You know, like when you know that you know the answer to something or you intuitively know that something is wrong or is going to happen but you go ahead and complete the action anyway and then second guess yourself for not following your gut?

Here is one I think we can all readily relate to that will illustrate my point.

You are standing outside your car and grabbing all of the things you know you want to carry back into the house with you as you exit the car.

Okay I’ve got my wallet, sunglasses, diet Coke, the mail, my PC, my cell phone, my brief case, it’s a windy cold rain driving down, I’m tired from the traffic and the stressful day at the office, I’ve pushed the button to lock the car doors and I just know something is wrong.

Despite my intuition nagging me that I should not push that door shut; in fact I almost KNOW I left the keys in the ignition, but I shift my weight into the driver’s door and in almost a slow motion sequence of events I watch that stupid door slowly narrow the gap between open and shut.

Both arms are way too full of way too much stuff and it’s all starting to slip because it’s getting wet and I’m cold and I’m tired and I know I should lunge toward that ever narrowing opening with my foot or my hand or my briefcase or those expensive sunglasses, but in slow motion I just watch helplessly as my keys do in fact get locked in my car.

Then, after the requisite swearing and lamenting about not following my gut and saving me from my own stupidity, I angrily march into the house to let my wife know what a disorganized moron I am.

She makes it all better by assuring me with enthusiastic alacrity that she has known long and well what a moron I am and is happy to enumerate many more of my non-redeeming qualities as I choose to invoke one of my better ones which is tuning her out completely while she follows me throughout the house blathering on about it.

While I am scouring the house looking for that second set of keys with my external conscience in tow all the way, my male survival mode starts to also fail me a little bit and I hear the occasional phrase or two penetrate my auditory armor.

“I told you we should have made an extra set of keys the last time you lost your keys, which by the way we have never yet found!”

 “Do you HAVE to swear like that?”

Now I’m not saying that swearing is good or that I should continue to engage in it’s perfection, but there is this thing called the teachable moment, and this ain’t it!

It’s kind of like Marty in those “Back to the Future” movies in that you wish you could go back in time and change the sequence of events that led up to your current dilemma and replay those sequences or basically take a mulligan on that aspect of your life.

Now for those of you know it alls who think that I want to go back in time and change my marriage or my spouse who is nagging me about the swearing, you are absolutely wrong!

I might want to just go back and trust my gut and not lock my only remaining set of keys in my car, but actually at DriveCam we get to reach into the past to alter the future every day and our reward is saving a life or at least damage to the person and the vehicle.

A great story came in just the other day with just the right teachable moment.

A teenage girl enrolled into the Teensafedriver program on January 5^th of 2008 and we began getting some videos of some of her risky driving habits. As we scored the events and posted them onto the web for her parents to deliver the teachable moment to her, we noticed a pattern of her and her friends not always using seatbelts.

Now most parents and almost every adult I speak to thinks that wearing seatbelts is a non-negotiable issue and in fact don’t believe that anyone, let alone their own properly raised child in a swearing free household, would even think of not wearing a seatbelt.

In fact during the week days, a teen driver dies every other hour of every day behind the wheel and on weekends it’s one teen death per every hour of the weekend and 66% of those were not wearing seatbelts.

Anyway, this particular set of parents took note of this behavior and sternly told their daughter that if she or any of her passengers were ever seen not buckling up again; she would lose her driving privileges.

That got her attention; in fact you could say it was a teachable moment.

On January 20^th 2008 this girl lost control of her car and rolled it 2 ½ times and both she and her passenger were wearing seatbelts which were credited with having saved their lives! Now that is the real teachable moment and it is a lesson neither girl will ever forget.

The two of them walked away from the wreckage with only the passenger having a headache!

Behavior patterns are in fact patterns and if you can see them before a tragedy occurs, you can sort of go back to the future to alter the events which can change lives.

It’s not spying and it’s not big brother; its just watching your child reach out to touch the hot stove and saving them from burning themselves or others.

Please don’t let those teachable moments be at gravesites.

People say I’m passionate about safety on our roads. Well, they never met Sean! It’s nice to find someone else who feels the way I do about saving lives by reducing risky driving. (I’m also happy to hear, Sean, that your brother is healing from his fall.)

