Always Be Training
I’ve had the opportunity to participate in some incredible training in my life: CrossFit, drugs wrestling, what is ed law enforcement, pill military, aside from all my school learning – but honestly, a BA in History? No that impressive. It’s rare that you get to go to training, that when it’s going on, you are saying, this is an incredible opportunity. That happened to me back in 2005, when I attended an evasive driving school geared for military and law enforcement personal assigned overseas. The crux of the training was how to get out of situations in a car, by speeding, swerving, crashing, whatever to get away. It was Jason Bourne stuff.
The training took place at BSR in West Virginia. What learned boiled down to some basics – how to brake and how “see” the road. Braking involved applying pressure until your wheel locked up, then peeling back toes until you got control of the wheel back. “Seeing” the road meant looking as far ahead as possible, so you can anticipate the turns of road, yet your eyes registered everything in from of you. It also got into that you need to look where you don’t want to hit. If you are speeding to a tree, and fix your vision on it, you will likely hit the tree. Instead, we we trained to look to the open space, and you will generally guide the car there.
The rest of the training flowed off this, how to accelerated, takes turns, skids and more. They explained some basic physics, and as the worst physics student at my high school, I was lucky they let us practice everything on a track.
Finally, we finished by learning how to escape vehicle ambushes. Basically we were taught that if a car was blocking you, the best way to make it move was to aim through the rear wheel, at perpendicular as possible and hit it hard. That’s if the engine is in the front. The weight will spin the car like a door. They actually took us out and we got to crash cars in the evening and apply what we learned.
They explained all these concepts are taught in their accident avoidance training. They teach license drivers that if you are going to hit someone, or think you are going to be hit, to aim for the wheel well or to try to position your car to take the hit on the wheel well.
Finally they closed by explained all these techniques, except for crashing on purpose, could be applied on the road. Practice seeing the road, applying brake pressure and constantly assessing situations were strongly encouraged to practice and build upon.
Over the years, I have been lucky. I have had the need to drive fast, and I have applied what I have learned. I consider myself a safe driver.
Well, I got into an accident Saturday night. A pretty bad one too. In a millisecond, I will tell you I knew everything was going on – I knew I would likely be hit hard, I knew my kids were in the car, I knew my surroundings. Even though I found myself in this bad situation, I knew I had to find a safer area and try to get there. At the very least, I needed to move fast to minimize damage to myself and the other driver. I got absolutely smashed, but I was able to get my car positioning so my rear wheel took much of the damage. This spun us out, off the road into a relatively safe stop. The other driver was able to walk away, and so were we. I’m grateful for all
the training I’ve received, but I’m convinced the training I received at BSR saved lives.
I called them today and told them about this – they said they get calls like this once a month. When Finn gets his license, I am thinking about flying about there and getting us all the accident avoidance training.
What’s the point? Train! Learn things. Never stop learning, training and building upon the things you learn.. This class, which I took 11 years ago provided me with simple skills I could practice over and over again and allowed me to survive a critical situation.
Workout of the Day
Strength
Pause Back Squat
5 sets of 2
Conditioning
15m AMRAP
30 Double Unders
15 Kettlebell Swings 53/35
30 Double Unders
15 Box Jumps 24/20