After refining the CBC and discussing the final behavioral definitions with Krista, I felt

ready to implement the second stage of DO IT—observation. I asked my daughter to drive

me to the university—about nine miles from home—to pick up some papers. I made it clear
I would be using the CBC on both parts of the roundtrip. When we returned home, I totaled
the safe and at-risk checkmarks and calculated the percentage of safe behaviors. Krista was
quite anxious to learn the results and I looked forward to giving her objective behavioral
feedback. I had good news. Her percentage of safe driving behaviors (percent safe) was 85
percent and I considered this quite good for our first time.
I told Krista her “percent safe” score and proceeded to show her the list of safe checkmarks,
while covering the checks in the At-Risk column. Obviously, I wanted to make this
a positive experience, and to do this, it was necessary to emphasize the behaviors I saw her
do correctly. To my surprise, she did not seem impressed with her 85 percent safe score and pushed me to tell her
what she did wrong. “Get to the bottom line, Dad,” she asserted,
“Where did I screw up?” I continued an attempt to make the experience positive, by saying,
“You did great, honey, look at the high number of safe behaviors.” “But why wasn’t
my score 100 percent?” reacted Krista. “Where did I go wrong?”
This initial experience with the driving CBC was enlightening in two respects. It illustrated
the unfortunate reality that the “bottom line” for many people is “where did I make
a mistake”? My daughter, at age 15, had already learned that people evaluating her performance
seem to be more interested in mistakes than successes. That obviously makes
performance evaluation (or appraisal) an unpleasant experience for many people.
A second important outcome from this initial CBC experience was the realization that
people can be unaware of their at-risk behaviors and only through objective feedback can
this be changed. My daughter did not readily accept my corrective feedback regarding her
four at-risk behaviors. In fact, she vehemently denied that she did not always come to a
complete stop. However, she was soon convinced of her error when I showed her my data
sheet and my comment regarding the particular intersection where there was no traffic and
she made only a rolling stop before turning right. I did remind her that she did use her turn
signal at this and every intersection and this was something to be proud of. She was developing
an important safety habit, one often neglected by many drivers. I really did not appreciate the two lessons from this
first application of the driving CBC
until my daughter monitored my driving. That is right, Krista used the CBC in Figure 8.10
to evaluate my driving on several occasions. I found this reciprocal application of a CBC to
be most useful in developing mutual trust and understanding between us. I found myself
asking my daughter to explain my lower than perfect score and arguing about one of the
recorded “at-risk” behaviors. I, too, was defensive about being 100 percent safe. After all,
I had been driving for 37 years and teaching and researching safety for more than 20 years.
How could I not get a perfect driving score when I knew I was being observed?
From our experience with the CBC, my daughter and I learned the true value of an
observation and feedback process. While using the checklist does translate education into
training through systematic observation and feedback, the real value of the process is the
interpersonal coaching that occurs. In other words, we learned not to get too hung up on
the actual numbers. After all, there is plenty of room for error in the numerical scores.
Rather, we learned to appreciate the fact that through this process people are actively caring
for the safety and health of each other in a way that can truly make a difference. We also
learned that even experienced people can perform at-risk behavior and not even realize it.
It is noteworthy that since these valuable feedback sessions with my daughter, the CBC
in Figure 8.10 had been refined for use in public transportation vehicles like buses and taxi
cabs (Geller, 1998). My students and I have evaluated a systematic application of the CBC
for driver training classes (DePasquale and Geller, 2001). Interestingly, we found it more
effective to present CBC feedback as an activator than a consequence. That is, students who
received their CBC results from a driving session immediately before their next session
showed significantly greater increases in safe driving behaviors than students who
received their CBC feedback immediately after a driving session.
With my daughter, I actually used the CBC as both an activator and a consequence,
which I recommend whenever possible. Specifically, I discussed the CBC results with my
daughter right after a driving session (as a consequence). Then prior to the next driving session,
I reviewed the CBC scores of her previous trip (as an activator). It seemed very useful
to remind my daughter of her prior success (to increase confidence and set high expectations
for the current session) and to focus her attention on particular areas (i.e., behaviors)
for potential improvement. As mentioned previously, rigorous research has verified my
hypothesis (DePasquale and Geller, 2001). My students and I have also produced an instructional videotape and
workbook to
teach middle school children how to use a CBC to monitor the driving performance of their
parents (Geller et al., 1998). The process is called STAR for the critical components of an
effective observation and feedback process—“See”—“Think”—“Act”—“Reward.” The
psychology of setting children up as driving coaches for their parents is powerful if adults
can be open to such a process and show positive support. Perhaps your common sense tells
you such a process can have dramatic benefits for both parent and child. In fact, the principles
of psychology revealed in this text indicate the strongest long-term safety-related
benefits will occur for the child participant of a well received STAR process. The complete
rationale for this conclusion will be apparent by the time you finish reading this Handbook.
From unconscious to conscious Figure 8.11 depicts the process we often go through
when developing safe habits. Both Krista and I were unaware of some of our at-risk driving
behaviors. For these behaviors, we were “unconsciously incompetent.” Through the
CBC feedback process, however, we became aware of our at-risk driving behaviors, but
awareness did not necessarily result in 100 percent safe behavior scores. Several feedback
sessions were needed before some safe driving behaviors occurred regularly and before
some at-risk behaviors decreased markedly or extinguished completely. In other
words, initial feedback made us “consciously incompetent” with regard to some driving behaviors. Continuous
feedback and mutual support resulted in beneficial learning, as
reflected in improved percent safe behavior scores on the CBC. Thus, for some driving
behaviors, we became “consciously competent.”