All the Detail - System Part 2, the Position Phase

[@samburton690]

I just wanted to say these videos are great. I've got my blue light course soon and as much as reading roadcraft is helpful, being able to visualize what it means is really helpful and means I actually understand what it's talking about. Keep it up!

[@RegLocal]

Great to hear!

[@chrisowens3781]

Hi John nothing to do with the vid. I passed my IAM advanced bike test today and would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your vids you taught me loads so thank and keep them coming. Cheers.

[@mikeroberts]

Glad you showed the little bit of overlap between Position/Speed and Speed/Gear in the graphic. While separation is generally what we aim for, there are times where some overlap is ok. Obviously that's a lot easier on a bike with the way the controls are. In fact it is so easy to do, many struggle not to overlap when they first come to Roadcraft.

[@deebee3466]

A great informative video.. I am glad that you are revisiting these areas again because I always find some additional detail or interpretation of what is being demonstrated. The information is absolutely valuable towards the enjoyment and safety of driving. Many thanks again.

[@R04drunner1]

Loving seeing these car videos again Reg. I find them comforting, informative and inspiring. I was actually thinking the priority order on Position is Safety - View - Stability. Safety is definitely first. The logic of putting View second is beautifully demonstrated by your example of the parked cars. Stability as second priority would encourage drivers to just stay in a straight line approaching the car. But with View as a higher (albeit secondary) consideration, it's better to move out early so you can get earlier warning of emerging safety issues and adjust Information/ Position / Speed (possibly even Gear and Acceleration) earlier and more smoothly. Just a thought...

[@wl660]

I take the stability to be related to camber of the road…so on my Bike, position 1 is correct on a right hander…but if the camber runs off to the edge of the road, that would mean less stability (leant over more). So give up the 1 position (for view) to position to 2 for stability of the bike.

[@michaelwarren6553]

Good videos. IAM Fellow but still learning. My wife says, when I am talking, "keep your hands on the wheel!"

[@natrjack965]

Great to see you back ..😊

[@nataliedebiase5089]

Another helpful video Reg thank you! Looks like an interesting drive there where was you? The lake was lovely.

[@TwoFourCharlie007]

Hey Reg great videos, thanks, I thought with cars it’s safety view stability? I’m a biker myself but a car driver said to me it’s safety view stability….

[@davidmacbook]

excellent video Reg

[@artemkatelnytskyi]

Do you think the Position phase should overlap the rest of the phases similarly to how information phase does, since we are "positioning" the car at all times? I acknowledge that position is the first thing to consider when negotiating a hazard, but this is how I prefer to think about it.

[@markwright3161]

The information 'phase' is constant because you can't know what to do without it. You always need to take it in to learn what's happening around you, so there's no actual boundary to it as a 'phase', it's just something that should be going on from the moment you unlock the car to when you lock it again after parking, like vehicular breathing. I say lock and unlock, or at least approach and walk away from it as a stationary vehicle, because opening a door, etc, could cause another road user issues and requires looking for the necessary information to be safe, so it isn't just about when you're specifically in the driver's seat. 'Whenever you're in possession of the keys' might be another way of putting it. Once you have information however, you then have a set of conditions you need to act on. These conditions are all independent to one another, like separate pieces of a puzzle. You can't pick up every puzzle piece at once and form the picture just like that, so you act on each one or a couple at a time. They influence everything around them, but opposite corners aren't directly linked. The completed puzzle picture on the road however is a multi-dimensional arrangement with pieces with mutating borders and create a moving picture, so the place they fit in changes with time as the picture evolves, or something like that. You're still acting on what you see in a moment. A parked car on the nearside; move offside. Followed by a left hand bend; move further offside earlier. If nothing else changes, you've completed your positioning plan and you pass the parked car. Event dealt with. If the pieces or picture changes, you re-act, so if a car comes around the corner like happened in this video from 7:00 , you change your action plan to accommodate, so move nearside again, slow down as you now will get closer to the parked car, possibly even need to stop, so you select a lower gear in case you can make use of a space behind that oncoming car, ready to accelerate as soon as it appears, etc. I think he has mentioned it before, that you're not acting in all the ways all the time, you're restarting the action sequence each time the picture changes. To stick with this analogy, if you are building a puzzle you might pick up a piece with a finger and your thumb, but if that piece then warps, you may drop it then need to pick it up again. You restart the action of picking it up to place as part of the puzzle, just from a different starting point. The information is the picture on the box you're trying to build. If it suddenly changes from the one you're building for, you start again, or at least remove the bits that no longer match, like the plan to remain offside when you now have an oncoming car. You re-position, not continue to position, even if you hadn't finished positioning for the first set of conditions before a new set required something different from you. If the changing conditions happen quick enough in succession, you could restart the action sequence several times in only a few seconds, but it's still re-acting. You're changing speed, steering angle, and the like extremely frequently too, but you don't overlap constantly. There is overlap as shown in the diagram at 1:12 in this video, but it's not the same as repeating/restarting the action sequence for each new set of conditions. At least that's how I see it.

