Copyright © 1999-2000 by The Master Strategy Group, all rights reserved
 

By James R. Davis


If you read the Case Study, you learned that Target Fixation is real. If you 
then read the article that discussed Target Fixation, you learned how to use it 
to get out of trouble. In essence, Target Fixation demonstrates pretty 
convincingly that your motorcycle goes where you're looking. But why? Your eyes, 
after all, are not holding your handlebars and you frequently scan directions 
other than the one you're traveling in without your bike wandering all over the 
road. Is it magic? Or perhaps an undiscovered law of physics?
In the case study you learned that Karen was intimidated by the truck that she 
was fixated on. She knew she was going to hit it and tried to lean away from the 
impact. In doing so what she actually accomplished was to PUSH her bike away 
from her body and towards the truck. What she should have done was to press the 
handgrip that was farthest away from the truck in order to force the bike to 
lean away from that truck. And the way to have done that was to look away from 
the truck and actively use counter-steering.
Besides fixating on the truck, Karen's mistake was that she actively 
counter-steered INTO the truck instead of away from it. Might there be a 
connection between the two errors?
The idea that your motorcycle will go where you're looking is merely a shorthand 
way of thinking about a phenomenon that virtually all drivers (of any kind of 
vehicle) have experienced before: that if you turn your head you tend to STEER 
in the direction you're looking. In fact, it might be clearer to simply 
acknowledge that it is HARD to steer in any direction other than the one you are 
looking at. ALL of your prior experience has taught you how to steer your 
vehicle where you want it to go. So, if you look where you want to go, you kick 
in all that prior experience and AUTOMATICALLY steer in that direction.
There is no magic here nor is there a hidden law of physics involved. Your bike 
(or automobile) TENDS to go in the direction you are looking because, via 
experience, you have taught yourself to steer, more or less subconsciously.
To take advantage of that phenomenon you merely need to actively look in the 
direction you want to go - away from danger. The rest is virtually subconscious 
reaction. Of course it takes more than a turn of your eyes or even your head. 
You still need to steer away from danger. Since it is HARD to steer away from 
what you're looking at, and easy (almost automatic) to steer in the direction 
you are looking, surely it makes sense to look where you want to go.
But, you say, there are many times when you look in directions other than the 
one you want to go. After all, one of the most important safety practices you 
engage in is to actively scan all around you looking out for hazards. Why is it 
that your motorcycle does not wander all over the road while you are scanning if 
it's true that it tends to go where you're looking? (More often than not, it  does!)
The answer to that question is that when you are scanning or looking in a 
direction other than the one you want to go in you tell yourself to keep going 
in the direction you want - you turn OFF your 'autopilot'. If you don't believe 
me, next time you're out on the road and it is safe to do so, point your bike in 
the direction you want to go and look in any other direction. Notice how a part 
of your mind is CONSTANTLY VERIFYING that you are still on course. You do not 
normally have to do that - that's what your autopilot does for you.
[Keeping to the airplane analogy, we have been talking about how your eyes tend 
to control your ailerons (roll or lateral controls). A moving motorcycle does 
not have the equivalent of rudder or elevator controls.]
But we have also been well advised to keep our head and eyes 'up' and pointed at 
the horizon. Surely looking down will not cause a motorcycle to go down, or will 
it?
Well, not directly. If you are in a skid, however, and look down the odds are 
overwhelming that you will go down. That, because you will have failed to 
actively steer the bike in such a way as to try to keep it upright. But that's 
only one reason why you should keep your head up and eyes looking at the 
horizon. The other is that only by doing so can you actively scan for hazards or 
know, for sure, if your bike is vertical. But that's another story.

Wanna do some cruising, sign up with the "Comfortably Numb Cruisers"!

Best Viewed with a version 4.xx or higher Browser