The future of Advanced Driving.

[Martin A]

waremark said:

Martin A said:

Yet when I suggested earlier on in this thread, a way forward by improving what is on offer to Learners, once again people bypassed it without comment.

I thought I responded by making a few suggestions and asking you about yours???

You did indeed

waremark said:

I would like to hear Martin's ideas for improving training at levels 1 and 2...

But before I give my ideas, can anyone see if there is a problem with this familiar statement about the system(s) of how to approach a hazard (There may be nothing wrong, I'm just wanting to see if anyone thinks there might be)

When you identify a hazard use the IPSGA / MSM (according to choice of system) routine.

[SK425]

Martin A said:

But before I give my ideas, can anyone see if there is a problem with this familiar statement about the system(s) of how to approach a hazard (There may be nothing wrong, I'm just wanting to see if anyone thinks there might be)

When you identify a hazard use the IPSGA / MSM (according to choice of system) routine.

It sounds a lot like an instruction. Is that how you meant it to sound?

[johnao]

SK425 said:

Martin A said:

But before I give my ideas, can anyone see if there is a problem with this familiar statement about the system(s) of how to approach a hazard (There may be nothing wrong, I'm just wanting to see if anyone thinks there might be)

When you identify a hazard use the IPSGA / MSM (according to choice of system) routine.

It sounds a lot like an instruction. Is that how you meant it to sound?

I'm not really understanding any of this.

So, you're saying, if a trainee/associate identifies a hazard and the coach says (or, "I suggest that")you should/could use IPSGA, MSM or whatever. Then, that's an instruction. Well, I agree that is an instruction. But, what is the alternative to giving an instruction, whether it concerns IPSGA, MSM or any other methodology? I see no problem with offering the trainee any number of options from which to choose a methodology for dealing with hazards, but, I can't see any alternative to instruction when explaining those options to the trainee. Instruction in the sense of... "this is what you do" and "this is how you do it" when you use IPSGA, MSM or whatever.

Maybe your point is that you don't believe that a trainee should be instructed to use just one particular methodology. I am sympathetic to that view. But, and it may be that I'm completely missing the point here, do you and vonhosen wish for the trainee not to be exposed to any pre-existing methodology for dealing with hazards and is simply guided to a methodology of their own invention through self-discovery and use of the higher levels of GDE?

[SK425]

johnao said:

I'm not really understanding any of this.

So, you're saying, if a trainee/associate identifies a hazard and the coach says (or, "I suggest that")you should/could use IPSGA, MSM or whatever. Then, that's an instruction.

I see a difference between "you should use IPSGA", which is what I meant by instruction and "you could try using IPSGA", which I'd describe as suggestion. I wasn't sure which Martin A meant. Of course both involve telling the trainee what IPSGA is.

[johnao]

SK425 said:

I see a difference between "you should use IPSGA", which is what I meant by instruction and "you could try using IPSGA", which I'd describe as suggestion. I wasn't sure which Martin A meant. Of course both involve telling the trainee what IPSGA is.

Thanks. That I can understand. Does vonhosen agree with your summary? I was under the impression, possibly mistaken, that vonhosen wasn't in favour of too much suggestion or leading the trainee into a pre-determined (eg. the Roadcraft System, etc) methodology.

So, where do levels 3 & 4 GDE come in to this? Are they a means of enabling the trainee/associate/ to determine for themselves which suggested methodology to use?

[waremark]

vonhosen said:

waremark said:

By the way, if you don't 'tell' your students to ignore the 'this is the way to do it' bits of Roadcraft, what do you say to them about how to use Roadcraft? Don't they still get examined on Roadcraft?

You are missing the importance of them learning to take responsibility for their choices & the consequences of them. Telling them undermines levels 3 & 4 & that's where the root cause of their collisions are, poor irresponsible choices. That's why work on levels 1 & 2 has to be done so that 3 & 4 are also explored/developed.

So what do you say to them about how to use Roadcraft (I feel like John Humphreys on the today programme, trying to see how many different ways I can ask the same question)?

[waremark]

vonhosen said:

You are missing the importance of them learning to take responsibility for their choices & the consequences of them. Telling them undermines levels 3 & 4 & that's where the root cause of their collisions are, poor irresponsible choices.

Is that so? What about poor judgement of entry speeds, not recognising the distance it takes to stop, lack of awareness of hazards, not having developed the habit of Observing, Anticipating and Planning?

[trashbat]

johnao said:

So, where do levels 3 & 4 GDE come in to this? Are they a means of enabling the trainee/associate/ to determine for themselves which suggested methodology to use?

