It’s a fact”. Well, not really. Facts are based on research with multiple sources. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but let’s use an educated opinion. After hearing or reading something pertaining to driving skill, either speak with other professionals or experts in that field or try implementing those techniques in a safe manner. Dig deeper into the subject matter to find out what the majority of experts are saying. Opinions are important, but so are facts.