It has been many, many decades since I sat in a Young Drivers of Canada classroom. I remember a few things about taking this course before I got my driver’s license. The first was that it was very expensive (at least my parents paid for it), and the second was to make eye contact.
I imagine I learned a lot from that class and their teachings on how to be a good, defensive driver, but it is the eye contact rule that I know I do an untold number of times during the day. Simply put, if I am looking at them and they are looking back, we have established eye contact, and I can safely assume that we have seen each other. Whether it is another driver in a car or a pedestrian wanting to cross the road, if we are looking at each other, we can predict their behaviour, they can predict mine, and we can safely pass one another without any incident. An example is that I am driving on the road. There’s a car at the intersection. I see that the driver is looking my way, so I assume he is aware of my presence. Because I have the right-of-way at this intersection, I predict he will not pull out in front of me.
Let us take this exact situation again: when I am looking at the driver at the intersection, and he is not looking at me, I cannot assume he knows I am there, whether he is going to pull out, or what he is going to do. I begin to slow down for that just-in-case moment when I need to avoid his actions somehow, all because we did not establish eye contact. I will only then speed up once we have seen each other.
This is true even for people crossing the road; if they see me and I see them, we both know the rules of the road and can safely bet on each other’s actions and proceed without incident. It is that eye contact is the best form of communication with others that has helped me have a good driving record and avoid some serious mishaps.
Eye contact is just as important when driving a school bus full of children. It is important to see and predict others’ actions and be seen and have others predict my actions. I have the lives of kids in my hands, and I can ensure everything is going to be fine, all because I follow this eye contact rule I learned nearly four decades ago.
I was driving my bus one morning, following all the rules I was taught and the various rules I had created for myself, when I saw a turkey on the side of the road. I began slowing down for the animal I assumed wanted to cross the road. The turkey heard my loud bus approaching and turned its head towards me.
Perfect!
We have established eye contact. The most important rule is to be seen and to see.
I ease up on the brake and begin to slowly reestablish my speed, all the while maintaining eye contact with the turkey.
I am following my own rules. Rules that have kept me and everyone I have ever seen safe.
The turkey has seen me and keeps seeing me. I know this because it is standing patiently on the side of the road.
I relax my guard, confident that we have established the most important communication, and I proceed to pass the patient turkey. The turkey does the most incredible thing.
Right at the moment I was about to pass, it decided to run in front of me and cross the road. How I missed it is still a mystery to me, but it got by and probably lost a few feathers in the process.
After every incident, I review the events and wonder why I came so close to hitting a turkey. The rules that I have followed for decades should have worked. The rule of eye contact to be seen and to see has never failed me before. So why did it fail me today?
Ah, geesh. It was a turkey.
I felt like an idiot.
I was applying human rules I use with fellow humans to a creature that is literally and figuratively, and more importantly, literally, a turkey. What made me think a turkey would have any idea what eye contact is and what it means?
I felt like a turkey after that.
