S13Ep3 Story Series: Cooler Weather Brings Driving Hazards

Cooler weather has wildlife on the move underscoring the critical need for driver awareness and the application of SafeStart principles on the open road. 

Host: Danny Smith
Guest: Joe Tanarelli

Chapters

• 0:07 Driving Safety and Error Prevention
• 12:35 Safe Start Podcast Wrap-Up

Transcript

Danny Smith: 0:07

Welcome back to Safe Talk with Safe Start. I'm Danny Smith and today we continue our story series, and joining me for this episode is one of my favorite people, our fellow Safe Start consultant, Joe Tantarelli. Joe, welcome back to the podcast.

Joe Tantarelli: 0:21

Thanks, Danny. Just keep it on the down low. You're my favorite too.

Danny Smith: 0:26

We'll just keep that between us, though, right? Yeah, so you know, after a brutal summer, Joe, I don't know about you, but things are finally starting to cool off a bit. Here I'm looking long-range the forecast and actually seeing some lower temps, so that actually makes it a perfect time for your story. You know, I even bought a bag of candy corn at the store the other day. To me, that's always a sure sign that fall is on the way when you start to see that back in the stores. For a lot of our listeners, fall will also no doubt bring visions of hunting season starting to start, and with that, certainly, we start to see more and more movement with animals out in the woods and well, as we'll hear in a moment, on the roadways right.

Joe Tantarelli: 1:07

Yeah, yeah, I think they hate the heat more than we do. We don't see them much, except for when the sun goes down in the summertime, so yeah, they'll be on the move.

Danny Smith: 1:18

Absolutely, you know. This also makes it a perfect time for us to all get our guard back up, if you will, in regard to them, especially if you live in a rural area or if you're going over the river and through the woods in a few weeks or months to go see grandma. Right, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So, Joe, tell us a bit about your story. I understand it involved you and your son-in-law, is that right?

Joe Tantarelli: 1:48

Yeah, and within two weeks of each other, Kyle, my son-in-law and I hit deer. Oh wow, my truck and his truck.

Danny Smith: 1:51

So yeah, that reminds me of a conversation I had back when I was still with my previous employer. I remember asking our shipping and receiving manager over in our Mississippi plant. He was a big time deer hunter. I asked him one day in the fall. I said, hey, have you killed any deer yet this year? And he said, oh yeah, my wife and I have killed three. And I said, oh, does she hunt with you? And he said no, I shot one. She took out one with her car and totaled it and then took out the second with a rental car about the same time a week later. So totaled both, both vehicles. So they had taken out three and two cars in the process.

Joe Tantarelli: 2:26

So yeah, I guess Kyle and I should feel lucky that it's only been, uh, two deer in the short period of time. We live about a farm field away from each other and my wife and I pitch in because they've got three children and we try to help run those grandchildren out to their extracurricular events. And our family couldn't perform those functions if we didn't have all the vehicles functioning, at least three out of the four. So we set up a game plan. Kyle took his truck in for repair first and obviously he asked me to pick him up after he dropped off. Well, I agreed, but I told him you know you gotta let me know as soon as you leave work. That gives me an hour to get prepared to be able to pick you up at the body shop, and I had a lot I needed to do. So the one thing was a top priority I needed to winterize our camper and it just happened to be that day gave me the window to be able to do that. So as I was in the middle of that job at the campground, Kyle texted me and let me know that he's almost at the body shop. Not what I was asking for.

Joe Tantarelli: 3:36

I immediately started to get anxious and I got to hurry and load the tools, clean up, lock up, get going. I was driving a couple of miles per hour over the speed limit until the inevitable happened. I was stuck behind who I thought was the most slowest person in the world started to follow a little closer because of that anxiety and tailgating and feeling anxiety. Those are telltale signs of another state. I thought how would you feel if somebody was tailgating your mom like this?

Joe Tantarelli: 4:08

And that immediately caused me to back off a little bit and I thought she'll turn here pretty soon anyway. And she did. So I, no sooner than got back up to speed and you guessed it, now I'm behind the real slowest driver on the planet, 15 miles per hour under the speed limit. My patience was getting really thin. I realized I was following too close again, so I calmed down, backed off and finally an opening to pass came. I assessed the pass, plenty of time and room. Right before I committed to the pass, I just happened to see an 18-wheeler up there a little ways and it was coming my way. So as I was approaching, and also an intersection of two main state highway.

Danny Smith: 4:58

Wow, so let's stop there and boy, this story is packed full of a lot of different SafeS tart concepts, so in a moment we'll have you pause the podcast and you can focus state-to-error pattern first of all, but also, I'd invite you and urge you to think about and discuss with your team the CERT that Joe could use, and there's a lot to unpack here, so don't forget how to discuss how bad this could have been potentially as well. Then come back to us when you're done. Okay, we're back. So remember, your answers don't have to match ours. It's going through the process. That's really the important part, right? However, thinking about what we're saying, our insights, those may shed some light on the Safe Start concepts, maybe in a way that you haven't thought of before. So, Joe, first of all, let's start with the state- to- error pattern. What did you come up with there?

Joe Tantarelli: 5:53

Thanks, Danny. I was rushing. Obviously I didn't want Kyle to wait, even though he didn't follow the agreement that we had calling when he left work, not when he was almost at the body shop. So that kind of threw me into a frenzy. I was mad, I was frustrated with the slow drivers. Both led to mine not being exactly on the task that was involved. My eyes were thank God to see the 18- wheeler and stay out of the line of fire.