I see the answer to this as being complex and multi-faceted, but I think some major components of it are:

1. Independently of L1&2, and independently of the learning process, L3&4 are a means of getting the driver to continuously self-monitor, catch and stamp out poor behaviours like aggression, impatience, laziness, not using the skills they have etc

2. Almost any idea is more powerful if you came up with it, or think you came up with it, yourself. If L3&4 are partly about being the driver you aspire to be, and the ideas you hold about L1&2 are ostensibly your own, you're more inclined to use them.

3. As you suggest, arming someone with a toolbox and the skill to select a tool for a context is a positive. I'm not sure this constitutes or corresponds to a GDE level as such, and personally I'm not sure that it always trumps hard-coded routine, but in that sense it doesn't have to be black and white.

[waremark]

SK425 said:

waremark said:

vonhosen said:

That's not what VH is saying.

You can offer options for them to try, after they have exhausted options they can think of & at their request. Of course your options carry no extra weight than theirs. The choice of which they try is theirs as is what they'll stick with in the end. The increased value is in them taking responsibility for the choice & the outcome of it.
They can also of course be convinced by solutions offered by others, but they won't necessarily be convinced because it has been offered by others. At the end of the day they'll use what they believe offers them the best compromise irrespective of where the idea emanated.

We guys who have been practising, thinking and talking about different approaches for several decades can surely save students so much time by explaining the advantages of approaches which we have found to work well.

Does the way vonhosen describes it cost much time? I imagine the average IAM associate, for example, has not been practising, thinking and talking about different approaches for several decades - far from it. If you took vonhosen's approach to helping them with whatever it was they were trying to improve, would it take very long for them to exhaust options they can think of and request suggestions from you?

They haven't a clue what they want to improve. They requested suggestions from me by coming to me. 'I have been driving a long time, I have not had any accidents for the last 20 years, but I am sure I have developed a lot of bad habits, and I would like to be reassured my driving is OK'. They don't say, but it is implicit, 'and I would also like to be able to pass the Advanced Driving Test'.

As I have mentioned before, my main objective is to develop thinkning drivers with a habit of COAST - (Observation, Anticipation and Planning to give Space and Time), but I also like to get them to position well, to signal only when useful as a suggested aid to concentration, to do speed before gear, and to steer with two hands in order to achieve a reasonable result in the IAM test. I don't tell them that 'This is The Way, and any other way is wrong'. I do tell them 'There are other ways, but this is the way the police/IAM have found works very well and reliably, these are the reasons, so do practise doing it this way and when you have tried it for a while see what you think'. I know that some of the stylistic niceties (PP!) get dropped, but I believe that the thinking approach to speed and position and the heightened awareness of hazards become ingrained habits.

[trashbat]

waremark said:

vonhosen said:

You are missing the importance of them learning to take responsibility for their choices & the consequences of them. Telling them undermines levels 3 & 4 & that's where the root cause of their collisions are, poor irresponsible choices.

Is that so? What about poor judgement of entry speeds, not recognising the distance it takes to stop, lack of awareness of hazards, not having developed the habit of Observing, Anticipating and Planning?

Imagine you have an associate, me, that consistently misjudges entry speeds. By virtue of your role, you have a narrow window to make a difference.

If you say, "you are entering these bends too fast", I might take your criticism on board. Or, I might agree but actually self-rationalise it away (after all, I didn't crash, and it's just your opinion). I might comply for the rest of the session and even a little while after, but go back to old habits because nothing bad ever came of it, and maybe it was just a different view or preference, and I didn't really get on with you anyway because you just tell me off all the time, so sod you and sod the IAM, what do you know anyway.

If you say, "how balanced do you think the car was through that last bend?", I might have to concede that I was asking a bit much of the car and had overcooked the corner, even if this takes a few more prods. So, "what would you do better next time?" elicits 'my' idea of getting the speed down, and we try it, and it works out better, and I remember that as a good technique - my good technique - that I'm enthusiastic about using in future.

I've obviously exaggerated, but you can see how you'd subsequently use this to have me nail the gear before the bend, or understand the changing visibility through the hazard, and once you have, oh look, turns out what I'm doing has a name, IPSGA or the limit point or whatever.

[waremark]

Martin A said:

But before I give my ideas, can anyone see if there is a problem with this familiar statement about the system(s) of how to approach a hazard (There may be nothing wrong, I'm just wanting to see if anyone thinks there might be)

When you identify a hazard use the IPSGA / MSM (according to choice of system) routine.

A different question. When you (a Roadcraft adherent) introduce IPSGA to an experienced driver, what do you highlight? You have had a brief assessment drive, and seen that they change down through the gearbox, at the same time as braking and steering, signal automatically and late, and brake more than once, more firmly at the end. The drive was perfectly safe.

And what do VH and the coaching adherents say to this driver after their brief assessment drive?

[7mike]

This was in the local news recently. Guess it doesn't make a blind bit of difference how good someone's vehicle handling skills are if their own beliefs are flawed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-26...

