The first slalom was designed to help us improve our long-range visibility, or

The first slalom was designed to help us improve our long-range visibility. (Photo: Trevor Hofmann, Canadian Auto Press)

in other words, it was an attempt to get us to lift our heads upward and correspondingly raise our vision to a few hundred feet in front of the car rather than the 100 to 200 feet most of us focus on. Why? Again it's a safety issue, as well as one that if perfected will dramatically improve a person's skills as a driver. Let me explain. The farther a driver looks down the road the more likely he or she is to notice a potential accident, such as someone backing out of a driveway, someone driving erratically, or a row of brake lights suddenly brightening. While focusing further down the road is at first a little uncomfortable, I'm always surprised at how well my peripheral vision takes over all that is going on directly in front, or to the immediate sides of the car. Volvo helped us understand this by spacing out orange cones in a row on the ice, with ample room to move the car between if driving at about 30 km/h (20 mph). While this doesn't sound fast, try it on ice and see how confident it makes you. The trick is to look at the cones

Equipped with snow tires on all four rims and standard all-wheel drive the XC70 handled the snow covered course easily. (Photo: Volvo Cars of Canada)

further down the line, rather than the one that you're about to negotiate. Making it imperative that we kept our vision on the horizon, there was a really annoying guy at the end of the line holding up flags sporadically, and quickly, a sign that we were to pass by the current cone and take the next one. If you weren't looking ahead, you missed the sign and therefore probably went through around the cone that you weren't supposed to. While it sounds remedial, the exercise was a good example of how maintaining higher vision allows quicker reaction to what is happening up ahead. If that flag-waver had been an out of control car instead, and I had just taken the turn I was planning on without looking ahead, I would have been hit. A sobering thought indeed.