Bring your "A" game.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

There I was--driving around sunny San Diego for the first time in nearly five months. In just one week back from deployment, I had encountered two situations in which I felt fortunate to have had my spouse with me.

In the first case, we were en route to a local hardware store when my wife yelled, "Look out!" as I started to turn left at a stop sign. I hadn't seen a cyclist crossing the street. I immediately cut loose with some words unfit for print or for the ears of my 2-year-old daughter in the backseat.

The second case was similar, except it involved a bus. I was changing the radio station at the time, trying to get all my old presets back in place--not the best thing to be doing while driving.

In the aviation world, you hear pilots talk about "scan," or how fast your eyes are moving to scan all the gauges in a cockpit, while maintaining situational awareness. The same principle applies to a car. There's a scan, and mine was slow from a lack of practice and familiarity.

I think I've figured out why most crashes happen within a few miles of home. You don't get time to "warm up" before hitting the roads for work in the morning--that first couple of miles after leaving your driveway is all you have. On the way home, most of us turn off mentally once we hit the exit and just follow the suburban streets like mice making their way through a maze. In other words, we take driving for granted.

Sports analysts talk about "bringing your 'A' game"--you ought to do the same thing when it comes to driving. Crashes can happen in a split second. Everyone on our ship had been through traffic-safety training just before returning to homeport, but that training wasn't enough to compensate for my lack of hands-on practice.

The author was assigned to USS Belleau Wood (LHA-3) when he wrote this story.

It's a fact of life: People in the military often go long periods of time without driving a car. If you need a reminder to avoid complacency behind the wheel, read the article that follows.

By LCdr. D. A. Nowicki,

Training Air Wing Five