[waremark]

trashbat said:

magine you have an associate, me, that consistently misjudges entry speeds. By virtue of your role, you have a narrow window to make a difference.

If you say, "you are entering these bends too fast", I might take your criticism on board. Or, I might agree but actually self-rationalise it away (after all, I didn't crash, and it's just your opinion). I might comply for the rest of the session and even a little while after, but go back to old habits because nothing bad ever came of it, and maybe it was just a different view or preference, and I didn't really get on with you anyway because you just tell me off all the time, so sod you and sod the IAM, what do you know anyway.

If you say, "how balanced do you think the car was through that last bend?", I might have to concede that I was asking a bit much of the car and had overcooked the corner, even if this takes a few more prods. So, "what would you do better next time?" elicits 'my' idea of getting the speed down, and we try it, and it works out better, and I remember that as a good technique - my good technique - that I'm enthusiastic about using in future.

I've obviously exaggerated, but you can see how you'd subsequently use this to have me nail the gear before the bend, or understand the changing visibility through the hazard, and once you have, oh look, turns out what I'm doing has a name, IPSGA or the limit point or whatever.

I don't think you (my student) have a clue whether the car was balanced, or what that might mean. I don't really myself. I would be more likely to say: 'What would have happened if there had been a pair of cyclists on your side of the road just round the bend? Could you have stopped in time? What about a truck coming towards you overtaking cyclists on his side of the road?'

At a different time, I would try: 'on this next series of bends, try braking more than you think you need to before you get to each bend, and then accelerate slightly as you start to steer. Try that and see if you can notice what the car feels like.' When they get it right, I say 'well that felt much better to me, try to keep doing it like that'.

I agree with not making a big deal of IPSGA, the limit point, or any other set of words. I had never heard of the limit point until my IAM test, and of course IPSGA (which I don't think much of) had not been invented (although I had been indoctrinated with Brakes are to Slow, Gears are to Go, and John Lyon had taught Can My Safety Be Given Away).

[waremark]

7mike said:

This was in the local news recently. Guess it doesn't make a blind bit of difference how good someone's vehicle handling skills are if their own beliefs are flawed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-26...

If asked about his level 3 and 4 stuff, that driver would have admitted that safety was not his only priority, and that he thought his skills were such that the risk of talking on the phone while towing his race car was insignificant. So where would the coaches have gone from there?

[trashbat]

waremark said:

I don't think you (my student) have a clue whether the car was balanced, or what that might mean. I don't really myself.

No? I know when I've had to fight the car or go beyond normal gentle input to make it round.

waremark said:

I would be more likely to say: 'What would have happened if there had been a pair of cyclists on your side of the road just round the bend? Could you have stopped in time? What about a truck coming towards you overtaking cyclists on his side of the road?'

The manifestations of the mistake that you use are possibly better than mine, but your questions are closed and therefore are really just criticisms in a slightly nicer frock. The answers are all along the lines of 'yes, I got it wrong again' with an unsaid but obvious telling of 'slow down', rather than getting me to think about (correction: identify and think about) the problem and take charge of my own resolution.

It's not easy to get right. I'd take a stab at opening with 'how did visibility of the road ahead change as you went around that bend?' and 'what do you think about your choice of speed as that happened?'.

[Martin A]

Martin A said:

...can anyone see if there is a problem with this familiar statement about the system(s) of how to approach a hazard (There may be nothing wrong, I'm just wanting to see if anyone thinks there might be)

When you identify a hazard use the IPSGA / MSM (according to choice of system) routine.

Thanks to all those who have got involved with thoughts, none of which had occurred to me, but have given me more to think about..

The problem is this: Neither IPSGA or MSM helps people approach a hazard when they DON'T identify it!

MSM and IPSGA assume that people are identifying hazards. The trouble is that Learner drivers certainly aren't given enough help to help identify hazards. They may be told, but they don't learn and so as they become experienced drivers they don't identify all hazards as such, so they are unequipped to deal with them.

They develop coping strategies for this lack of early identification, but the problem with the coping strategies developed is that they are not infallible as they haven't been tested in all situations. However, because they work 99.99% of the time or more, they are regarded as infallible by the individuals who adopt them.

When that million to one circumstance occurs and the coping strategy finally doesn't work, that's when a collision ensues.

Levels 3 and 4 may help with this, but without better checking of hazard recognition, by instructors and testing, the problem will remain.

[johnao]

Martin A said:

Thanks to all those who have got involved with thoughts, none of which had occurred to me, but have given me more to think about..

...They develop coping strategies for this lack of early identification, but the problem with the coping strategies developed is that they are not infallible as they haven't been tested in all situations. However, because they work 99.99% of the time or more, they are regarded as infallible by the individuals who adopt them.

...Levels 3 and 4 may help with this, but without better checking of hazard recognition, by instructors and testing, the problem will remain.

