Mike “Spanky” Sanford
When we ride, we must constantly be on the lookout for hazards, because no one can do more to prevent an accident than ourselves. One of the best ways to insure we don’t wind up kissing the pavement is to anticipate what will happen from one moment to the next as we roll down the road. And one of the best methods to help our anticipation factor is something called SIPDE, which stands for Scan, Identify, Predict, Decide, and Execute.
Scan primarily refers to the visual sweep we perform with our eyes as we ride, but it doesn’t just apply to looking ahead of our planned course of travel. While we should obviously spend most of our time looking ahead at what’s coming at us, don’t forget to check those mirrors for traffic coming up from behind. In addition, we must keep our ears open to the sounds around us because a wailing siren, blaring horns, or other sounds can also help us anticipate what’s coming at us.
Identify means our brain processes what we see and hear, and interprets that information so we can make judgments about our surroundings.
Predict is when our brain crunches the various bits of data identified during our scan and gives us a set of choices to make about what might happen in the next few seconds.
Decide really puts our brain on the hot seat. What to do, what to do!! Making that final decision is critical and sets us on course for our next few seconds of travel.
Execute is the final step in the process, when we take all our experience and training to perform whatever maneuver is required to achieve our desired path down the road. It could be nothing more than just maintaining our current speed or as much as a hard brake and swerve to avoid a car.
The SIPDE process is something we actually perform in mere seconds, and repeat over and over while we ride, or even drive our cars. It’s an unconscious act for most experienced riders, but not something any of us should take for granted. As with all riding skills, constant practice makes us better, and we should take every opportunity to review the SIPDE process. It can’t help but make us a better rider and keep us safe for many miles to come! Until next time…ride safe!