Reaction Times

[glojo]

On another thread I have read about reaction times of less than one second..

Okay I totally accept that if we are at Santa Pod, or sat behind a computer screeen then our reaction times will be in that window but......


I live in a different world, I live in the real world and I will say TOSH!!!

or COBBLERS

or


I do not believe it

okay now I have got your attention.

Creep up to someone and shout at them to touch their right ear lobe.

Do NOT give them any warning, do not tell them what you intend doing and just watch their real reaction. that is what we are dealing with when we are usuallly driving on the public highway. we are dealing with the totally unexpected.

Most drivers will not be expecting a car to loose control and steer straight towards them,

Most drivers might not expect an aircraft to hurtle off the end of a runway and crash onto a public highway.

Most drivers will not expect a treee to fallonto the highway

Most drivers will not expect a deer to jump straight into their path.

Most car drivers willhave their hi-fi blaring out, they will be day dreaming thinking about anything other than the what if, or what might be.

Just time the person you are shouting at...

The chances are they will say, "What the heck\f*** are you playing at! That is the natural reaction but when we are driving, it is usually "Oh my God!" and then the driver starts to take what tyhey consider is evasive action, but......... They are seconds or hundreds of metres behind the incident and ninety nine times out of one hundred it is good olde lady luck that saves our bacon\skin.

I will now sit back and let folks tell me how good they are, and how their brilliant driving got them out of a particular event but before they do, I would ask they carry out this experiment and forget the silly reation time tests that you know about and you know will happen.

 

[KillerHERTZ]

Its taken 9 mins for me to reply, I guess im slow

I think (touch wood) I have good reaction times, the trouble I often have is whether to hit the deer/rabbit etc or swerve around it & maybe have a head on collision...

Do you ever find yourself on a long jounery suddenly thinking, woah, I have no memory of the last 5mins as your miles away?

 

[wemorgan]

Do you ever find yourself on a long jounery suddenly thinking, woah, I have no memory of the last 5mins as your miles away?

I've had that exact feeling too.....it's very unnerving.

 

[jaymanek]

I've had that exactly feeling too.....it's very unnerving.

me too... its amazing isnt it... you have no idea what you have been doing for however long but somehow you havent crashed...

 

[ringway]

Do you ever find yourself on a long jounery suddenly thinking, woah, I have no memory of the last 5mins as your miles away?

Me too, especially at night or in poor weather conditions. I end up thinking, "I could have changed lanes and cut someone up and caused an accident..

I've never fallen asleep at the wheel though, although my stepfather fell asleep whilst driving and my uncle and I woke him up.

I was on the M6 coming home from Coventry one day and kept tabs on a sleeping tucker for miles. He was wandering drifting around and I called the police. No signage on the truck and they told me to leave well alone.

Later as I approached juntion 19 for home the same trucker joined me on the inside lane, and was Wide Awake!

 

[Benzowner]

I agree with you John. When we are expecting things to happen, starters pistol for example, reaction times are in tenths of a second, when something is not expected I also think reaction time is in seconds. I am sure the eyes see what they see and we then have to or need to analyse what we see before reacting.

 

[Smatt]

True reaction times vary & should not be relied upon, being mostly irrelevant & a small part of the overall 'action' time.

Far better to learn to read the road & anticipate all eventualities, then one already has a head start in a given situation so that 'reflexes' are already primed.
This is why mature drivers are usually safer than younger as they are more experienced, have less misplaced overconfidence & less likely to choose high risk actions

Re: your examples; most of these are forseeable- if one reads the road signs there is usually warning of wild animals/airports nearby, so extra vigilance should be taken. Obviously driving through a woody/country area, one should expect animals. Something like a meteor falling in the road in front is less forseeable & if that happens one has to trust in luck!

 

[whitenemesis]

But that's the bottom line, isn't it?

CONCENTRATION

Generally we as drivers do NOT concentrate on our driving. We are very much on auto-pilot and that's fine as long as nothing unexpected / unusual / random happens

A racing driver will have sub-second reactions because he is concentrating on nothing but driving. I believe the natural reaction speed of the human nervous system is ~350ms, anything faster is predictive (you have foreseen the need) or automotive (where the nerve signals short circuit, never reaching the brain, as in touching something hot, you don't consciously think I must move my hand)

In day to day driving we are lulled into a false sense of safety by the technology around us and so our reaction times are slooow.

