Having owned and driven a fair few cars, and until recently, I’ve always pulled up next to the petrol pump and half said to myself ‘bugger which side is the petrol cap on’ only to guess pulling up to the nearest free pump. There has been no cognitive effort or thought on my part of how to approach this as I no longer see this as a problem that needs to be solved because I am familiar with the outcome.
I only react to a need driven by availability rather than by the end-to-end procedure; this is natural. Or perhaps I’ve simply forgotten because my brain is distracted by the hungry, winging child behind me wants to get home as soon as possible so that he can watch Kids YouTube on the large screen tv.
Only when I get out of the car and look will I realise more often than not it is on the other side of the car opposite the pump itself. I will then select the fuel I need, usually wrestle with the pump and hose to reach the other side, hopefully I’ve remembered to release the petrol cap from inside the car. If I haven’t, there is the usual gesticulating to who ever is in the passenger seat to do it which ultimately ends up the car door opening (because of course we chose the car with electric windows and the ignition is off) and someone curtly saying ‘What?’. Or I have to put back the pump, turn back to the driver’s side to do it myself because the passenger isn’t in the seat to see then button or lever, or grab the keys to unlock the cap. Now I am incredibly aware of looking like I don’t know what I’m doing and that it’s the first time that ever done this before; imagining the station attendant looking on with wild bemusement and about to call over his or her colleagues. That’s before facing the shame of walking in to pay.
If only there was another way!
There is. In every car and on nearly every fuel gauge there is a little arrow above or next to the fuel icon. Guess what this arrow points to? If only I had noticed this before, a car journey on holiday wouldn’t have ended in red faces all round, speaking in hushed but high voices.
The case in point here is, never underestimate the stupidity, ignorance, or simple blindness to the solution, even from seemingly intelligent individuals who have been given a licence to drive in a given context.
Even small but important details can be overlooked during cognitive overload or during times of distraction. Solving for the context of ‘I am approaching a petrol pump’ is more important to me that the trigger of ‘my fuel level is low’. Here the problem has been solved for at a point in time where I don’t need to know this. I am too busy focusing on traffic therefore my frame of reference is small and specific to the level or gauge and not to additional information that I need to remember later on. In this circumstance my focus is on the question, ‘will I have enough fuel to complete my journey’.
However now that this has been pointed out to me, I will be able to adapt my behaviour and approach a pump confident in the knowledge that I can avoid added error and additional complexity. But the point here is also that I have now had to learn rather than react. As is my mantra ‘Context is King’!
Frazer Cooper 