Examine, Evaluate, Execute

by John Reblin

By the time you are reading this, wow, it is September. Labor Day weekend is drifting into the rear-view mirror and we are looking towards, I would say, the best part of the riding season. September and October with the warm days, cool nights, along with the sunshine, how can you beat it? November you can get some warm riding in, but you also see the shift to the cold and snow. So, get out and enjoy the ride.

Speaking of somewhere to ride to this fall make plans to attend the State Meeting in Jefferson at the Comfort Suite Hotel October 11-13th. Stash and his Jefferson County crew are working hard to make this another unforgettable weekend as we celebrate 45 years as an organization. Look for details in the newsletter.

Steve Panten and I met with the Secretary of Transportation to remind him that we are around and to discuss our concerns with the future of transportation and roads in Wisconsin. We discussed our agenda, along with our concerns, with the autonomous vehicles and was surprised to hear that they share some of our concerns and have some of their own that we never thought of. They seemed to support our ideas behind the autocycle bill along with the increase on registration fees and the lack of a need for the M license to drive one, since it is basically a 3 -wheel car.

During our conversation that afternoon we also talked of our concerns of lighting, are we visible enough, are we affected by headlights and other warning lights? And, we also talked about the distracted driver. It seems that the trend of texting and driving, along with talking on the phone, Facetime, and social media, is causing a lot of concerns due to the severity of the crashes they are seeing. During this conversation Steve brought up teaching Share The Road and a phrase that he uses “Look, See, recognize” and what drivers should be doing when they are entering an intersection or making a left-hand turn. The phrase caught my ear. It was getting late in the meeting and we were soon on our way home.

While in the truck with Steve I told him I really liked the phrase he used and how could we use it to educate road users. With some thinking Steve changed it to Examine, Evaluate, Execute and I thought this is perfect. It fits everything we need to know in 3 simple words. This is drivers and rider education at its simplest. For example, the driver at the stop sign waiting to enter the intersection needs to examine for traffic, evaluate to see if he has enough time to safely cross and then execute the proper maneuver. The same thing goes on the road if they want to pass a slower vehicle. They need to examine the conditions of the road, evaluate the speed of the oncoming traffic, and again, execute safely the return into the lane.But it also works perfectly for us while riding. For example, when entering a curve, we all need to examine the tightness of the curve along with road hazards, evaluate what kind of speed we need to achieve to safely negotiate the corner, and then we need to execute it.

While driving for work, as well as riding for pleasure, I have been mulling this over and every time I come across something I just thing ok, examine it, evaluate it and then I execute it. If we all did this, we would be able to reduce our crashes, better yet, all road user crashes.

As we hear of the talk of a mandatory helmet law, I always mention that someone is going to hear about, or know someone, involved in a crash and use that crash as the reason why we need a helmet law to protect us. To be the last measure after so many others, driving too fast, under the influence, lack of signals, or maybe just overdriving their ability. But if the person, whether it is a driver, rider or pedestrian would act following this simple phrase, how many crashes would be reduced?

Next step, how to use this as a learning tool. This article is just step one. John