My IAM buttessment 5455

MrBitsy submitted this idea :

When you walk, do you have to consciously decide for every step - which muscles to employ to first lift one leg, then place it in front of you? I don't, I just decide I want to walk at a certain speed in a certain direction. The rest is completely automatic and I have not fallen over since primary school (except when too peeed to walk :-).

Try running up stairs without thinking about what you are doing, then try exactly the same carefully thinking about every step you take and where to place your feet. Bet you don't get very far up the stairs without tripping up ;-)

When I drive my responces and control are similarly automated through long practise. I just think accelerate and the vehicle accelerates, I don't have to think about whether to change up or down, it just happens without any conscious effort, leaving me to concentrate on the road. Should I need to respond quickly to an emergency, that again is fairly automatic and I am braking and steering out of trouble before I have even worked out why am doing what I am doing.

Your preprogrammed automatic responces to situations are far quicker to respond to a situation than your conscious deision making process. The brain and muscles can be taught with practise to do many complex things without much conscious effort, even deciding when is an appropriate time and place to change gear. The only time I notice the changes are the very rare occaision when my automatic systems fails to get it perfect.

Now if I change to a different vehicle, even an identical model, I have to consciously (for the first few miles at least) do the normally automated things with conscious intervention. The biting point of the clutch will be different, its feel, the setup of the brakes, the tyres and so on, but within a few miles I will be able to consign the details to my auto-pilot. The one exception to this, was a Merc I drove where the layout of the gearbox was back to front. I was halfway to Scotland before I had that in proper control and even then, after an extended period of motorway driving I had to think it through.

This is even true when I swap from my company vehicle to one of my own vehicles, which I have driven many miles before. The difference is that the mental processes are already in place and in a few hundred yards it once again becomes familiar. I don't think lights, now where is the light switch. I think lights, my hand automically reaches for the light switch and turns them on, because it has done it so many times before.

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Regards, Harry (M1BYT) (L)