Structuring the learning

The Driving Instructors Handbook usefully details nine main principles involved in structuring any driving instruction (pg 149).  Regrettably, it adds explicitly in the introduction:

"As there is a good deal of common sense involved in teaching a practical skill, most good instructors follow these principles intuitively."

I'm not sure what other introduction could have been more effective in switching off a reader:  "For all you numbnuts out there, that have absolutely no common sense, you probably aren't a good driving instructor, so you need to read up on these 9 main principles (the rest of us just follow them intuitively)." 

Charmed, I'm sure.

If following the principles was merely down to "common sense", then I wonder why some driving instructors suffer from as many accidents as they do?  I would have thought it "common sense" that if my pupils were having accidents in my driving school car under my supervision, then perhaps I need to reconsider how adequate is my ability to teach pupils.

Where have we seen that group of wording before?  Oh yes, the DVSA Standards Check: "The approved driving instructor (ADI) standards check assesses your ability to teach pupils."

It would be logical to draw a connection between a driving instructor's ability to teach pupils effectively, keep things safe while doing so, and a Standards Check result.  As can be seen, > by this unbelievable driving test pass <, logic at times goes out the window!

My invitation in this blog is for driving instructors who are having accidents (regardless of their Standards Check grade), to consider how effectively they are working alongside these nine guiding principles.

Driving instructors' sat nav device

My TomTom sat nav has given up the ghost.  It has been well used since the "new" driving test (Dec 2017).  I've replaced it thanks to Amazon (Tom Tom 52 Start + rubber mat + hard case is just shy of £130), with the "click to delivered" expediency that we have all come to expect.

I'm not a great lover of it.  I think it is pretty naff, but as a driving instructor reviewer on Amazon stated with reluctance to countenance the product, there is no choice as this is the model used by the DVSA on their driving tests.

My understanding is that they are going to review it once two years have elapsed.  It has this very annoying tendency to instruct a driver to "keep right" when it merely wants them to stay on the current road they are on and not take an upcoming exit.  Talk about misleading to a candidate on a driving test.  The examiners do their utmost to manage the situation; I imagine it must test the patience of even the calmest amongst them.  It's functionality is basic and the user experience is unrefined.

The vulnerable point in my experience was the socket going into the device for power.  With time, it becomes loose and therefore unreliable.

With a bit of luck, we will only have to endure this sub-standard product for another nine months or so.

Precious quality time

I often wonder if it were possible to ascertain accurately, what is the typical cancellation rate for pay as you go driving lessons?  

It appears to feature with some frequency by both parties, the pupil and the driving instructor.  Would 20% represent a reasonable guess?  1 in 5 driving lessons cancelled by either party?  

Whatever the figure is, it represents a significant amount of wasted time.  The waste not just coming from any journeys incurred, but it manifests a reduction in progress made by affecting the learning curve, and it damages working relationships by creating querulous text or telephone exchanges.

I know that a fairly common criticism made by driving instructors is when they discover communication channels with customers to be a morass with tinges of resentment.

The BIG TOM franchise includes a fabulous service provided by our Admin which quite literally removes all trace of these sour endemic customer relations.  The creation of diary appointments on behalf of the ADI occurs once the availability of the ADI has been understood.  Payments are transacted straight into the account of the ADI in advance of any work taking place (this reduces any cancellations to almost zero - but this commitment works both ways).

The benefit of working within these parameters is that our franchisees are provided with an administrative barrier if you like; they can concentrate on delivering first class in-car training without the energy-sapping admin that often creeps into precious evening and weekend quality time.

Can you smell something?

This week I blogged on my website about the fact that my driving school has been established now for ten years.  It is a proud milestone to celebrate as with the longevity I can also say that there has not been one single accident in all that time either.  When you consider my customers drive something like 30,000 miles per year, I think I have every right to feel proud.

I think it does not harm to consider what benefit experience brings to a business, particularly relevant to any readers who are training to qualify as a driving instructor. 

Over time, a prudent business person will listen carefully to customer feedback and adapt the business model accordingly.  That way, there is this frequent sharpening up of the benefits provided to customers.

It is just as important however to consider the quality of the service being provided by the people within the organisation; everyone plays an important role and can add value. 

Don't get all woke on me now dear reader, but I can give you an example of this point using a situation that occurred to me only yesterday.  Yes, I am white, 50 years old and male; let's put that out there for starters to ensure some transparency.

I have some foam backed click vinyl flooring that needs laying in an en-suite. Usually, I would be thinking of preparing it by adding a sheet of plywood to the base beforehand, but the instructions that accompany this new flooring advise against it. Really?

