Japanese railway workers consistently employ a safety technique called "shisa kanko," which involves physically pointing at objects and verbally calling out their status to ensure absolute focus.

A closer look

Japanese railway workers consistently employ a safety technique called "shisa kanko," which involves physically pointing at objects and verbally calling out their status to ensure absolute focus. While a grown adult forcefully pointing at a speedometer and yelling out current velocities might look like a highly aggressive theater kid rehearsing an avant-garde play, this method actually reduces workplace errors by up to eighty-five percent. It turns out that forcing the human brain to physically and vocally acknowledge a task stops us from slipping into that terrifying autopilot mode where we forget if we actually locked the front door. Western transit systems have largely ignored this incredibly effective practice because looking cool and aloof is apparently much more important than preventing catastrophic multi-vehicle derailments on the morning commute