It’s rare that I divert from my usual focus on children’s vision needs. This is one instance where we’ll look at vision from a different perspective. How our ‘gaze detectors’ help us to avoid calamity on the roads.
The gaze detectors are actual regions in our brain that allow us to map out someone’s intent from the position of their eyes. it’s a human neural system that is beautifully complex and nicely illustrates how evolved our visual system is. Interestingly, gaze detection is present in most sighted species, although it is especially refined in the human because we bring much more to the table – mentally speaking.
When you see someone driving down the road, you should notice their eyes. Simply getting a sense of where that person is looking will tell you where their tires will follow. This is what they teach you in professional driving programs: Lead with your eyes, then your wheel. When a driver is reaching to the passenger seat for a smoke, or looking down to text, this not only shifts their gaze and attention away from the road, but it causes the wheel to move as well because our sense of space and movement is tied to where our balance and vision tell us we are located and positioned.
Since vision guides most of our daily behaviours, it only makes sense that where we guide our vision so will our bodies follow. By shifting our attention to a text on a phone, we are removing our bodies from driving. We leave the vehicle to drive itself, with people in on-coming vehicles who are relying on us to be there and whose families, friends, and co-workers are equally reliant on our good judgement. That trivial few words in a text or FaceBook post are not worth damaging so many lives.
This touching documentary by acclaimed director Werner Herzog puts a much finer point on the discussion. It is well worth sharing with your friends, family, and co-workers. Perhaps doing so will save a life or two.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Herzog
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