 

I go down to my local building supplies store and relay my question about the need for any additional base to a young looking employee (certainly no more than 20 years old), who happens to be female.  There are a few things that went wrong, really quite quickly.  It was apparent within about 10 seconds that the precise question I was asking was not in her immediate knowledge base.  But rather than ping me off to another member of staff (there were many around), she walks me over to an aisle and starts to "sell" me a pre-formed resin based product which is a substitute for plywood but also requires priming.  So look at this from my point of view.  I'm not getting my specific question answered, but shown a new, unfamiliar product that will cost more than plywood and involves more work due to the primer that has to be applied.

To conclude my customer interface we came to a caveat, that I should read up the instructions for this new product she has introduced, and also "look online".  So she is now giving me extra research work to do before I even make a purchase.  Now, as I say, I'm getting on in life.  I'm getting on so much in life in fact, that even with her pretty smiling face and confident demeanour, I know when I'm being given the brush off. 

 

And this matters folks.  I will not go to a store that gives me the brush off; there are too many choices available to me for businesses to get away with this lack of customer care.  I will not go into that store again.

And this is how businesses die.  The reason why I took the trouble to go out and speak face to face with someone, was because I wanted to pull on their knowledge, make the right choice and return home all in one go.  But instead, I came out the other end of this experience, loaded with additional work, and crucially, not having my question answered; my head felt more burdened as I left the premises than it did when I walked in.  Not good.

As for driving instructors, I would suggest that we take heed of this anecdote.  If you are struggling to retain pupils, then it may well be related to how their head feels when they leave your driving school car compared to when they got into it.

Robust driving assessment

As my last blog was about an unbelievable driving test pass, it is quite natural for someone not working within driving training to ask the question:

"If that pupil was such a bad driver, why did he get put in for the driving test?"

I think if someone who is in the industry were to ask that question, they would be displaying such naivety that one could only really ask if there is a hidden motive in them raising that question.

The very first point to make is that anyone with access to an approved, roadworthy vehicle can take a driving test whenever they like.  There is no obligation in the UK to spend one-minute training with a registered driving instructor to learn how to drive.  As such, the idea that is driving instructors act as some gate, filtering system to prevent the public from going to take their driving test too soon is fundamentally flawed.

Working relationships with pupils that have mutual openness, trust and honesty in the conversations are the goal of DVSA registered driving instructors.  Pupils are encouraged to reflect on their confidence and ability, and take ownership of the process they choose in learning to drive.  In the interests of safety, they are prepared to listen and heed the advice given to them by their driving instructor.  (For young adults, I believe this should also include their parents).

How a pupil drives on a driving test does not necessarily reflect the standard of driving they are capable of in an environment outside of the driving test.

If one puts to one side the prospect of a flawed driving test assessment, consider the responsibility for the correct timing of a driving test which is in the hands of either pupils/parents or if they care to listen to their driving instructor, driving instructors.  This skill is not assessed within the qualifying tests to become a driving instructor.  It is possible that newly qualified driving instructors could take some time to develop this skill.  The correct timing of specific activities is involved, think intricate brain surgery, sporting techniques, project management; mistakes will happen - humans do not get things right on every single occasion.

Let me remind readers that the national average pass rate in the UK remains at less than 50% as it has for years.  Statistically, there is more chance of failing a driving test on the first occasion than passing it.

When the timing for driving tests goes wrong AND the assessment process is not sufficiently robust the result is we have newly qualified drivers let loose on public roads with all the potential safety implications then created.  It is for this reason alone; in my opinion, the final assessment of whether a driver should be allowed to drive independently is critical and must have 100% integrity.  The method by which the DVSA makes that assessment must be sufficiently robust that it eliminates inherent human error. 

Your thoughts?

This will be one of the strangest blogs that I reckon I will ever write.
  
I am attempting to maintain an emollient position in this strangest of accounts regarding a driving test I have just observed.  The following miscellany of facts as witnessed by me was from the rear seat sat behind the candidate, my pupil.
  
I completely understand if you read the following and consider it to be arrant nonsense that I must be making up.

How best to describe what I have seen I wonder?   I'll list what I saw in no particular order.

We turned left into a one-way street where the examiner then instructed to turn right at the end of the road.  The end of the road was a very short distance away, and my pupil did a complete lane change without observations; the examiner did a swift, darting check over his right shoulder while we were moving over to the right (no vehicle was to our right).

My pupil came around a right bend in a one-way street and mounted the kerb with the front nearside wheel; it was a proper thump of a contact where the wheel went entirely off the road.  This was promptly followed by my pupil not stopping for a person stood by the driver's door of a parked car to our right; he had a leg/foot in a plaster cast.  The person was hobbling along, but rather than pause and allow him to clear the middle of the road; my pupil just continued driving - I would estimate we were about one foot from the pedestrian.

