Smart driving and constant calculation of odds

While we were on our several-hour drive to Disney World, one of our rental car's tires started leaking slowly. After filling up several times at service stations, we called Hertz and negotiated a location to swap cars in Orlando. It had already been a long drive and we had suffered through two sets of stopped traffic on the highway, so we didn't want to turn around and backtrack towards a Hertz closer to our physical location. But the Orlando location meant that we faced another hour on the road with a leaking tire.

While driving during this hour, senses were more alert. Was that slight bump I just felt the tire starting to shred? Is the left side of the car leaning more than it had been before? What's that noise? Can't you feel the steering not aligned as well as it was earlier? In the midst of all this, I consciously realized the criteria I apply all the time while driving. Most of the time, these sets of calculations are happening subconsciously in the background of my mind, but the tire leak made the thoughts more deliberate. My background related to driving started when I got my first drivers license in the US in 1989. In 1992 I joined a volunteer fire department and completed training in emergency vehicle operations (lights and sirens!) where not only the basic driving principles were drilled into me, but also a layer of reacting to and even trying to predict circumstances that might unfold while driving. In the context of the fire trucks and ambulances, the concept was that people react differently when noticing a vehicle moving quickly with lights and sirens. Some people pull over to the side of the road (and we love you), while other people slam on their brakes and just stop wherever they are (and you tend to cause chaos, not to mention that I might just run into you if you're right in front of me!), and other people are completely oblivious and never notice the vehicle, no matter how close or loud. Although in my distant past, I do notice much of that training remaining intact. My other driving experiences recently have been when I took lessons and sat for a UK drivers license in 2008 (because they don't recognize US licenses for purposes of swapping licenses).

While these thoughts apply to driving, I think they probably also explain how I approach many decisions in my life. They're actually quite simple criteria and when applied deliberately and without emotion, they're highly effective. The three main questions I ask myself are:

1. What is the "up side" if I do this and it works? For example, if everything goes perfectly, what's the maximum that I could gain?
2. What are the "odds" that this will work as I hope? For example, does this have a 75% chance of working out as I hope?
3. What is the maximum "down side" if this does not work? For example, if everything goes wrong, what is the absolute worst that could happen?

Once these questions have been answered, it's easy to do a quick evaluation by asking whether the maximum possible gain I could get is worth the risk of the maximum worst thing that could happen. In many cases, the odds are so high that I'll get the value I want and the worst thing that would happen is tolerable, that it makes sense to do the action. In other cases, although the odds are very high that things will work out fine, the possible downside - however small - is simply not tolerable given what the possible upside might be. An example probably helps illustrate these concepts better:

• Let's take a dramatic example to start with. Pretend you're in a rural area about 1 mile from a hospital's emergency department. You're in your car with your three kids in the back seat and an adult passenger in the front seat who has had heart problems and suddenly grasps his chest and falls unconscious. You approach a train track crossing when the red lights start flashing, indicating a train approaching within the next couple of minutes. You stop and can visibly see for a ways in both directions and do not see a train. So do you ignore the lights, cross the tracks and get to the hospital more quickly, or wait for the train to cross? In this case, the "up side" of the decision to cross will be that you can get the dying passenger to the hospital within a minute and they probably will live (and otherwise might die). The "odds" are very high (99% or so?) that you can cross the tracks without being hit by the train. The "downside" if you are wrong probably means death. Balancing all this, I probably would decide to take this chance and go to the hospital.
• If we take a similar example and simply remove the medical problems with the passenger and pretend that the up side is that we'd get to a shopping mall 5 minutes sooner, I would not cross the tracks and would wait for the train instead.

This was an extreme example but useful to illustrate the point. What I noticed in the drive to Orlando with the leaking tire was that I found myself consciously thinking through these questions for every move. Do I move out of the slow lane to pass the car in front of me? Do I drive the speed limit, slower or faster? Do I allow myself to ever have the car in a position where I can't immediately and safely stop quickly with a shoulder on the right or left of the road?

I've reflected since the drive on how the application of these questions has actually affected most aspects in my life. Where and how do I save or invest money? How do I decide how aggressively to approach a situation at work? At home? In a store? How much do I push myself at the gym? When do I let myself get stressed out about situations? How long do I spend writing emails to friends? What about to wider audiences at work? The list goes on and on..

PS - Disney was great, the tire held intact, the car swap with Hertz at the Orlando Airport went fine, and our drive back was uneventful!

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