This is a common way of recognizing a mistake. We say it a lot and sometimes we say things that are quite a bit stronger in these situations. We say it (and other things) a lot because we tend to make a lot of mistakes. Many of them are small but some of them can be catastrophic. The situations we find ourselves in largely dictate how serious a mistake might be. One of the places this is a really big issue is in traffic.
It is interesting to note that more that 80% of traffic collisions are attributed to ‘driver error’ or ‘human error.’ We have to ask ourselves what we learn from such assessments? We learn that humans make errors. Given the earlier point, this is hardly news. We make a lot of mistakes. And we do like to apportion blame for these errors, making the idea of ‘driver error’ very appealing. So what do we do with this information? How can it lead to better future outcomes?
We know that we need to make traffic conditions more tolerant of human error. In order to do that we need to get more complete information about the network of factors that conspired to generate the ‘driver error.’ Then we have to be very careful to make sure the changes we make don’t just look like the management of driver error but actually are. For instance, lanes can be made wider to generate apparently higher tolerance for small errors in attention. However, larger lanes influence drivers to operate with less attention directed towards their position in the lane and contribute to higher driving speeds all the while one of the best ways to create error tolerance is to bring speeds down. When things are slower, likelihood and severity of collisions drop. This leaves us more likely saying, ‘Ooops’ instead of something far more serious.