In Part 1 and Part 2, I was explaining the relationship of chance-taking and outcome. Specifically, we wait in line to buy tickets for highly improbable though favorable outcomes (lottery), and we take chances on unfavorable outcomes because we think they are highly improbable (many other aspects of our lives). We do the former out of hope, and we do the latter often in the interest of expediency.

Now, if you want to save your money and bet realistically on the most probable outcome, put your money away and don’t buy the lottery ticket. Put it in savings, use it to pay down debt, buy what you need. Just don’t buy the ticket.  All it requires is a little personal discipline.

In personal safety, at work and on your own time, you also have to apply discipline to NOT buy tickets. You have to:

• Identify the driving conditions and adjust accordingly.
• Research and buy additional protective equipment before you mow the lawn or paint the house.
• Read the labels and follow directions. If something requires extra ventilation, there’s a reason.
• Approaching a traffic light as it turns yellow, if your internal voice says “I think I can make this” your new replacement voice should be saying “Time to brake”.

Taking shortcuts is like buying tickets to an injury. We fool ourselves by saying “If I am just more careful in using this chair instead of a ladder, I’ll save time and money and won’t get hurt.” Doing this repeatedly, you collect enough tickets, and you might eventually have the unfavorable outcome.

Actually, I don’t care if you buy lottery tickets or not. But I worry about carelessness when you don’t even realize you are being careless. Don’t buy a ticket to an accident, make the safe choice, every day.

Let’s be careful out there.

Turning would be different. You could easily underestimate the position of the car now that you would be sitting closer to the right wheel than the left.  Assuming the position of the brake and gas pedals is switched, you would have to get accustomed to that. And if it was a manual transmission, you would be even more challenged. If you are good at checking over your shoulders, that process would not be as simple as you might think. Blind spots are reversed, and your brain just doesn’t catch up right away.

The biggest adjustment would be if you wanted to pass on a two lane road. There would be no way to asses the dangers of moving into the oncoming lane in the first place.

This is why driving in adverse conditions, like heavy rain, or snow and ice, can be problematic. Not because cars can’t handle them, but because our normal driving leaves us in a state of simplified attentiveness. We have it mastered in most cases, and we think about many things while we are driving. When conditions get bad, we sit up, turn the radio down, and concentrate just a little harder.

Are you concentrating enough on your driving? How much do you rely on the other people sharing the road with you.

If we all turn our attention up just a notch or two, it’s possible we could reduce the total number of accidents on our busy highways.

And yes, I was at a complete stop before I even reached for the phone to take this picture, and no cars were moving at the time. Cars standing still also reduces accidents, but we just can’t get anywhere then!

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

The reason is simple enough – the easier a sign is to read, the less a driver’s attention is taken from the road to read the sign. One of the interesting aspects of this idea is that it applies only to positive contrast signs – light letters on a dark background. In the examples shown here of negative contrast, the Clearview type is possibly less effective than the current standard. It has been recommended that signs with negative contrast remain under the old standard.

The Clearview decision was made in 2004, with an expectation that signs would change over to that font in the following 15 years.

I researched what I could on this topic, and there is a lot of science behind it all, including the studies on the negative contrast. In some areas of government, they might have concluded that until they can find a type style that is more effective in all situations, then they shouldn’t make the change. But in this case, the benefits of changing a majority of the signage outweigh the possibility of a one-type-works-for-all solution.

Will we ever know if this saves lives? Not likely. And since money is spent on new signage routinely (signs get damaged, stolen, or weathered) it does not have a significant financial impact. I’m glad there is some science behind the choice, that our highway engineers are looking for ways to make our roadways just a little bit safer. If you have any exposure to continuous improvement, you realize this is worth looking at.

Do you think signs matter to you? I’m not sure I read them much where I live, and when I am in unfamiliar areas, my GPS pretty much tells me what I need to know. What do you think – will emerging technologies make this a non-solution? Will sign readability not be a critical issue in the future?

Driving is hazardous. It also can be time-consuming, particularly if you live far from work or take a crowded commute. And as I pointed out on my list last week, people sometimes compromise their safety in the name of expediency – they text while driving.

In the world of industrial safety, companies who excel do not depend on the law to tell them what they can or cannot do. They do the things that must be done to assure employee safety. No doubt, many factories are safer than they might otherwise be due to OSHA regulation and supervision, but the best don’t need that. You shouldn’t either.

You probably wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there is a technological fix you can apply to prevent texting while in a moving vehicle. For Android phones, you can buy Textecution, which is advertised as something to put on your teenager’s phone.

Then there’s TXTBlocker, which again is advertised to parents. And Employers.

And coming soon, you can buy iZup (get it, eyes up) for Android and Windows smartphones.

Call records will easily show if you were texting near the time of an accident. But do you really need a software solution? What you really need is a personal discipline solution. If you, as an adult or parent cannot see or understand that this is a dangerous problem, then don’t lecture your kids. If you can, then teach your kids to manage it. Sure, you can pay for the software to prevent it, but there are always going to be new ways to work around software, and kids will figure it out.

Trust but verify. Check the phone records against the time you know your son or daughter was out. They will tell you and you can take the appropriate action. And in the meantime, lead by example. Don’t send or read text messages while you are operating your vehicle. It can wait. Text with integrity.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

When my son was first driving, he told me he thought he was a good driver. I told him he was, but that the real test is how he would handle the vehicle and himself when the unexpected happens. A tire failure. An animal runs in front of the car. Driving in a snowstorm. Now he’s 27, and he’s a better driver than he was before, because he’s gained experience and learned from that. He’s had many “moments of choice” when he had to call on his knowledge or experience to turn into the skid, or ease slowly to the side of the road, or take whatever maneuver the situation may have called for.