 

[flango]

me too... its amazing isnt it... you have no idea what you have been doing for however long but somehow you havent crashed...

It's a common Phenomenon called "Driving Amnesia" Loss of memory of miles covered.

Studies have revelaed that over 90% of motorists at some point will have experienced this and arrive at their destination with no memory of parts of the journey or suddenly think on a journey how did I get here, I didn't realise I was this far along.

It's usually caused by driving the same route day in day out or by driving familiar routes over and over again such as a sales rep or lorry driver doing trunk routes.

How do you avoid it? Well variety is the spice of life, change your route occasionally use more A roads, travel at a different time. Of course not all these are possible so regular stops and refreshment also go a long way to helping.

 

[Mactech]

It's a common Phenomenon called "Driving Amnesia" Loss of memory of miles covered.

How do you avoid it? Well variety is the spice of life, change your route occasionally use more A roads, travel at a different time. Of course not all these are possible so regular stops and refreshment also go a long way to helping.

Take the bike! I have never suffered Driving Amnesia on the bike. Is that something to do with the fact that I know I'm 10 times more vulnerable or because I get there sooner?

 

[219]

We all have good days and bad days too .

On a good day , I might be fit , well-slept , alert , alone in my car with no distractions , concentrating fully on my driving and perhaps even practicing my commentary which heightens my level of awareness of what is going on , trying to plan and anticipate what is going to happen ahead , and probably being just about as fit and able to react quickly to something as anyone else - even then , if something truly unexpected were to happen , I'd probably still have that OMG second or so of shock and inactivity , before a period of deciding what to do and then , finally , starting to take action - still , time between seeing whatever and actually reacting would be of the order of 2 or 3 seconds , I'd guess . That is on a GOOD day .

Now , consider on a bad day . I might be on my way home from a job in the early hours of the morning , having already worked a full day shift before having my sleep disturbed in the middle of the night to be turned out to do 2,3,4 hours work , perhaps driving a significant distance to get there , in the dark , possibly in bad weather . Maybe I have a bit of a cold , my brain and my body want to be asleep . Then I do whatever the job is - a couple of weeks ago , early hours of a Saturday morning I was turned out to an RTC involving two cars : one had crossed an urban dual carrigeway , rebounded off a wall and met another coming in the opposite direction ; one of the occupants was killed instantly , his burnt body was still in the car , which had been on fire , the other occupant survived the crash but had to have his trapped foot amputated to get him out of the burning car ( he died before reaching the hospital ) I had to photograph the crash scene : both cars , the remains , debris , skid and impact marks etc etc . By now I am even more tired than I was before , I am cold , hungry , probably need to go to the loo but there are no facilities and I'll just have to wait till I get home . I have the window down for fresh air and the radio on to help keep alert as I drive home at a speed being mindful of my tired condition . ( Up to this point all this actually happened two Saturdays ago ) . Now , suppose as I'm driving across country on my way home , the hypothetical deer jumps out of a hedgerow in front of my car ( thankfully none did ) - what do you think my reaction times would be like then ??? Pretty sub-optimal I'm sure .

It matters not how good a driver you might be on your best days , these things always have a way of catching us out at the worst times .

 

[Sp!ke]

I see where you are coming from Glojo and to one extent I agree but telling someone to touch there ear *would be* totally unexpected but braking while driving (especially when approaching a hazard) wouldn't be.

Take an experienced driver on a shout with his blues and two's on, would you not agree that throughout the whole journey, his/her mind is constantly on guard for hazards and the potential requirement to take evasive action whether that be to reduce speed by braking or by changing direction or both?

The action would therefore be anticipated and a 0.7s reaction time isn't so unrealistic under that sort of circumstance.

One could even argue that the faster you are driving, the more you are concentrating on the driving itself and therefore the faster your reaction time.

 

[Meldrew2]

Take an experienced driver on a shout with his blues and two's on, would you not agree that throughout the whole journey, his/her mind is constantly on guard for hazards and the potential requirement to take evasive action whether that be to reduce speed by braking or by changing direction or both?

The action would therefore be anticipated and a 0.7s reaction time isn't so unrealistic under that sort of circumstance.

One could even argue that the faster you are driving, the more you are concentrating on the driving itself and therefore the faster your reaction time.

