Update No. 259 – 18/03/16

I have been teaching my daughter to drive for the last few weeks. It has brought risk-management and the art of learning to the forefront of my mind.

My daughter is the third and last of our children to learn to drive. Some of the risk-management thoughts were prompted by the fact that I discovered after her two older brothers completed their learner training that the car insurance policy operating on the cars my Wife and I had taught them in specifically excluded learner-drivers in the coverage. Such a lapse was uncharacteristic of me and I have fastidiously checked that more appropriate policies cover our current vehicles.

Her skill level the first time she drove was surprisingly poor. Some basics I had taken for granted, and couldn’t recall spending much time on with our two sons proved more challenging than expected. For some reason, perhaps time spent playing Playstation and X-Box driving games, the wheel-handling in particular was far better with the boys, the other mechanics of operating the vehicle also seemed to be more intuitive to her brothers than Rachael seemed to find them on her first driving experience.

After the first session, I was concerned that my daughter was probably not going to be a great driver. I say concerned because the abhorrent skill level of the great majority of road users has always been deeply troubling to me, cars are extremely dangerous and if the persons operating them aren’t appropriately skilful and courteous, the road users experience will be both risky and unpleasant.

I really did not want to be responsible for adding another poorly skilled participant into the road user death-match.

Bringing me to the second point I wanted to discuss this week, learning. Rachael now has about 15 hours of driving experience. She diligently listens to instruction and uses the instruction given to ensure her skill level improves with each drive. I would say her ability would now be about as good as the median driver I observe when I hit the roads in Sydney. She is at least as good as her brothers were after 15 hours of instruction.

This shows that if you care about the outcome, and put effort into learning, you will get good results. You probably observed the phenomenon when you went to school and saw some of your fellow students of modest intelligence achieve results well above their native talent, and above the results of others with much higher natural intelligence.

Caring about the outcome is so important. If you are born with a 1.6 litre engine for a brain, you may develop the standard 110 to 120 horsepower that you would associate with an engine of that size, or you might put the effort in to learning and trick that 1.6 litre motor into the sort of 800 horsepower turbo-charged power plant that pushes Formula One cars along at 330 kilometres per hour.

The consequences Rachael’s diligent attitude to learning – in another 10.5 months, a road user of uncommon talent will be hitting the road.

One that is aware of the fact that the road is riddled with incompetent drivers who are trying to kill her at every turn, and is vigilantly waiting, observant, to prevent them the opportunity.

One that pays attention at traffic lights and accelerates briskly up to the speed limit the moment they turn green (provided it is safe to do so).

One that can confidently select the right time and place to merge her vehicle without needlessly inconveniencing fellow drivers.

One that uses the long on-ramps entering a freeway to ensure she is traveling at the same speed as the traffic when she merges into it.

You’re welcome fellow license holders – Tony Hansen 18/03/2016

EGP Fund No. 1 Pty Ltd. Up by 8.77%, leading the benchmark by 8.63% since July 1^st 2015. Since inception, EGP Fund No. 1 Pty Ltd is Up by 101.95%, leading the benchmark by 65.36% all-time (April 1^st 2011).

^{*1 after a 31 May 2013 dividend of 2.333 cents per share (cps) plus 1.000 cps Franking Credit, a 31 May 2014 Dividend of 7.000 cps plus 3.000 cps Franking Credit and a 31 May 2015 Dividend of 8.6667 cps plus 3.7143 cps Franking Credit}

^{*2 calculated based on dividends reinvested}