Risk Management

The ladies in our audience can stop reading now. Most of you. Some may need to continue, but you know who you are.

Guys, we as men somehow pride ourselves for being good behind the wheel. While we may not dress well, smell the best or have a photographic memory for conversations, all of us are confident behind the wheel. Perhaps a few of us are too confident. The real truth is that none of us drive as well as the young lady pictured below.



Now that I have your attention, I need to make a point before Emily decides to have a little chat with me.

Driving, lads, is about risk management. In the car, you are responsible for not striking anything enroute to your destination. Therefore, you make several decisions per minute in reference to managing that task. Things that can go wrong during driving (risks) must be managed so as not to accidently re-design your parents' automobile.

An item that we deal with here in Pittsburgh is snow. Snow is slippery. For those that don't recall, my previous employment was in automobile dealerships. Our bodyshop guys called snow "white gold." Anyone care to ask why?

Coaches cringe when we think of our athletes in cars. Athletes at this age are always a little keyed up, either about the other athletes in the car, the music playing or the great workout they just had. Even when they aren't driving to or from practice, we know these people. We know how they're wired. We know they might not be coxswains for a reason. We also know how bad our coxswains are at steering, and that makes me all the more nervous.

Please, please be a little more careful. Two accidents in one week, no matter how far out of control the situation was for the drivers, is two too many. Think about where you are driving on what kind of surface. Think about your poor parents, worried about your inability to return the car in the same condition. Think about your poor coach, worried about the effect on the carpool after you total said car.

Finally, just forget about all the stories you've heard about coaches driving boat trailers. Never happened. You didn't see the trailer go that fast.

Categories: Safety, FC