Sorry Mate I Didn't See You!

How many times have you heard someone say that after an accident?
YOU MAY HAVE EVEN SAID IT YOURSELF!

Or maybe you've  had to put your hand in the air to apologise to another road user for pulling out on them?



It's not actually the fact that you didn't look, although on occasion you may well have not looked.
But on the whole, driver's will have looked when they arrive at a junction but because they have looked very quickly they have not taken in all the relevant information to make an informed decision to proceed or not.

We always recommend when arriving at a junction and getting prepared to move off, that we look to the left and right AT LEAST TWICE!

Saccadic Masking is something EVERY human being is capable of falling into a trap with.
The way our eyes and brain work means that the faster we move our heads from side to side the easier it is to miss information.

Stopping and pausing for a split second will help to alleviate this from happening.

If we pause for s split second, it gives our eyes and brain the chance to spot something that is moving.
It will also allow us once we have seen that moving object to work out it's approach speed.
By firstly seeing the object we are able to know it's there, and secondly we can work out if it is safe with the speed that object is doing to know whether it is safe or not to proceed.
Our eyes supply information to our brains, and are brains are super clever at being able to make massive calculations very very quickly.

If we don't supply our brain this information in the first place, the results could be devastating. 

The video above gives an excellent presentation of what Saccadic Masking is and how we can avoid it happening