Maximum Attack

I remember reading a long time ago that a large percentage of auto accidents occurred within a 5 mile radius of a person’s home.  The research department is closed today, so I can't verify if this was ever true and if it was, if it is still the case.  The veracity of the statement has never deterred me from wondering about the possible cause.

The thought that I could avoid driving within that radius was brilliant until I tried to put it into practice.  This is what I keep telling our desk engineers about their work.  It looks great on paper, but a lot of it is a disaster when developed and deployed.  The logistical problems of parking 5.1 miles from home and then still getting home were too much to overcome at the time.  Only now has technology begun to catch up to make this an option again.  The advancements in personal transport drones will enable the option to deliver people that should make off-site parking feasible.

Until such time as people delivery drones are operational, I make a point to focus more once I get near home because the only thing I want to do is get home, so crashing isn’t a featured item on my to-do list.  Maybe I’m different.  I also don’t like being stuck in traffic, but judging by the way people drive during rush hour, most don’t have a strong desire to arrive at their destinations.  I understand now why the crash radius may have existed.  This is also why we are so keen to finish our rail gun.  We have the potential for the ultimate traffic jam eraser.

The scientific explanation features a lot of complex equations that factor multiple variables, such as wind speed, air and ground temps, vehicle direction, time of day, weather, season, gas remaining until empty, driver’s desire to return home, reaction time, and vehicle speed.  Throwing the above variables and a few extras into the mix yields some interesting numbers.  I don’t have a clue what they mean, but they look quite interesting.

The non-scientific explanation is that the cause is a reduction from maximum attack.  Drivers who relax when near home are more likely to crash because they are easing their focus on the immediate task to reallocate processing power to other tasks and thoughts.  This leads to inattention and possible crashes.

In AcMo’s case, all of our incidents (we don’t call them crashes any longer because of the last letter we received from our insurance provider) occurred at the track during customer vehicle testing. We may be the exception though.  I am willing to include our incident data if the pit lane at any track can be considered home.  In that case, all of our customer vehicle incidents have been within that 5-mile radius.  The disastrous result of crashing our personal vehicles was so frightening that we moved AcMo on a regular basis to avoid ever being within a 5-mile radius while driving to reduce our insurance premiums as a result of our track incidents.

Maximum attack was thrown into my consciousness after the last round of sim training for 2014.  This wasn’t a new occurrence but my mind never opened enough for me to put it together before now.  Almost every single time I'm on an early pace to set a personal best lap I try to relax and focus on doing everything right which usually leads to blowing the time advantage on the last corner.  I have learned that the only way for me to handle it is to go max attack at all times.  When I’m on max attack I just drive without thinking and act on instinct.  The problem is that there is almost no margin for error if I get a bit off line or the car gets sideways.  I can get away with that in the sim, but on track in a client’s vehicle it is a different story.

What I think is happening in my case is that a certain level of relaxation sparks complacency which leads to a lack of focus on all of the small details that got me to that point which results in making a mistake or mistakes.  Or that all of the pieces required to stay on track only go together when I think of them as a complete unit and not individual pieces.  I’ve asked my brain to look into this and explain, but I’m still waiting for a response.  I suspect this is what happens to race drivers who have a comfortable lead but somehow end up spinning off track or hitting something within sight of the finish line.

The mind is a complex construct.  I know that mine has many clever ways in which it causes me to trip myself and interfere with my objectives.  That seems to be its default state.  I employ various tricks to combat that, but my mind has a multitude of failsafe modes to get what it wants.  I have found only one workable solution to this vexing dilemma.

2015 is the year AcMo is going on max attack.  It is the only way to ensure that we can keep our momentum accelerating and our client’s vehicles out of the tire barriers, although it is difficult to find the limit without at some point exceeding it.  I hope that this proves to be the right strategy so I can set some personal bests this year and finally overcome my biggest handicap:  my mind.