What insects can teach road users

After all, locusts with brains the size of a grain of sand can fly in swarms of billions without bumping into each other, so it can’t be all that difficult. Let’s try.   The link word to remember is “predictability”. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • For now, let’s just stick with the basic idea that things are easier to remember if they make sense; if you can link them in a logical way to something you already know. 
  • The link word to remember is “predictability”. Because it is the single most important factor in road conduct – that you should be able to predict what every other road user is about to do, and every other road user can predict what you are about to do. 
  • Could this be a way of getting motorists to stop at red light, indicate when they intend to turn, look before they cross the street etc. 

Slowly read this list of words to a friend, once: “Tree, heaven, gate, sticks, door, vine, hen, shoe, gun, hive”  and then immediately talk about something else for a couple of minutes.  After the chat, how many of the words can your friend remember?

The chances of complete and exact recall are pretty slim, even if your mate is a bit of a boffin. However, there is a way of easily remembering them with certainty, precision, and almost for ever. 

Here is another list of words to read to your pal: “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.”  You could read these as fast as you like to anybody and then talk about anything you like for as long as you like and they would still remember them.  Now try joining two lists together: 

“One-gun, two-shoe, three-tree, four-door, five-hive, six-sticks, seven-heaven, eight-gate, nine-vine, ten-hen”. 

If  you don’t notice that the couplets rhyme, then you’re past help. If you did get the rhyme link, then you will already remember the first list of words.  Completely. Exactly. In order. 

MAKES SENSE

“Gun, shoe, tree, door, hive, sticks, heaven, gate, vine, hen.” And you will probably be able to remember them tomorrow, and the next day, too. You can take this technique a step further and knock the knickers off your girlfriend (for gender parity, use your imagination) by inviting her to give you a verbal shopping list of 10, 20 or even 30 items, and coming back with everything  just right. 

It has to do with conjuring a bizarre mental picture of the first item on the list, linked to a gun, the second linked to a shoe, the third to a tree, and so on. But that’s another matter. 

For now, let’s just stick with the basic idea that things are easier to remember if they make sense; if you can link them in a logical way to something you already know. Could this be a way of getting motorists to stop at red light, indicate when they intend to turn, look before they cross the street etc. 

After all, locusts with brains the size of a grain of sand can fly in swarms of billions without bumping into each other, so it can’t be all that difficult. Let’s try.   The link word to remember is “predictability”. Because it is the single most important factor in road conduct – that you should be able to predict what every other road user is about to do, and every other road user can predict what you are about to do. 

This principle is more important than all the laws and signs and markings and signals and systems put together. Because it is all of those things put together.

Before and above all the other details of road conduct, when you go out onto the road – as a pedestrian, a cyclist, a passenger or a driver – you make a social contract with every other road user. You promise not to do anything rude or unexpected, and you receive that promise in turn from everybody else. 

The master key to road safety (and traffic flow) is as simple and as absolute as that.