I’m sure many people will feel the way Sean did about Driving Me Crazy when they start reading it, but I also hope people feel compelled to read it. Compelled to read it because they know it’s the first step in making a difference. Whether it’s how they drive, how their fleet drives or how their family drives. We all share the road together and we all must be aware – and vigilant – of  everyone around us. And the stupid things they do.

As Sean ended his blog, I’ll end mine: Crashes kill a lot of people. If we can put a man on the moon, and if we can explore space on a regular basis, we can solve this crisis. This is a deadly, serious business. But until we, as a society, accept the seriousness of this problem and are willing to take steps to address it, the dying won’t stop.

A recent comment on Amazon pulls it all together: “The argument here is that driver safety can be managed and not just left to chance.” This reader gets it! With so much death and destruction on our raods, it’s imperative that we take control by managing the drivers’s behavior.

It’s not about the vehicle. It’s not about the roads. It’s the drivers who make a difference. By helping them drive better, we reduce the mayhem and the resultant crashes and collisions.

Driving safely remains one of the last best untapped frontiers for humanity in making a difference in the tens of thousands of needless deaths and literally millions of injuries will have a more positive impact than curing most diseases or ending all wars! The costs are staggering in dollars, but even more so in the emotional cost to those of us left behind.

All of these vehicle-centric safety enhancements reduce our chances of actually dying on our roads, but it is the human operating the vehicle that makes the difference as to these safety assists in the first place.

These so-called accidents are avoidable if we monitor driver behavior and not just trust that we will all do the right thing every time because we are licensed and we know better.

It turns out that President and Nancy Reagan were right after all, but in the wrong war.

We must absolutely say no to bad driving behavior, and yest we trust; but verify.

We get what we inspect, not what we expect.

If you don’t think so, watch how highway behavior changes drastically when a police car enters and then exits a particular road.

The time is now to go to war.

It’s funny that after all these years, I never said it this way! It’s definitely succinct. And, it gets to the heart of the matter. But, I never stated it so bluntly As we know from watching how people drive, habits are hard to break. I’m so used to saying ”risky driving behavior” that it may take me awhile to change to “drivers really stink.”

And, athough many of them do, the more I think about it, the more I think I’ll stick with just saying that people exhibit risky driving behaviors. Unfortunately, no matter how I say it, people still do it. Every day.

As the CEO of DriveCam and the father of six children (one of whom died in an accident, though not an auto accident), I have personally experienced the tragedy of losing a child. I will tell you that you don’t want to watch your child killed in an auto accident, you want to prevent them from being killed. Clark – and his family – are very lucky that his daughter did not lose her life in her two collisions. I’d like to answer some questions concerning DriveCam that have been posted to the site. Some insurance companies (like American Family Insurance) are giving this technology to parents free of charge, so they have the opportunity to coach their teen before the crash occurs. And, parents only see what their teen does when something abrupt or risky with the vehicle occurs. When this happens, the teen loses 12 seconds of privacy in their life, which become the teachable moment to correct potentially lethal habit patterns before it becomes too late. What’s 12 seconds of knowing compared to a lifetime of grieving? Perhaps Clark’s 19 year old daughter may have avoided the two collisions (and totaling the car) if she had had the opportunity to be coached before they happened. 

Thanks for spending a few minutes with us, Bruce. Why are you so passionate about road safety?
BM: Because 43,000 people died last year – needlessly. And that’s only in the U.S. That number is 1.2 million worldwide! What people need to realize is that there are no accidents. Every crash, collision and incident is predictable and preventable. These “accidents” do not need to occur.

What causes these “accidents”?
BM: Everyone thinks they’re immortal and that it will happen to the other guy.  Also, because we’re lucky. When we drive and take risks, whether we’re cutting corners, rushing or multi-tasking without ever having received a ticket or bent a fender, we are subtly reinforcing the notion that we can behave in this irresponsible manner. Each time we get away with it, we become more confident, bold and aggressive. This is all fine and well until our luck runs out. And, as the statistics prove, our luck does run out. For 465 of us each and every day.

