Blind as a Bat

Call#2
It is another typical day at the firehouse, and we have finished taking care of the rig, sat down and done some training, worked out, been to the store, and I am getting ready to begin studying for a promotional exam when we get our next call of the day.

The call is for chest pain. We pull out of the firehouse with the lights and sirens on. A piece of fire apparatus such as ours weighs approximately 40,000 pounds. It is large, white, and has a siren, and numerous lights. You should be able to see this thing coming, and if you don't see it, one would think that you could hear it. I pull up to a major intersection and the light is red. I stop and make sure that it is safe to proceed, when all of a sudden a driver appears on my left and proceeds through the intersection. As our eyes meet, the driver drops their cell phone, takes both hands off of the wheel and covers their mouth with both hands and exclaims: "I'm so sorry I didn't see you!"

Really?! This person was not really blind as a bat, what they were was another distracted driver.
Every year 5,500 people die from distracted driving. (U.S. Department of Transportation)
It really is simple. When you are in a moving vehicle, drive. Where do you have to be that is so important, that you absolutely must endanger your life as well as everybody around you by talking on a phone? If the call is that important, pull over.

"Hang up and drive." Driving is probably one of the most dangerous things that you will do today. If that does not scare you then I do not know what will. Trust me you do not want to be hit by a piece of fire apparatus. Have you ever heard of the lug nut rule? Lug nuts are what holds the tire on your vehicle. It stands to reason that the bigger the vehicle, the more lug nuts there are. Most passenger cars have four or five lug nuts. Our fire engine has twelve. Applying the rule twelve versus four gives me a three to one advantage over you. I am pretty sure that after the accident, not all the King's horses and all of the King's men is going to put your Acura together again. In fact , I am not sure we can put you together again.

Please, for the love of humanity...turn off the phone, turn down the radio and watch out for me.


References:

US Department of Transportation
National Highway Traffic Safety
Distracted Driving
www.distraction.gov/#

The Smartest Dumb People

“Most of us know of colleagues whose brilliance in their academic fields is matched only by their incompetence in social interactions.”

While working for the Denver Fire Department it struck me as funny one day when a colleague of mine made a rather profound observation and comment. “Thank God for stupid people, they keep me employed!”

Call #1:

The call was for a person locked out of their car. When we arrived on scene the customer was perplexed because the car would not open when they pushed the unlock button on the key chain fob. Patiently we removed the keys from the person’s hand, used the key on the key chain inserted it into the door and unlocked the door. After opening the door we noticed two things.

1. The alumni plate cover for a well known East Coast University.
   
2. The car was equipped with “OnStar”. I asked the customer if they actually paid for the service and the customer readily admitted paying the bill monthly. I asked the customer if they were aware that the monthly service could open the door for them and they had “forgotten” that.

We then had to explain why the call was an abuse of the 911 system. While we resolved a simple matter of unlocking your door, somebody in dire need of emergency services may have been waiting for us.

Why did this happen?

Here was a seemingly educated individual who, when faced with a stressful situation, could not logically reason their way out of the situation.

A growing body of research suggests that differential success in academic and non academic environments reflects, in part, differences in intellectual competencies that are required in these arenas.

The distinction between academic and practical kinds of intelligence is paralleled by a similar distinction between two types of knowledge. An academically intelligent individual is characterized by their facile acquisition of formal academic knowledge, and the knowledge sampled by the ubiquitous intelligence tests and related aptitude tests. Conversely, the hallmark of the practically intelligent individual is their facile acquisition and use of tacit knowledge.

Tacit knowledge has three characteristics:

• It is procedural in nature
• It is relevant to the attainment of goals people value
• Tacit knowledge is acquired with little help from others

Tacit knowledge is experience. Those who try to only apply academic solutions to everyday problems tend to fail miserably. Colleges tend to teach a great many theories, but do little to help the student apply theory to everyday life.

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References:
R. Sternberg, R. Wagner, W. Williams, and J. Horvath (1995) Testing Common Sense American Psychologist, Vol. 50, No. 11, 912-927, retrieved from http://www.gl.iit.edu/reserves/docs/psy504s.pdf