Have you ever driven to work in the morning, only to get there and think.. ‘oh, am I here already’. You stop and think... how did I get here!!!!?? Well you of course drove yourself, but you remember very little of your journey. It doesn’t have to be a journey you take very often, but your familiarity with your car allows you to relax, and as a result your concentration suffers.

Last night I was driving to get my hair cut. I was already late, so I was pushing on a bit. There was a long stretch of wide road with parking cones down the centre with two lanes, one lane for cars to take part in a Driving Census (all signposted), and one lane for those who chose to not take part. I headed straight for the census lane, and when I stopped next to the chap carrying out the survey I questioned myself ‘how did I get here??’. This particular evening the last thing I wanted to be doing was answering questions on where I had been, and where I was going.

This lack of concentration when driving is concerning really if you consider how every time you step into your car you can potentially change your life forever, as well as anyone else’s in your path.

I made a conscious effort following this to give the remainder of my journey the attention it needed.

The annoyance I had with myself about driving straight for the Census lane, when it was clearly marked, and I certainly didn’t have time, got me thinking about how many Workplace Safety issues are overlooked through familiarity or lack of concentration. Are we providing a workplace that encourages over familiarisation, therefore leading to incidents should the smallest thing change?

There seems to be many views out there on this matter and I would be very interested on your thoughts.

First thing you need to do is get yourself checked out and ensure you are not ill or failing in some way.

As for the work place - there is a term of work place blindness where over familiarity is certainly a problem, but that is usually caused by mundane, monotonous routines - such as driving long distances every day with other things on your mind??

This is what causes pilots to fall asleep and aeroplanes to still not fall out of the sky. The pilot has nothing left to do except watch to make sure that the plane does what it's meant to, and there's already multiple back systems doing that already.

What do animals do when they know it's safe to sleep?

I actually attended a behavioural safety course organised by my then employer (Large Muli National Construction) which addressed this exact topic. Even the opening lines of the Professor of Psychology who carried out the course were the same as yours. If memory serves me it was called "Mind-Set".

It was easily the most interesting course I have attended from a H&S point of view. He addressed so many psychological issues but I'll choose a few to demonstrate.

Our brains generally only have the ability to process 5 maybe 6 thoughts at any one time. One thought comes in and the oldest one goes out if you get my drift. So for e.g. if you see a trip hazard move it when you see it, don't tell yourself you'll do it later because you will probably have had another 5 or 6 other thoughts processed by then therefore making you forget about the trip hazard.

A mechanical engineering company were employed by a fabrication company to remove and replace a crane during shut down. The factory had a mezzanine floor accessed by concrete steps. In the first 4 days 2 of the contractors fell down the steps. Clever clogs H&S guy identified a difference of 2" in one of the risers of the steps. Step was put right, happy days no one else fell down them........until the fabricators
workforce came back that is,.......they were used to this uneven step and didn't know it had been changed, 5 injuries in 3 days, step put back to normal, happy days again.

I have been thinking for ages about putting something together myself to address this issue, you've just given me the nudge I needed.

There are some very interesting points there. I love the article you suggested Jay, very interesting.

See HSG 48 ‘ Reducing error and influencing behaviour’ for the low down on theory and practice.