Overtaken by doubt, as life changes direction
The Age
Saturday March 12, 2011
THE office of VicRoads had a tense atmosphere. There was a short queue for the driving tests counter: three people in front of me, looking casual, jangling with nerves. I got to the counter. "I'm here for a thingie," I said, and proffered my crumpled printout."Hazard perception test?" The woman hardly glanced at it before checking a computer. "Booth 67. Just sit down and it'll start."At five computer stations people were hunched forward, earphones on, concentrating in silence. I took my place. The screen came to life. It told me that I was doing a hazard perception test. Click left to say Yes. I clicked left. A sequence of questions needing reassurance. Click left to replay this message. Click left to say Yes again. Click left to finish the practice. Click left to start the test.A series of filmed scenarios played before me. I had to click at the moment I judged it safe for my imaginary car variously to slow down, turn right, or overtake, as a video of a windscreen moved forward through dappled side streets, down crowded shopping strips, across intersections. I, hunched too now, rigid with attention, scanning the rather dark screen with all my nerves. There was, the computer informed me, the possibility that there was no safe moment to overtake, to slow down. I tried to slow down the test. The computer beeped at me: click Yes within 30 seconds or the test will terminate. My fake car streamed onwards, over and over. At the counter the lady was explaining to the third person in a row that they should have brought in proper ID and no, asking someone else in the queue to say they know you isn't good enough.Those children loitering on the footpath in the shadowy street: I was already crawling at 40km/h, should I slow down further in case they ran in front? Or was that dangerous lingering? I passed a sign alerting to a gravel patch ahead: when was it safe to reduce speed? Before the sign? How much before? I was hurtling down a hill in the countryside at 80km/h an hour: seemed dicey to me: I slowed. The computer wouldn't tell me if I was correct or not. It just threw scene after scene, and I left-clicked more and more defiantly. My throat was dry. The test finally finished. Return to the counter and await results, the computer instructed.I needed a 54 per cent success rate to pass. Surely I'd done better than that? 54 per cent seemed pitifully low. But it was so confusing. In real driving I'd never done some of these things. My instructor hadn't taught me what to do, going 80 down a hill on a bad road. I bit my fingers. I had already done this test a month before. And I'd failed.The printout gave me 57 per cent. "You've passed," said the lady with a touch of tired warmth. "Crap," I said. Only just over a 50-50 chance that I'd avoid a fatal hazard! And I still didn't know which I'd got right and which I'd tanked. I'd have to find out in real life; real car, real people's lives, real one-in-two possibility of catastrophe. I went away for a stiff drink and told myself that for a hazard test, it was all a bit haphazard.There should be, I thought, a hazard perception test for life. Wouldn't that be useful? Scenario one: buying a house without noticing that the auction was deafened by the noise of the nearby freeway. Avoid, go around. Scenario two: a date with a boy possessing a sweet smile and a sly affection for narcotic drugs. Accelerate and overtake. Scenario three: rebuilding on a flood plain in a changing climate given to extreme weather. Slow down, consider alternative route.Most of life is, of course, a little harder to interpret. We don't usually get into perilous situations by choice. I believe we do what seems a good idea at the time; but learning to drive is teaching me that wide-periphery scanning, alert anticipation, familiarity with black-spots and danger times, neighbourhoods full of unleashed dogs and menacing four-wheel-drives, might also be a good idea.Or what about a test for the opposite? What's the antonym for hazard? How to see a good chance coming, how to angle ready to enter the stream of steady flow, how to enjoy cruising at comfortable speed, or park safely in the shade of life. I haven't yet driven at night or in the rain. I'm more worried than reassured by my hazard perception test. But I do know how to take a corner smoothly, straighten up, and keep going.
© 2011 The Age
