We moved forward only a few inches--just far enough to get
off the leveling blocks! But that was enough. There was a sickening crunch as
the opened compartment door hit a post. The repairs cost thousands of dollars.
We are experienced RVers, and there is no excuse for making
a mistake like that one. We began kicking ourselves for not adhering to our
checklist, which of course includes making sure that all the outside doors are
closed before even turning on the ignition.
The NPR program The
Hidden Brain gave a great example of failing to use every item on a
checklist: in 1935 a Boeing plane nicknamed the “flying fortress” crashed and
burned, killing two pilots, because the crew had neglected to check every item
on their checklist.[i]
Incredibly, the control lock had been left in place.
True, checklists can be boring. In my years of editorial
work, I got very tired of making a huge chart for each project and listing all
the trivial steps that had to be followed between a manuscript and a book, but
those charts saved me from making many mistakes, and I should have remembered
their value.
Strangely, the things people forget are obvious steps. In
proofreading books, I never overlooked a misspelling or misuse of an unusual
word, but several times I failed to notice some problem with a simple word. Our
brains tend to see what we expect to see.
One item people often forget to check is the TV antenna.
Many times a tidied-up RV will pull out of a campground with the antenna
extended. We try to chase the driver down but are not always successful. The
results are probably not pretty.
Many RV websites contain valuable checklists. Every owner
needs to choose the relevant items from those lists to create a computerized
document that can be easily revised as needed.
Most important, the checklist must be printed and followed
just before each trip (or before moving off the leveling blocks, as we discovered).
No checklist is useful if it is sitting on a computer.
Text copyright 2017 by Carol Leth Stone.
[i] https://www.npr.org/2017/10/30/559996276/the-trick-to-surviving-a-high-stakes-high-pressure-job-try-a-checklist
The Hidden brain
is Hosted by Shankar Vedantam.
