AllAboutLean.com
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3:56 · 627K views · Jan 5, 2014
A short documentary clip of Japanese railway workers and Toyota staff using pointing-and-calling, a safety practice of physically pointing at and naming things while working. It includes examples from several railway companies.
HN finds it fascinating and suggests the technique for keeping operators like test drivers attentive.
4 comments from Hacker News
Contrary to many here, I feel that it's perfectly reasonable to have a backup human driver if they are trained to act accordingly . The Japanese pointing-and-calling technique comes to mind as a good example of keeping drivers engaged: they would have to continuously, actively point at dangers and at the car's appropriate response. this video (quite fascinating to watch) Combine this with short sessions (not driving around for hours with nothing to do), and I think the driver would have had a reasonable chance of preventing this accident.
I was mesmerised how the Japanese train operators (and perhaps other similar workers) have to follow checklists where they physically point[0] at everything they are doing even when they are alone. Now I'm wondering whether this approach actually works. [0] - this video
In Japanese rail, conductors and drivers periodically point with their hand [1][2] to indicate awareness of the task. Reading the article, perhaps these distracted test drivers could use a similar approach. [1] [LINK] [2] this video
Perhaps they could pick up the Japanese train drivers pointing and calling: this video Referring to things in multiple ways is supposed to have a more thorough confirmation, although not a good idea to point whilst wielding a scalpel.