[@artemkatelnytskyi]

@@markwright3161 thanks for the effort, Mark! Probably, the longest reply I have ever received on KZbin.

[@stevendavenport364]

Hi John, I've just subscribed to the channel and enjoyed your posts. I'm very interested in taking my advanced bike test. Can you tell me the nearest IAM group to Blackburn, I've checked the IAM website but it has no results for my area. Thanks, keep the posts coming.

[@pauldarlington9157]

Do you think you need to keep both hands on the wheel more Reg?

[@gregg.d]

I’m sure I saw you shopping in warrington last week with Mrs Local.

[@kenmerry2729]

Thank you.

[@thefrenchareharlequins2743]

What was your old intro music called?

[@SeanVlismas]

Do you think IPSGA should be taught to learner drivers or that this would not give enough guidance for their stage of training?

[@aztimms]

Police driving schools did teach the "system" to learners. Remember in the 40's & 50's working class lads aged 19 joined the force perhaps having never driven or ridden a car/m-bike. They turned up at the school Monday morning, listened to the same system lecture as the advanced chaps received, then went on after a week's training to pass the L test Friday afternoon! (Note licensing regs allow police to conduct L test's internally themselves no need to darken the door of the DVSA).

[@markwright3161]

Everything currently called 'advanced' should be taught to learners and the 'advanced' test should be the minimum for any licence to be on the road. Anything less is compromising road safety. If everyone was educated to this level, everyone should be basing their driving off the conditions around them, and so shouldn't need speed limits, blanket application of stupidly low ones on top of that, excessive signage, etc to drive 'safely'. The elimination of various laws like speed limits doesn't leave gaps in the police's ability to enforce safe driving, it just means the lightest charge a driver could face for not driving safely is 'driving without due care and attention', but that would clamp down on a lot more poor driving, stuff that's currently just accepted on the roads because the average driver isn't educated any better. I wish an area could shut down access to everyone not proven capable of driving or riding to Roadcraft standard and then see what the road safety statistics would be after several months for that area. I imagine it would be such bliss to drive through.

[@TheFuzzy0ne]

Do Advanced Drivers ever use their speed limiter? In my opinion, they shouldn't need to, but I am curious.

[@R04drunner1]

Reg has posted a video with the speed limiter on. Personally, I prefer cruise control when appropriate. I find it more comfortable. With the speed limiter, I hate the way the car becomes progressively less responsive to the accelerator as the limit speed approaches and I have even found the speed limiter would not actually allow me to accelerate up to the set limit in some situations (going up a hill, for example). But, yes, in the vast majority of driving situations, the driver is expected to self-regulate the car's speed.

[@TheFuzzy0ne]

​@@R04drunner1 Ironically, the next video I watched indeed showed Reg using the speed limiter. I think it was a 38(ish) minute long demo drive. Thanks for your response.

[@wl660]

@@TheFuzzy0neI believe the IAM view is that any device provided for safety should be understood and used appropriately. That would include adaptive cruise control or speed limiting. The former would be good at allowing the driver to relax on longer runs, with the latter being good for ensuring speed compliance while letting the driver fully concentrate on hazard awareness than speed monitoring. If you have the features, use them.

[@markwright3161]

@@wl660 Removing stupid speed limits would be another good way of taking focus off monitoring speed and back to the conditions that actually matter. :)

[@wl660]

@@markwright3161 Couldn’t agree more. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 gave in without a fight.

[@barringtonsmythe3464]

😊

[@Christian-ve1wi]

😊