Why did you write Driving Me Crazy?
BM: Because I had to. Seeing the death and destruction that occurs everyday compels me to stop it. I needed to let as many people as possible know what’s going on, why it’s happening and how we can make our roads safer. What’s interesting is that as I began writing the book and relaying my stories to friends and colleagues, I quickly became aware that although each of our lives are different, our stories are similar, and we all share the same passion.

How can people get involved?
BM: By sharing their stories on DrivingMeCrazyStories.com. It’s here where we can begin to create a community of people who share the same passion and vision – to make our roads safer. They can become involved in their communities and in their jobs. By simply talking to people, listening to their stories and sharing their own, they’ll become more aware of what’s going on and raise the awareness level of risky driving, what causes it and how it can be stopped.

I agree. I just hope it starts before one of our readers becomes one of the statistics. Thanks for your time.

It’s a long trip (over 750 miles) during which you traverse many hundreds of miles of pretty straight boring road. Making it even more interesting are big rigs passing you in the opposite direction at such velocity that the mini van would shake and practically blow off of the road.

On the trip back from Lake Tahoe, I decided that I wanted to make it as comfortable and roomy as possible, so I strapped the cooler and the baby stroller onto the roof rack.

Well my wife liked that stroller way more than she liked my peace and contentment or her brother’s ability to have the maximum room inside the van to stretch out and relax. She was incredulous that I would do something as stupid as to strap those items onto the roof rack and she drilled me on that subject the entire trip. All 750 miles.

Every time a big rig would pass us going north as we were going south, the wind friction would push the van. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the friction was loosening the connection of the items “strapped” to the roof rack and further, was tearing the material right off of her precious new stroller. Eventually, we had the stroller material flapping on the roof and the side windows as the material continued to tear and play its rhythmic beat of she was right; you are stupid, she was right; you are stupid; she was right; you are stupid. I couldn’t get that song out of my head; primarily, because my wife was singing it to me along with the flapping material drum beat for what became hundreds of miles.

Remember, I’m a guy, so I don’t stop to ask directions. And I definitely don’t stop to reconfigure the packing of the car so that I may continue to resist my better half’s attempts at reason or prudence. When it comes to a contest of a battle of the wills between her and me, I am as stubborn and dogmatic as any Neanderthal husband can be.

Most husbands do not like to be nagged – specifically not in front of other people and particularly when they know their wife is right. Especially not for hundreds of miles! As the miles piled up, and as the drumbeat of the now severely torn and damaged material from the previously new and precious stroller provided the rhythm section for the chorus of “I can’t believe you do things like this”, the tension in the cabin of the van rose like an airliner.

Mercifully, we finally pulled into Las Vegas for the night where we had plans to enjoy the night at Treasure Island. All of us were grateful to be done with this long arduous trip and I, in particular, was eager to change this same song that I just couldn’t get out of my head.

As we neared our destination, I saw the signs for Treasure Island. Immediately, my wife belts out a new tune of “Turn right here before you miss the entrance!”

Now, not wanting to ruin the evening with that particular song playing throughout the entire evening, I (for once in my life) decide to comply even though my own inner voice was screaming, “No not here, this is the wrong driveway!”

So into the entrance of the underground parking garage of the mall next door to Treasure Island goes the Previa and all its happy occupants.

That would be all of the occupants and the contents, which included (but which I had miraculously forgotten), those wonderful contents I had so cleverly strapped to the roof rack so many miles and so many hours ago.

I’m not exactly sure of the height of a 1993 Toyota Previa with a roof rack and a cooler and some crappy torn up shredded stroller piled on top, but I do know it’s about 6 inches higher than the clearance of the top of the tunnel we were entering to get into the mall’s underground parking garage that I didn’t want to go to in the first place.

Maybe due to a dip just before the entrance, or maybe due to a poor shock absorber on the van, the damn thing cleared the beginning part of the tunnel, but then jammed perfectly and completely in the middle of the tunnel.

Now, with a new song being loudly played from the passenger seat, I (feeling like Jed Clampett), get out of the Beverly Hillbilly mobile to survey the damage. At that exact moment, a line of cars quickly begins to form. All just suddenly having to get to that stupid mall right then and provide melody to my wife’s lyrics with a cacophonous horn section.

Being the astute observer I am, I quickly assess the situation with the newly acquired horn section helping me remember the tune.