If you are in a job that has anything to do with people, especially leading or training them in any way, safety is part of your profession, whether you acknowledge it or not. You are in a position to help prevent accidents and injuries. For you, the moment of choice is happening constantly. You are looking at the equipment, the machinery, the workers, the office, the conditions all around you and trying to make them all flow together in a way that is good for your business. And the safest possible way is good for business.

Have you had a moment of choice today? I’ll bet you have. It may have been a choice regarding taking that cell phone call in the car, or even considering reading or answering a text message while driving. Maybe it was walking through a factory, you saw someone doing something that could be done with far less risk, and you took the time to point out the alternative, or you chose not to.

Did you have a moment of choice this week that you can point to as one that made a big difference, either for your own safety or those you work with? Let us know in the comments.

Thanks, and let’s be careful out there.

This year the restrictions have been loosened a bit, and we can use water outdoors three days a week.

Not having had much rain, people aren’t used to driving in heavy rain.  Rain like we have seen over the last week. Lawns are green and full, we haven’t seen the sun for several days, and it seems we hardly get a stretch of more than 2-3 hours with no rain. Good for the water supply, bad for driving.

When is it that most people realize they need new wiper blades? When it is raining and their vision is compromised.

When is it that most people realize their tires are overly worn? When it is raining and they realize their tires are drifting in puddles or they are hydroplaning when the rain is heavy. Not good.

As aware as I am about these kind of items, I was reminded again in the rain this week that my wipers need to be replaced. As soon as the weather gets better, I’ll stop at the auto parts store and get the replacements. If I remember.

Don’t just try and remember these little details. Schedule them. Write them down so you can get them corrected before you need them. Do you know the condition of your wipers? How worn are your tires – can you see the markers put there as a warning? Don’t let “I forgot” turn into “I regret”.

Let’s be careful out there.

The title of the post did generate a response from reader Paul that I had not considered. I had never thought about the effectiveness of the “How’s My Driving” bumper stickers that trucking companies use. Do you think they make a difference?

The insurance industry thinks they do. Not the stickers themselves, but the way in which the industry uses them. They do not use responses generated by the notices for punishment, but to provide more focused training. And the results are pretty good.

In a study analyzing the impact of behavior-based training, there were reductions of over 50% in the number of vehicle crashes following full implementation of the notices and corresponding training. There were many other measures, almost all showing some improvements credited to this approach.

So how do you get your feedback on your driving? Is there room for improvement? Got a number for us to call to compliment or challenge your skills?

Though this is clearly a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, people are driving on these roads when this happens. Here are the steps you need to consider if you should ever find yourself in a car sinking in water.

1. Remain calm and composed. Okay, as composed as possible anyway. Keep in mind that the car will likely float for a bit, giving you time to take the next steps.
2. Unlock seat belts and lower windows if you can. The electrical system should work long enough to get the windows down. If you cannot lower windows, try and break the side windows with your heal or a heavy object. Aim for the center of the window, and don’t try this on the windshield. It is the hardest window to break. If you have been successful ease out of the window openings.
3. Trying to open the doors before the car is actually full of water is a waste of your energy. The force of the water on the outside of the door is far greater than what you can overcome. Hold onto the door handle as the car fills up, get a good breathe when the water level reaches your neck, and then then push the car door open.
4. Remove unnecessary clothing, especially jeans or shoes that might weigh you down.
5. If you are disoriented, try and find the direction of air bubbles. They will lead you to the surface.

Hopefully you will never need to know these tips, but a friend taught me them once on a trip to New Orleans as we drove over the Lake Ponchartrain Causeway. The only thing that has changed much since then is that fewer cars have cranking windows.

See a good video on this topic from Howcast.

Anna at abdpbt is responsible for the effort to Fight Listless Mondays. Find other list links on her blog. Her lists are more clever. Lots.

In my industrial experience, that is a clear near miss, and should be documented for the learning. History has shown us that if the population of near miss incidents grows, then eventually you have a serious injury or property damage. This incident was significant to me because it foreshadows something more serious if I don’t correct the root cause. My estimation is that the root cause is that I have fallen into more of an automatic mode in driving my car. I am willing to divert my focus for moments at a time because everything looks fine.

The corrective action is clear. In this case, set up the GPS before you leave. It’s easy to do and is correct the majority of the time. Fooling with it while driving is a potential problem. The other corrective action is to let the passenger work on non-driving tasks, and dedicate my energy and focus to the task of operating the motor vehicle within the rules of the road.

Have you had a near miss recently? Did you make a note of the root cause and think about a permanent fix? It will greatly reduce your likelihood of injury and may even save your life!

As always, and I need to heed my own advice here, let’s be careful out there.

1. Seat belts wrinkle my clothes
2. I don’t need to, I have airbags
3. It’s uncomfortable
4. I’ve heard of people trapped in a burning car who couldn’t unfasten their belt
5. My parents never wore them
6. There’s dust on them that gets on my clothes
7. I don’t believe there should be a law requiring me to wear them
8. I’m a good driver

Would we hire someone who said they didn’t wear them and offered these excuses? Maybe, if they showed some level of flexibility in other portions of the interview. But when you take a job in a factory with required protective equipment and specific procedures, there is little room for personal comfort or opinion.

Do you wear your seat belt? Have you convinced yourself it’s OK not to do so?

Let’s be careful out there.