This is the problem. It is not easy or straightforward for drivers, either new or old, to see the relevance of working on GDE levels 3 & 4 if their existing coping strategies are adequate (just) for 99.99% of the time. The average driver, or more realistically, the 98.5% of drivers who don't take up any further post-DSA-test training, are simply not going to be bothered with navel gazing about their lifestyles and values and how these impinge upon their driving. Even if GDE levels 3 & 4 are built in to DSA training and the DSA test I'm sceptical that they will have the sort of profound effect that will be necessary to make a difference to the 17 to 25 year old group that are most at risk.

And now we're nicely back to the discussion of the relevance of the world of academia to what actually happens at the coal-face, in the car, on the road and "how soon can I take the test and get my licence?", of everyday reality. If it ever becomes a pre-requisite of taking the DSA test for new drivers to demonstrate their knowledge, understanding and relevance to their own driving of GDE levels 3 & 4, I envisage it will be in the form of the current "Theory and hazard perception test", and soon forgotten once the newly qualified driver is "in the car with his mates". Unfortunately, none of this "cool".

Edited by johnao on Monday 10th February 15:57

[25NAD90TUL]

johnao said:

This is the problem. It is not easy or straightforward for drivers, either new or old, to see the relevance of working on GDE levels 3 & 4 if their existing coping strategies are adequate (just) for 99.99% of the time. The average driver, or more realistically, the 98.5% of drivers who don't take up any further post-DSA-test training, are simply not going to be bothered with navel gazing about their lifestyles and values and how these impinge upon their driving. Even if GDE levels 3 & 4 are built in to DSA training and the DSA test I'm sceptical that they will have the sort of profound effect that will be necessary to make a difference to the 17 to 25 year old group that are most at risk.

Leads me back to my question, what is it that is going to motivate the desire to get good at driving in the first place? Once the license is obtained? Drivers know it has to be something pretty serious to result in it being taken from you, merely being not very good isn't enough.

The problem as I see it is this, a very large percentage of drivers see the car as nothing more than a convenient mode of transport. The small percentage who see driving as an interest, art form, something in which to be interested in, are very few, and these are easily got, they come to AD of their own volition, many hardcore driving enthusiasts here on PH have tens of thousands of posts driving related to their name yet very few even venture to look at these 'AD' threads, those that do post, apart from us lot aka 'the usual suspects', are likely to just post put-downs and criticism. They are not remotely interested in what WE term good driving.

Why would that percentage who view driving as nothing more than a mode of transport ever have any interest apart from gaining a license? Why are the driving enthusiasts themselves mostly not interested in AD?

Compulsory driver re-testing, whatever the method used to train, the compulsory part is the important one. The DSA driving test needs to be harder, would it be too much to have the DSA test the same standard as a current AD test?

A great many drivers are just hoping their luck holds out, and for a great many it probably will, reinforcing their belief that they are efficient, how to get them interested I have no idea, IAM/RoSPA don't know either. Tbh I don't think switching methods of instruction is going to make much difference in that respect either, you have to motivate them first before these new methods will have any positive effect, that is the bit that isn't coming through to me.

Apologies for yet more repetition from me, but this question comes up in my mind continuously.

[johnao]

25NAD90TUL said:

A great many drivers are just hoping their luck holds out, and for a great many it probably will, reinforcing their belief that they are efficient,

I agree with the general thrust of your post. But, with reference to the above extract I think it's worse than you posit. I don't believe drivers are just hoping that their luck holds out. I think most drivers "know" that they are good drivers and therefore "luck" doesn't enter in to it. If they were relying on luck we might have half a chance of persuading some of them to take up AD, but we're not, we're having to contend with their near certainty that accidents happen to others, or if they are involved in accident it will be someone else's fault and there would have been nothing they could have done about it.

To respond to your post in more general terms. The IAM/RoSPA are in the business of selling/providing education. As any fule kno the desire/need for education must come from within the individual. No one can be forced to learn if, for whatever reason (already good enough/not interested/not cool), they don't wish to do so. The question to ponder is how to motivate/initiate a desire for further education on the part of 98.5% of the driving population? I've no idea, it's a mystery.

PS: The IAM talk in terms of their Skill for Life package as a "product". They talk about selling a "product". The already convinced will buy the "product" regardless of how it is labelled but, I don't think the marketing of a "product" to the general driving populace will have the desired effect of stimulating the desire for further knowledge and education.

[vonhosen]

waremark said:

vonhosen said:

You are missing the importance of them learning to take responsibility for their choices & the consequences of them. Telling them undermines levels 3 & 4 & that's where the root cause of their collisions are, poor irresponsible choices.

Is that so? What about poor judgement of entry speeds, not recognising the distance it takes to stop, lack of awareness of hazards, not having developed the habit of Observing, Anticipating and Planning?

They can all be accessed via levels 3 & 4 too.