So picture this. A white mini van securely wedged between the bottom of the tunnel entrance to the underground parking structure. A pissed off, dazed and confused Jed Clampett surveying his overloaded rural vehicle obviously making its first trip into the big city. A wife, whose lips are moving wildly but (thankfully) being drowned out by the horn section. A tired and crying baby strapped into his car seat mourning the loss of his new stroller. And a brother-in law who has probably incurred kidney damage from trying not to laugh, knowing how mad Jed is.

So, being the take charge problem solver that I am, I say, No problem. I know how to get us out of this.” I proceed to gun the mini van and immediately hear a terrible screeching and breaking sound as the stroller (piece of crap anyway!), cooler and entire roof rack of my wife’s brand new mini van, get ripped off the top.

Now my brother-in-law can’t hold it any longer; he is crying with laughter as my wife’s mouth finally silences and her lips form a perfect O shape and stay there. He apologizes profusely for laughing as we climb out to pick up the pieces so the horn section can proceed while they, also, cry with laughter. As we throw the broken pieces of the roof rack, stroller and cooler into the back of the van even I have to start laughing now.

We make our way over to the correct parking lot (next door) at Treasure Island and I open up the back of the mini van to get our bags out for checking into the hotel. That model of the mini-van opens straight up; I open it up and decide to punish the cooler and stroller by making them sleep in the car all night while we sleep in the comfort of one of Treasure Island’s hotel rooms.

By now, my wife has got her bearings and I know she is alright because even she had to laugh as a tension release valve. However unbelievable as it may seem, her song starts to ring out loud and clear again. “I told you so! I KNEW something like that was going to happen! You never listen to me! I didn’t mean THAT driveway!” and so on…and on.

Now this next part is the part for all of you psychologists and pop psyche analysts to have a go at. I maintain that this was purely accidental and I felt horrible about it, but I swear it happened this way whether or not you believe there was subliminal intent.

I reach up and start to pull down the open back door of the mini van and I swear I thought my wife’s head was far enough clear of the pathway of the door swinging downward to its closed position.

It wasn’t.

Now she is the one looking dazed, confused and wobbling about to go down.

Her brother and I drop the bags, grab her to steady her and look for blood or bruises. As she regains her senses, we realize that she is okay. We quickly assure one another that we all believe that I did not hit her in the head with the door on purpose to shut her up.

Finally we all start laughing hard and I am the Clark Griswold of our family and I deserve it.

We did leave the cooler in the car, though, as we checked into the hotel so she could retain just a shred of her dignity. It was the least I could do, even if my cooler had much less expensive cans of Diet Coke than they sold in the big city.

He stopped at the mail boxes, which are concentrated near, but not directly in front of, his house.

It was a chilly day so he had the heat on in the car. He simply stopped in front of the mail boxes and left the car running so as not to interrupt the flow of warmth to his young child.

Somehow, either he or his toddler hit the door lock button and, you guessed it … he was suddenly standing on the outside looking in at his toddler locked in his running car.

Luckily, he was close enough to his house to run back home and get the spare key. But you can imagine the stress and tension he experienced for those few moments while he had to leave his child alone in a running car on the street.

This happens to be a brilliant man so I’m sure that this was not an absentminded thing that many of us Dads have done.

Can you imagine if the child was not strapped into the car seat? Unfortunately, this has happened many times with not-so-funny or fortunate results.

Although I’ve never left the keys locked in a running car, I have driven off with my wallet on top of the car a few times. It’s a very sick feeling when that intuition gnawing at you kicks in and you finally realize what you’ve done.

A few years back there was a pretty well publicized story of a father who put his child in the car seat on top of his car and drove off with the baby on the roof. Cars were honking desperately at him trying to let him know what he had done. I can’t even bear to think of how terrified he must have become once he realized his absent-minded mistake. That would shake most of us to our core and give credence to the ever-present argument between husbands and wives as to who does the stupidest things.

And, of course, there’s the classic scene from the Chevy Chase Vacation movie where he ties the dog to the back bumper and forgets about him until he is pulled over by the irate policeman walking up to the car with just the empty leash in hand.

What stupid things have you done? I know I’m not the only one.