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Most members will know that Concentration is one of the attributes that associates must demonstrate on their IAM test; the others are Observation, Anticipation and Deliberation. But how do we ensure that we concentrate all the time during a drive?
To quote from the article on Commentary in the September issue of One Way: ‘All drivers suffer from lapses in their concentration and visual search skills occasionally. It is easy to become distracted either by your own thoughts or unimportant things happening in the driving environment. The longer the drive, the more likely it is that the driver will suffer from these lapses. Commentary helps the driver to maintain concentration on driving to the complete exclusion of everything else. After all, it's very difficult to talk sensibly about one thing if you're thinking about something else.’
But associates often say: ‘I can’t do a commentary when I’m in heavy traffic, or trying to negotiate a difficult road pattern – my brain is already full of what I’m doing without having to talk about it as well.’
Last year I had a passenger ride in a police traffic car in Hampshire as part of a Better Driving course, sadly now discontinued. We drove on urban roads, country roads and the M3 motorway in a Volvo T5 estate; I won’t tell you what speeds we reached, but in the national limit and when traffic allowed it was very seriously fast. The police driver controlled the car impeccably and talked throughout the drive; he did a very detailed commentary, chatted to me about other motoring matters, and even had time to show me how his Vascar radar gadget worked. He had trained his brain to do several things at once, and it was extremely impressive to watch.
It’s worth developing this skill – an advanced driver should be able to talk and drive at the same time, especially if you are talking about what you are doing. If you’re talking about it, you have to be thinking about it as well, so it’s bound to concentrate your mind.
Turn off the radio or music player, get your mind in tune with your body, commentate and concentrate!