Driver Safety

This week I had to go to a training class for work to help teach me safe driving habits. I wish I was kidding, but because my company is continuously concerned about my safety, I have to learn how to properly drive a car in a safe manner. I guess those driver’s ed. classes or DMV tests I took just to get a license weren’t good enough. Since I work out in the fields, it might make some sense to have only the field workers, who commute every day and thus might probably need training, participate in a specialized oriented program; however, that’s not the case since only two of the participants actually worked in a field office. The rest of the group works in town where they’re probably not going to be doing much driving on company time. So then, is the company concerned with our safety outside of work as well as inside of work? Maybe they should start up a new training program of safe vs. unsafe activities to be conducted outside of the work environment.

“This is a list of activities we strongly recommend you avoid outside of work (so that you’ll be perfectly healthy while at work to slave away the day):
- Any kind of physical sport, which includes fishing, hunting, golf, motorbiking, etc. (which would kill just about everyone at my office)
- Any physical activity in general that might provide excess strain on the body, such as running, biking, going to the gym, and sometimes breathing.
- Food intake should also be limited, since you will not be able to burn off those extra calories, putting you at risk for other physical ailments.”

I know that I’m taking this to an extreme degree and I know that I should be glad that I work for a company that is concerned with my health and safety. Sometimes, though, I think they take it too far, like when they try to supplant a current organization we have in place to teach us how to properly drive. Maybe I just don’t want to waste my precious time driving around town talking about what safe driving techniques I’m implementing.

Yes, that’s how the class was conducted. First, we had an hour session in a classroom where we talked about the five key steps to safe driving, then we hit the streets to practice their brainwashing techniques, I mean “education program”. The whole driving section of the course consisted of driving through town and verbally discussing how you are implementing various safe driving techniques.

“I have braked a full car-length behind the car in front of me in case another car smashes into me from behind. As I was braking early, I thought of how much gas I was saving and giving myself plenty of cushion in case of emergencies. As the stoplight turns green, I pause exactly two seconds after the car in front of me starts driving, in case any cross-traffic forgets that their light is red and crushes my puny car. Now I make sure that I’m 4-seconds behind the car in front of me so that if a meteor hits it, I will have plenty of room to brake and change lanes….”

I could go on and on like that. Of course after your session is over, the instructor and your peers critique you. “It really scared me a little bit when you got within that 4-second cushion to the car in front of you,” was an actual comment I got from another participant. I’m sorry to make people feel uneasy by driving the speed limit. The most ironic part of it all was that we almost got into an accident! One of the other drivers was busy talking when another car started to turn into us while making a left turn from the other direction. Our driver managed to successfully swerve out of the way before being hit, and of course, the driver used that moment to champion home the point of, “this is why we practice safe driving techniques.”

Personally, I consider myself a pretty good driver. Aggressive, yes, but also safe. I have been able to avoid dangers and pitfalls while I drive and in the almost 10 years of driving, of which a good portion has been in L.A., I feel pretty comfortable both behind the wheel and driving around others. But then again, I already learned about safe driving techniques when I took drivers education. I don’t like people nit-picking every single driver faux-pas I have, because some of these asinine rules they make-up are just that, asinine. When it really boils down to it, space cushions and personal bubbles are nice, but they don’t prevent accidents, as we saw first hand. The only real safe driving technique we need is for people to just pay attention to the road. If we all do that, we’ll be fine. The good news is that I passed the class and won’t have to take it for a long while, if ever again!