On a beautiful morning in the summer of 1968 the nine-year old version of me was enjoying the fresh breeze on my face as I rode my bike with my best friend, Mike.
We blasted through Gorman Park and passed by Lord Pool. We planned to swim there later in the day. We zipped along May Road, traversed the short extension to Burke Street, and turned onto O’Connell Drive at the Sangiovani’s house. Our destination was just one house away.
It was a truly great day in the life of a nine-year old boy.
It is at that exact moment, which I can still picture in my mind with great clarity, that my memory fails. The next image that comes to mind is when I opened my eyes in the hospital. A doctor was sewing shut a large gash over my right eye. I was concussed and not at all aware of how I got from the seat of my bicycle to an examination table in the hospital across the river from my home.
It seems there was a car involved in this somehow, but I have no idea what happened. Not really. The day had taken a dark turn.
Yet, as impactful as the experience was, I honestly have no knowledge of the specific chain of events that occurred after turning onto O’Connell Drive. Nobody else ever came forward to flesh out the details either.
I was making a right turn onto the shoulder of a public roadway. Maybe I had the right of way. Maybe I didn’t. Either way I was the one losing blood, with ringing ears, while watching a nice young doctor put stitch after stitch into my face. The car had no more than a scuffed bumper, I’m sure.
I never met the driver. I’m told he knocked on the front door of my house and asked my mother if she had a little blonde son. When she replied in the affirmative, he pointed to my crumpled form in the street and asked, “Is that him?”
True story.
I share this epic event from my childhood to illustrate a point. There is a hard-core belief among the general population that if we have the right of way we can proceed with whatever it is we’re doing. Everyone else will make way for us.
This is not true. Right of way is a legal or regulatory concept. Two tons of metal crashing into you unexpectedly is reality. Fortunately for me, it just hurt a lot. Two of my childhood friends shared a similar experience but had a worse result.
Ricky and Paul never did get old enough to drive, or marry, or get old as I’ve been fortunate enough to do. Mike didn’t make it in the long run either. Which makes me the lucky one. Go figure.
In the aeronautical world this belief in the sanctity of the right of way rules has even more dire circumstances than I suffered. Too many of us that ply the skies convince ourselves that we can do whatever we want to do, because we have the right of way.
Maybe we do. Maybe we don’t. Is it really worth the risk of injury or death as we endeavor to make our point? I don’t think so.
Take the all too common straight-in approach to a runway in VMC at a non-towered airport.
It really makes no difference if you’re flying VFR or IFR, or practicing an instrument approach for currency or proficiency. It’s not illegal to perform a straight-in approach in VMC. But it is a bad idea. In fact, it’s risky enough that the FAA recommends you don’t do it. Yet pilots do it all the time. Because they can.
“The FAA does not recommend that the pilot execute a straight-in approach for landing when there are other aircraft in the traffic pattern.” There isn’t a lot of wiggle room in that sentence. It’s clear. But are we taking heed of the recommendation? No, not really.
“The straight-in approach may cause a conflict with aircraft in the traffic pattern and on base to final and increase the risk of a mid-air collision,” says the FAA.
That’s a logical argument against the straight-in approach. But somehow it hasn’t dissuaded pilots from coast to coast from continuing to fly straight-in on a whim.
A young pilot who was prepping for a CFII check ride with an examiner at my home airport once asked me for advice. What would be my recommendation if they’re flying an instrument approach to the runway and have VFR traffic in the pattern?
“Well,” I answered in my most supportive tone of voice. “What would you do if you were flying the approach in IMC, broke out at 1,500 feet, and realized there was VFR traffic in the pattern that might conflict with your approach?”
“I’d break off the approach,” the young hopeful answered.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “That’s what you should do on the check ride, too.”
Too many CFIIs are teaching their students procedures while ignoring the reality of the world around them. Ideally, an instrument approach will conclude with a safe landing on the runway. But sometimes it results in a go-around because the runway environment isn’t in sight. Sometimes the go-around is required because another aircraft or a service vehicle is on the runway.
It’s equally good judgment to initiate a go-around because the aircraft broke out into VMC at an altitude that allows the pilot to join the VFR traffic pattern. That’s a skill new pilots and old dogs need to have in their toolbox too.
If the goal of flight is to arrive safely at our destination — and I’m almost certain that is the preference of virtually all pilots and passengers — perhaps we should put less effort into our explanation of why we have the right of way and more emphasis on how we can fly in a system populated by others in the safest, most predictable way possible.
Personally, I’ll proactively take steps to avoid a collision rather than try to explain my right of way theory after metal gets bent and people get hurt.
I certainly hope I’m not the only one who has adopted that perspective.