Danny Smith: 6:23

Exactly, yeah, and you know a couple of points I'd like to make here. You know, other people's behavior can influence our behavior, and that's really important for all of us to keep in mind, especially as spouses and parents. Somewhat related to that directly to the rushing is rushing is often self-imposed by our own expectations or our perceptions of other people's expectations. Finally, we can't always keep our mind on task, and that's why it's okay if you have your eyes on task, but I mean, that's where your reflexes come into play. Or, in your case, you saw the 18-wheeler or the transport truck and that's what triggered you. That was your cue to get back in line there, right? I'm interested in your thoughts on the CERTs, Joe, because there is quite a bit there, right.

Joe Tantarelli: 7:11

Yeah well, what you said there about the other people and the environment that you're in and how that triggers some of that stuff, I'm pretty sure you lived with me my whole life. I self-triggered twice on rushing, but that frustration overrode that trigger so I had to self-trigger again as I was preparing to pass. What if the guy I'm passing realizes he's going so slow and speeds up when I get beside him? That's a pretty common scenario and I'm pretty sure all of our listeners will agree with me on that one right there, and I analyzed the event in real time, or you could say I anticipated his potential error. Now the 18-wheeler is too close, so is the intersection. I've also been working on building habits, maintaining safe distance and looking for a line of fire and throw in, looking at others, and I had all four CERT s working at once in that situation.

Danny Smith: 8:07

Yeah, I think the idea here you really did self-trigger on the rushing, frustration there, for sure, yeah, yeah, and kind of ask yourself there, you know, hey, is it really worth the risk? And sometimes I think that's what we really have to do, right, is just pause and ask ourselves, hey, so what if I'm five minutes late, 10 minutes late, you know, at least you get there. And I think that's an incredible question for us to stop and ask ourselves is it really worth the risk? And I remember, I remember when I first heard Larry ask a group that question, is it worth it? I immediately followed that one away. He's like, yeah, that's a keeper question, right there for sure, all right, so, Joe, that all kind of sets up my last question here.

Joe Tantarelli: 8:56

And that's a great question. It takes some time to talk it through An 18-wheeler. I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose that battle. I would have left Sharon a widow, my wife. I got close in our 20s and I realized later how much pain I inflicted on her and our two small kids at the time, many years ago. I never want to put my family through that again as long as I live. And I here's the next thing I would have left my grandchildren, my children, fatherless back in that time of my life and, more importantly, I would have left my grandkids without their grandpa. I got a lot more to teach those little kids and a ton, a whole lot more love to give them too.

Danny Smith: 9:39

I got you. Yeah, you know I. I had an opportunity just a few days ago. My seven-year-old grandson Carson was here before school started back for us. He was staying with us for a week and he rounded the corner near my desk to run out into our sunroom, which you know everything at seven years old, you have to run to go get to, I'm quite sure. But as he came through he tripped over the threshold going into the sunroom there and of course he was angry at the threshold. So I pulled him back in here and said hey, let's, let's pause for a second, let's have a conversation about that. But you're right, I mean, it's kind of like our fellow SafeSt art consultant, Jack Jackson, says you know, if I'd known about grandkids first, I'd probably just skip the regular kids.

Joe Tantarelli: 10:24

You know for sure yeah, it's not that I love my grandkids more, but maybe I do. I don't uh.

Danny Smith: 10:33

Anyway, he definitely got that right you were telling me something right before we got on the air here, I think is really, really, uh, applicable here as well. Talking about the kids and the grand things they teach us. Um, this involves squidward, right? Yeah it sure did it?

Joe Tantarelli: 10:51

Sure did, uh, my granddaughter Myla. She's 10 and she made it perfectly clear to me and grandma that she's going to marry Sponge SpongeBob when she gets old enough. So she just happened to come across a Squidward Weeble Wobble. And if those of you don't know what a Weeble Wobble is, they weeble and they wobble, but they don't fall down. So she took that little tiny Weeble Wobble Squidward and put it on the dash of my truck and I am practicing, building a habit out of love for that little girl, that I try everything that I possibly can to keep Squidward from flying off the dash. And that's better than any insurance program that you plug into the computer on your vehicle, because that Squidward is telling me on a daily basis that I need to quit driving so erratically. So that is definitely helping me out with behind the wheel activities and I immediately think a Mila about that. So, yeah, it's extremely important to go the extra mile and take Safe Start home with us.

Danny Smith: 11:56

That's great, you know and I don't want to get too far in the neuroscience here because that isn't the topic of the conversation today but seeing that on your dash, that is the visual cue for you to work on that habit and work on your driving habits, and that's one of the things that we need for habit formation is the neuroscience teaches us we need those cues and that is a visual cue for you to remind you, even just reminding your subconscious, uh, to work on that habit. That's great, great, yeah, mention there also, Joe, you said that, uh, that you had hit a deer as well, uh, well, we'll have to wait and come back and get that story another time, but uh, we are. We are running a bit out of time here on the podcast. I'd like to thank you first of all for carving out some of your time so we can record this today. Always a pleasure to have you here with us.

Joe Tantarelli: 12:45

And the same thing to you, Danny. It's always a pleasure for me too, and thanks for having me again. I really appreciate it.

Danny Smith: 12:51

All right for everybody, for Joe, myself, the entire Safe Talk and Safe Start family thanks for joining us today. Here's a thought to take from this episode and all those in this series, take this home, discuss it with your family. After all, Safe Start really can go everywhere that your family goes, and that's one of the beauties the portability of this process and the concepts and techniques and skills that we're talking about. That's one of the beautiful things about it f or Safe Talk with Safe Start, I'm Danny Smith, have a great day.