Let’s get the disclaimer out of the way right at the start here: This article is not permission or encouragement to break any laws or do anything even mildly irresponsible on public roads. I do not want you trying to late-apex the Arby’s drive-thru.
This is not the kind of article that winks at lawlessness and hides behind the plausible deniability …
Rule 1: Use Your Eyes
More than one of these tips will be eye related, so let’s knock one off right at the top here. Good vision work is paramount for success and safety behind the wheel, whether you’re wearing cargo shorts and Crocs or a HANS and fireproof suit.
And the road is a great environment to practice your visual skills. In fact, it may actually be a more complex visual environment than the track.
On track, while the action around you may seem chaotic, there’s an implied order to it. On some level, every driver that leaves the pit lane has a similar mission, and there are skilled individuals monitoring the action from corner stations to communicate unexpected chaos to the drivers.
On the road, yeah, not so much. There are cars coming from an entire compass rose of vectors plus motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians and–oh, look at that cute puppy. Did I leave the ham in the oven? Also, everyone in every other car is a psycho. It’s a lot of information to process, so proper vision scanning is important.
Just like on track, you want your base vision pattern to be just that, a pattern. Every time you move your head and your eye, you’re taking in more information to fill in the gaps of your knowledge of the world around you.
Yes, you have to be ready to react to unexpected stimuli, but you want to be able to react from a calm, predictable base level. So your visual scanning should be measured, progressive and have a general pattern based on the current conditions.
Also remember our mantra about looking ahead: It’s not about looking ahead for distance, it’s about looking ahead in time. What are the potential hazards that I may need to deal with in the future, and if they become reality, have I noticed them far enough in advance to affect their outcome?
Rule 2: Get Comfortable
Comfort isn’t just about being, well, comfortable. It’s about being in a position where you can engage the proper muscle groups to do the work you need to do at the correct speed and with the right amount of feel. It’s how you provide a solid foundation for the work you have to do.
On the road, the same holds true, but while I see plenty of good technique on track, I see a LOT of people slacking on simple stuff on the road.
Probably the primary offender I see here: folks tending to sit farther away from the wheel in their road car than in their track car. And while you may not technically need explosive force to quickly turn the wheel while you’re driving your Ford Escape, you’re still building muscle memory from a wheel/seat/pedal relationship that will carry over to all of your driving activities.
And yeah, maybe it’s fine to break the 9-and-3 rule during a long tow so your shoulders don’t cramp up, but having the same driving positions–or as close as possible–in your street car and your track car will help you get used to that particular body index and how to effectively work from it.
Rule 3: Don’t Fear the Rain
Okay, disclaimer time again in case you thought I was kidding the first time: Don’t drive at the limit on the road. How many times do I have to tell you people?
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about rain. No, you won’t be feeling how rain affects traction on the street because, remember, you’re well below the limit.
But something you absolutely can note during a wet commute is how that water interacts with the road surface. What does a wet surface look like versus one topped with just a tiny skim of standing water? What does moisture look like on fresh asphalt versus older asphalt? Where does standing water accumulate most prolifically on a surface that isn’t entirely flat? What feeling do you get from the car when you hit a wet patch with two wheels versus four wheels?
While you can’t safely probe the limits of reduced wet traction on the street, you can learn a lot about how moisture interacts with different surfaces and topographies and where drying or moisture retention is likely to occur. And those lessons translate very well to reading a wet track.
Rule 4: Be Aware
Back to a vision-related thing for a minute: Let’s talk about spatial awareness. Filling in your full field of vision gives you information not just on the fixed world you’re moving through but on the evolving, dynamic environment of other cars in that world as well.
On the road, this is important to stay safe and help maintain an orderly roadway, but on track it could be the difference between seeing the checker first and seeing a corner worker helping you out of a tire wall.
As we talked about earlier, maintaining that 360° sweep of vision is important to success. And you also need to realize that part of your sweep through your visual field may require a periodic head tilt or swivel.
When you make the sweep through your windshield and three primary mirrors, take note of the spots you don’t see simply by panning your eyes. Chances are you still have blind spots somewhere. Can those be eliminated with a quick partial head swivel? Maybe your head-and-neck device allows just enough motion to let you fill in a gap in your knowledge.
And the thing is, you may still have areas–particularly in the rear quarters–where you can’t see everything. So the reality is that you can’t make any kind of move that puts you into those areas without accepting a greater amount of risk due to lack of information.
So how do you close–or at least reduce–that knowledge gap? By keeping close tabs on everything you CAN see easily and extrapolating that knowledge into the areas you can’t see easily.
This requires monitoring movement patterns over time and using that knowledge to fill the blanks in your real-time data stream. So, obviously, the quicker things are happening, the quicker your “refresh rate” needs to be in your scanning to build that site picture and see those patterns emerge.
On the road, folks who tow a lot have an advantage here: Because a vehicle pulling a trailer is not as nimble as an unladen one, you can’t always just change lanes or make a quick pass. That’s how towing naturally rewards good 360° awareness and quick recognition of movement patterns and flow–not just of vehicles in front of you, but behind you and to your side as well.
Rule 5: Remember to Relax
Maybe the best advice for anyone in any car is to chill out a bit. You make better decisions when your brain isn’t in fight-or-flight mode, and no one wants to constantly be on the verge of panic.
We make better complex decisions when we’re not reacting out of pure fear, and driving–whether on track or on the road–is one long, constantly evolving complex decision chain.
So regardless of venue, you should periodically remind yourself to breathe, check your emotional state and clear stuff from your brain that doesn’t need to be there to complete the task at hand.
Sure, there’s going to be stress. Driving is stressful. But when you’re dealing with that stress in an environment where you’re being proactive, not simple reactive, that stress can actually be fun. Basically, you’re trying to make sure you get your adrenaline with a side of delicious dopamine, not just the yucky cortisol.
And there you go: five good habits, examined a little deeper, that become legitimate lessons that can boost your effectiveness and safety whenever you’re behind the wheel. Just please be careful trying to outbrake someone so you can be the first one in line on 5 for $10 Beef ’n Cheddar day.