Awake at the Wheel: Mindful Driving

Trying to kick that texting-while-driving habit? Or worried about someone who gambles with fate by indulging some such risk?

Here's a just-in-time holiday idea: Awake at the Wheel: Mindful Driving - that helps you hit the road fully alert, calm, and focused.

Given the driving habits most of us have fallen into, that's a much-needed antidote to the mortal dangers of phone calls, texting, and otherwise multi-tasking while hurtling down a highway in two tons of steel at 88 feet per second - a high-risk endeavor in itself.

Mindful driving gives us a way to up the odds of getting there in one piece, first by making us less of a risk to ourselves (and our passengers), and second by making us more alert to the split-second dangers posed by those other drivers bobbing and weaving their way down the road while they are distracted by god-knows-what.

Mindfulness, as you may know, is an ancient attention training method that has been applied to a range of modern malaises -- everything from weight loss to living with chronic disease.

Now Awake at the Wheel: Mindful Driving takes on our bad road habits - and about time. About 6,000 people die and more than half a million are injured in a given year because of distracted drivers, the Department of Transportation tells us, and those numbers are climbing year by year.

Using a cell phone - even hands free - delays a driver's reaction as much as having blood alcohol levels at .08 percent, the legal limit.

Research on mindfulness tells us that regular practice:

1. Speeds up reaction time, that life-saving factor when the unexpected comes along. Dr. Richard Davidson's neuroscience research group at the University of Wisconsin finds that mindfulness practice speeds up reaction time.
2. Calms us, so that we are more patient and relaxed - the antidote to road rage. Barbara Frederickson, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina, reports that mindfulness enhances "vagal nerve tone," the circuitry that quiets the body again after, say, a near-miss with a gigantic Mack eighteen-wheeler.
3. Keeps our cool. Mindfulness, Davidson's research finds, strengthens the circuits that quiet emotional hijacks, quelling the impulse to road rage.
4. Sharpens alertness. Unlike some kinds of meditation that make us spacey, mindfulness amps up focused attention, as many studies have found - including a study by the Davidson group of the impacts of a three-month mindfulness intensive.

There's a kind of psychological judo in using a guided mindfulness session to help a driver pay full attention. Awake at the Wheel takes that impulse to listen to something - anything - that will distract us from the boredom of the long road home, and flips it around so our entertainment helps us focus smack on what we're doing: just driving.

Michelle McDonald, our guide, keeps it engaging. Instead of our minds wandering off in that state where we crave some distraction, she keeps us rooted on the usually unappreciated details of the task at hand.

We tune into the sensations of gripping the steering wheel, and keep an eye on the passing show of the visual panorama that surrounds us. With these anchoring our attention in the present, McDonald then leads us through exercises that transform a daily drive into an attention workout.

I tried Awake at the Wheel while tooling along a route I've traveled hundreds, maybe thousands of times. My standard routine to pass the time on that too-well-worn road has been to daydream, flip through the radio dial, go through my playlist, make a call or two - whatever will distract me.

But this time I found the same stretch of Interstate a journey of a wholly different kind. My mind was continually engaged in one or another aspect of my direct experience, from the feel of the wheel to letting go of mental distractions - with not a moment of spacing out.

When I arrived, instead of the usual relief that I had gotten that boring drive over with once again, for once I didn't want to stop.

This may be the one holiday gift that shows you truly care.

 

 

 

Comments

[Sandy Henson Corso]

11:53 AM on 12/15/2010

so important! thanks

[ErikWood]

07:12 PM on 12/11/2010

I think we live in a culture where business people need to 'hit the ball over the net'. Teens consider it rude not to reply immediately to texts. Home schedules would grind to a halt without immediate communication. We are conditioned to pursue this level of efficiency but we are all supposed cease this behavior once we sit in our respective 5,000 pound pieces of steel and glass. Anyone can win an argument in a forum like this by saying "Just put the phone away" - but we can see its just not happening.

I just read that 72% of teens text daily - many text more 4000 times a month. New college students no longer have email addresses! They use texting and Facebook - even with their professors. This text and drive issue is in its infancy and I think we need to do more than legislate.

I decided to do something about it after my three year old daughter was nearly run down right in front of me by a texting driver. Instead of a shackle that locks down phones and alienates the user (especially teens) I built a tool called OTTER that is a simple GPS based texting auto reply app for smartphones. I think if we can empower the individual then change will come to our highways now and not just our laws.

Erik Wood, owner
OTTER LLC
OTTER app

[stevesrant]

08:41 PM on 12/10/2010

Professional truckers call most of us four wheelers 'steering wheel holders' -as opposed to 'drivers'. Real driving requires focused attention, and is, unfortunately a rare thing.

[realitytrumpsbull]

08:33 PM on 12/10/2010

The modern car has many safety features, improved brakes, headlights, better engines, seat belts, air bags, Mercedes even has some kind of gizmo that watches your posture to see if you're nodding off(ACH-TUNG!). Much is done to try and improve automobile safety, from a design standpoint. But, a reckless or careless driver can still defeat all of this easily, simply by letting their attention wander. And, whatever else it is you're doing behind the wheel, some people hold business meetings while rolling down the road, eating, putting on your mascara, attending to other aspects of personal hygiene, flirting with other drivers, looking for an address, or you're one of those marathon drivers that thinks that 15 hours a day behind the wheel is an 'ok' safety standard, and you start hallucinating or spacing off, whatever's going on there that doesn't have to do with keeping your eyes and your attention focused on where that car's headed next, well they don't have 'autodrive' just yet, and that day may never come, so if there's a loose nut behind the wheel, tragedy can still ensue, full coverage insurance or no. Be attentive, be alert, take frequent breaks, pull over, get some air, some coffee, or a nap, if you feel that you're not 'with it' anymore, and if you're SO busy that you have all that digital telecommunications stuff going on, then you must have a lot of money, meaning you can hire yourself a chauffeur. Since police are watching more and more what drivers are doing on the road, it can also mean a ticket if they observe you driving recklessly or inattentively. It's bad to get tickets, it's even worse if you injure or kill someone else, or yourself.