With parked cars on the left (our side), in a busy residential area, my pupil approached and continued to pass them, crossing over the middle white line and in doing so made an oncoming vehicle slow abruptly right down almost to a stop where the examiner waved at the female driver as we passed.

On two hill starts, we rolled back before moving forward. 

Two moving offs did not have a blind spot check over the right shoulder.

The manoeuvre was pulling up on the right.  Having done so, the examiner asked my pupil to reverse back two car lengths staying reasonably close to the kerb.  As the car reversed, we were moving increasingly further away from the kerb, and my pupil was only looking in both side mirrors, no central mirror check and no turning of the head at all.

On one right emerge, we pulled on to a single carriageway in nationals, and a white vehicle was immediately right behind us.  On a right turn, a small van behind overtook us as we turned into the minor road.

My pupil repeatedly pulled up to junctions for an emerge, taking the gear lever out of gear into neutral and sat there unprepared for an emerge.  To me, this appeared to be a theme where he was planning for a stop as opposed to being open to keep going, and it caused an unnecessary wait.

When some red roadwork traffic lights turned to green on a steep incline, my pupil set off and attempted to change into second too soon, and the car was right on the brink of stalling.  The examiner verbally intervened and instructed him to stay in first to get some momentum up the hill.

 On a couple of occasions, I felt we were travelling too close to the vehicles in front (in terms of normal seperation gaps).

On the instruction of turning left at the end of the road (emerge), my pupil put a left signal on too soon when there was a junction - although no-one was coming out of the junction.

Our position in the road appeared to me to drift towards the centre on a couple of occasions - one of which was on a single carriageway in nationals, with vehicles oncoming.  Although I didn't think the offside wheels went on to the middle white line, they would have been very close.

On the debrief, the examiner having passed my pupil gave a most comprehensive account for all the faults that had been marked (11 in total).  I will post up the fault sheet when my pupil emails a photo of it over to me.  So while handing over the test pass certificate the examiner gave an extremely strange non-sequiter.  He advised my pupil to take up some more driving training with me.  He said that my pupil should buy some more training from me.

After ten years of observing driving tests, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of the requirements expected but this experience today has completely left me at odds.  Perhaps you, my reader, may consider this an edifying journey through the mind of a driving examiner?

Freedom to practice

If you were to say to a pupil: "If you were practising now on your own, what would you do?", I wonder what kind of response that might evoke?

From you (the reader of this blog), and your pupil?

It's a good question.  Any question where you have no idea how someone might respond is, generally speaking, a good question.  Because, (never forget the because's), that would naturally mean what is about to happen is more aligned to how your pupil feels, rather than how you think.  It sounds simple, it might even sound condescending to some, but it is sound.

Let's take another one. Your pupil is progressing along, you take them someplace particular, they mess up, you take them there again, and then you wonder 10 mins, 1 hour, one day, one week or 2 weeks later, what would be the benefit of going back there again.

How is it best to practice?

Let's take the first example.

It helps them think.  It gives the opportunity to think about how they would like to practice.... which is no mean thing.   By all means, tell them about useful techniques, but once you have taken the time and trouble to explain a method, let them go.  Think of fishing reels when the fish bites and moves off.   Let them go.

Many instructors, at the time of the initial bite, over-react, in their quest to help.  It is not helpful; it is not. You might not believe me, but it is not.  Your disbelief is because you do not trust me as a driving instructor trainer.  In much the same way as a pupil will not believe you as a driving instructor.  Get used to that feeling; it is coming your way if you are a PDI.

I have videos that I show my customers that prove this point.

Forcing a pupil to practice in a particular manner, is not professional advice.  Why?  Because what suits you, does not necessarily suit another.  If you have not embraced that concept yet, do, it will serve you and your business very well.

The second example.

Many driving instructors fall into the trap of thinking that when a pupil fails a particular goal, they go straight back, revisit it, and then when the pupil achieves the goal, our job is done.  Not so.

Take care, my readers.  Honestly, take care.  There are a finite number of "traps" to fall into within the area of any given driving test centre.  It is so easy to become 'test-centric' in our thinking; teach pupils how to overcome particular challenges on driving test routes.

I've said it many times before on this blog, and the fact remains true.  Driving skills is what assists pupils, not learning driving test routes.  When the skills are sufficiently good, it matters not where your pupil goes to test.  If you have any doubts about this assertion, take a look at my driving school blog, and the truth will be more than apparent.