This is possibly the best argument I can think of against unrealistically slow speed limits.

Driving slowly, (ie urban dual carriageway, wide lanes, good sight lines, no pedestrians but 40mph limit) not too much concentration needed, mind maybe on other things = Slow reactions

Driving as fast as is safe in the conditions, (ie quite legally 60mph on narrow, winding country lane with many potential hazards) needs 100% concentration = faster reactions.

 

[oldcro]

An interesting fact on reaction times.

Playing table tennis is impossible if you only respond to what your eyes see. Waiting for the ball to be hit and then working out where you need to move your bat into position to make contact, then actually moving the bat takes longer than the time for the ball to reach you. But the brain uses information from your opponents arm and hand movements to anticipate the area the ball will be hit into before the ball has been hit. Then after the ball has been hit only a small correction of your bats position is needed to hit the ball back.

So anticipation is as important as reaction time. Seeing a deer sign prepares you to anticipate the possibility of a deer leaping in front of you. Anticipating that a child may step out from behind that bus that just stopped gives you the best chance of stopping or avoiding the child should the event occur.

 

[stevieb15]

Reaction times are pretty much standard across the whole human race, its what you do or don't do when you react that counts.

 

[Ted]

Do you ever find yourself on a long jounery suddenly thinking, woah, I have no memory of the last 5mins as your miles away?

At my age, I think that most of the time - driving or not!

 

[glojo]

I see where you are coming from Glojo and to one extent I agree but telling someone to touch there ear *would be* totally unexpected but braking while driving (especially when approaching a hazard) wouldn't be.

Take an experienced driver on a shout with his blues and two's on, would you not agree that throughout the whole journey, his/her mind is constantly on guard for hazards and the potential requirement to take evasive action whether that be to reduce speed by braking or by changing direction or both?

The action would therefore be anticipated and a 0.7s reaction time isn't so unrealistic under that sort of circumstance.

One could even argue that the faster you are driving, the more you are concentrating on the driving itself and therefore the faster your reaction time.

Unfortunately most horrible incidents are totally unexpected.

The cause of a number of fatal incidents near our location is deer that quite literally appear out of nowhere. I mean nowhere.....

They jump out of the hedgerow and straight into the glare of the headlights. Just like someone shouting in your ear,

"TOUCH YOUR RIGHT EAR LOBE!"

One minute you are sat backenjoying the music, singing along with it and the next... the deer has appeared.

I have followed a car and saw a young child run between two parked vans and run straight out in front of a ford escort van..... The driver braked when the child was on the bonnet!!! That sharp braking caused horrendous injuries to this casualty as they flew forward off the car. The poor driver reacted as fast as he could but he was way behind the situation. IF... If he had been alert, he would have possibly seen that child and maybe been further away from the parked vehicles, or possibly sounded his horn!!!! (do we know where that is?) IF.. If his reactions had been better he might have braked less severely and kept this 'passenger' on the bonnet.

The average drivers reaction time is horrendous unless they are expecting the unexpected and sadly we are all guilty of enjoying our luxuries too much.

On an advanced driving course the concentration required is tiring, but absolute. It is NOT about speed, it is about reading the raod and anticipation. Forward observation and anticipation will serve us all well, but you cannot beat the blare of ozzy osbourne giving it decibles out of your hi-fi

"TOUCH YOUR LEFT EAR LOBE!"

 

[wemorgan]

Take an experienced driver on a shout with his blues and two's on, would you not agree that throughout the whole journey, his/her mind is constantly on guard for hazards and the potential requirement to take evasive action whether that be to reduce speed by braking or by changing direction or both?

This is quite a good video to watch I think.....you need the sound on the appreciate the commentary

[YOUTUBE]wyRcGbSV5gI[/YOUTUBE]

 

[glojo]

That person was my driving instructor many, many years ago.. He used to own a beautiful Lotus Elan Mad... He was mad and it is nice to see that he has slowed down

 

[Sp!ke]

You do make a good point John.

When I am bumbling into work in the morning, picking my nose, wiping sleep from my eyes and listening to my favorite radio station whilst sipping on my frappuchino, I am probably more vulnerable than when I'm late for a flight and dashing to the airport with 100% concentration on the task in hand.

The fact that the latter would present a higher risk of legal repercussion's and the former a higher accident risk seems rather perverse.