Situational Awareness.

Blog #20

Lawrence Rinehart

Situational awareness is a critical life’s skill, on and off the motorcycle. It’s often talked about, but rarely fully practiced.

On the motorcycle, it’s situational awareness that allows you to enjoy a ride without being consumed with fear. The seasoned biker that is always aware of the potential hazards around them is cautious and attentive, but doesn’t ride in fear. This comes with prudent riding and experience and unfortunately, everyone doesn’t get there. Some settle into a fearful riding style and never get beyond it.

Fearful riders are not fun to ride with. They ride too slow and sometimes can’t get away from their own shadow. What I mean by that is, Bikers often unintentionally ride into hazardous groups (platoons) of cars, trucks or maybe other bikers. The seasoned, practiced rider sees the situation for what it is and gets beyond it, moving on down the road. Yes, that sometimes involves some acceleration beyond 55mph, something scared riders often struggle with. The fearful rider often stays in the potentially hazardous situation or just falls back . . . Way back. Not fun riding if you’re stuck behind them in the line up.

In day to day life, situational awareness is the difference between being a victim, being hurt, or worse. We live in a world full of evil, dangerous, reckless, desperate, impaired and/or mentally ill people. After 29 years of law enforcement I just roll my eyes when I hear someone say, “I believe everyone has a good heart.” If I respond, the most I’ll say is, “Where’d you hear that from? Certainly not from your Bible.”

This is just a small sampling of what the Bible tells us about the human heart:

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds. Jeremiah 17:9-10

For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person. Mark 7:21-23

We can either live our lives in fear, or become skilled in situational awareness, identify potentially hazardous situations and avoid or escape them, not unlike riding a motorcycle. For instance, if you live near a crime infested urban shopping center, avoid shopping there or only go early in the bright daylight. Park in safe places, go in a group, keep your head up (not in your phone) and know your surroundings. If something doesn’t look or feel right, leave. Carry pepper spray and maybe even a concealed firearm if that’s something you’re comfortable with. Know how to use any survival weapon you decide to carry.

In 1997, Gavin de Becker wrote a book titled, “The Gift of Fear.” It’s all about our God given gift of fear and people, mostly women, who chose to ignore that gift when it could have saved them from harm or worse. The book is a great read, packed full of real stories about people who sensed they might be walking into a dangerous situation, but discounted that warning and went on, only to experience bad things at the hand of a predator. He interviewed women that lived to tell their story.

I’ve written before that in 2014 author and well known Christian Pastor Charles Stanley wrote a book titled, “The Spirit Filled Life.” The book is about the Holy Spirit and how He speaks to us. Dr. Stanley maintains that the Holy Spirit speaks to us through our intuition, through our conscience, and of course, through Gods Word. Our intuition is one key way we hear the gift of fear when we are entering into a dangerous situation. Our intuition is a key element of situational awareness. In other words, trust your gut. Leave, back out, don’t go up that stairwell, cross the street, don’t walk into that group, be rude and bold if need be, don’t open the door, at least not until you have the shotgun in your hands (it sends a strong non verbal message).

Trusting your intuition is also a key tool of the seasoned biker. If your gut tells you to accelerate beyond a car or group of cars, do it. If your gut tells you that vehicle is about to cut you off, isn’t paying attention, has an impaired driver or is about to pull out in front of you, do whatever you need to do to be prepared for that. Don’t be afraid. Be prepared and situationally aware. If the driver does something stupid, avoid it and move on out. Let it go, it’s part of riding today’s roads. You seasoned riders know exactly what I mean.

Situational awareness requires that you have your wits about you, are focused and sober. When bikers ride impaired they shut off their intuition and sharp wit. Bikers that ride bar to bar are a hazard and should be avoided. If you ride up on a group that just left the bar, it’s a good time to stop for a coffee, let them get down the road.

I spent 15 years working in a town with a private university. We were always breaking up drunken college parties. Many parents see these drunken college parties as a right of passage for their kid. We were also always investigating allegations of rape usually to find that the young college student and the accused rapist were so impaired they didn’t know if the sex was consensual or forced. It’s a serious crime to take advantage of someone who is impaired especially if they claim you were pumping them full of booze. These parties continue to change the course of many young lives. Some right of passage.

There is no doubt some if these young women went to parties without any plan to sleep with someone that night, but drunkenness changed their plan. That’s a harsh lesson learned about impaired judgement. And of course, there’s no shortage of stories about young men and women who go off to college, hit the college bar scene, and become victims of serious crime. We are not far from The Ohio State University and its surrounding bar scene. There have been cases where students have simply disappeared after an evening of bar hopping, never to be seen again. Situational awareness and impairment don’t go together in life or on the motorcycle.

In my years of long motorcycle rides I’ve avoided the big motorcycle rallies, mostly because of the pictures of wild drunkenness. I would rather avoid that environment. If there was a way to just sample the morning and lunch time rally environment, and then bug out, I might be interested in that. But I don’t need to be around one percenters and the larger number of bikers pretending they are one percenters while they are all getting drunk. And of course, half or more of them are probably armed. No thanks.

Teach your family situational awareness. When they walk out the door teach them to have their eyes up, looking around, not looking down at the ground as is our instinct. Halfway through the store, house, church, etc. exit door they should have eyes up looking right and left. One never knows when the day might come that they decide to back up and go back inside the building.

Ohio bounces between the third and fourth highest human trafficked state. Some of those kids are snatched off the street, parking lot or mall. Many are tricked and even sold into it, but many are snatched. Now, think about your kids and grandkids. Every kid forced into the human sex trade is someone’s kid. Our schools should teach situational awareness. Unfortunately most of our public schools are focused on a different activism.

Teach your bikers to not be fearful, but to play the “what if” game. What if that car doesn’t stop, what if that truck comes over on me, what if that guy who just drove on the center line is impaired, etc. but don’t teach them to be scared. Scared bikers do stupid things and are dangerous. Find good training films, show them to your biker small group and encourage discussion. But, if you have a rider who’s been riding a while and still talks about being afraid, motorcycling may not be for them.

Motorcycling is inherently more dangerous than driving a car. It requires bold, confident and situationally aware riders. Thanks.

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