Human Factors Important When On the Road

by Christy Lotz, CPE

Great post on human factors,  Lauren. I recently ran into a similar issue when I rented a car. I was driving from LeMars, IA to the Sioux City airport when I realized I was about to run out of gas. I thought, incorrectly, that I had enough gas left to get me to the airport. Unfortunately, I read the gas gauge wrong thinking that “empty” was when the blue line got down to the bottom of the gauge, not the E line (see picture attached). If you’ve ever driven down 75 in Iowa, you know that you don’t have a lot of options for gas stations, so it was lucky that I found one. Iowa is such a nice state though, I’m sure someone would eventually stop to help me out.