I Teach Safe Driving For Life

I don't just teach driving test routes.

I remember once getting an unsolicited lecture from a driving test examiner about following driving test routes on lessons. He had taken my candidate out on test and they had followed another driving school car who had followed the test route exactly. He seemed very annoyed that this had provided endless prompts for my pupil who simply had to copy what the car in front did. He said my pupil may have passed anyway but I could see his point. I wondered why it was me who received the talking to and not the guilty instructor, but there you go.
   I have never taught test routes in their entirety. I just don't believe in it but I can tell that there are still some driving instructors who do. We all get pupils who have been with other instructors and have changed because they are dissatisfied with the teaching they are receiving. Some have complained to me that they follow more or less the same route week after week with no variation and have simply got bored. Could the route have been a test route? Another giveaway is when on the approach to a roundabout I ask if they have covered roundabouts. Sometimes they will reply "Yes I have done some, but not this one." When I ask if they have had properly structured lessons covering each major topic individually they reply in the negative. They have never been given a briefing, shown a diagram or even had the topic introduced properly. They just drove the same route each week and received tips only on how to deal with the problems on that route. This is driving instruction at it's absolute worst in my opinion.
   I take my pupils all over Nottingham. I only do 90 minute lessons which allows time to get out there and cover topics which may not even crop up on the test but will be needed for safe and happy future driving. I will make sure they are familiar with any complex junctions in the test area but that is a world away from teaching a certain route.
 Perhaps some instructors worry about their pass rate and see following routes as a way to ensure that most pupils pass first time. The problem is that it probably is. If a learner driver knows exactly where they are going and what to look out for they will feel a lot more confident on the day. Publishing individual instructor's pass rates may lead to more of this sort of thing but what happens after the driving test? We have a lot of new drivers with a full driving licence who are simply not prepared for the road. Many drivers who have held a licence for some years will only drive to places they know in good weather conditions. They have a fear of driving to unknown places and don't trust themselves on busy roads. All the advantages of driving are denied to them. I bet they only practised on test routes before they passed.
   Nottingham is a good place to learn to drive. Everything from city driving to country roads are readily available so there are no excuses for not preparing young drivers properly. In the long run a first time pass is not necessarily a good thing. I have had many pupils say they are glad they passed on the second attempt and had the extra lessons because they feel more prepared for the road. As they will be driving for the next 50 years or so it is wise to set some good driving foundations. Financial and parental pressure could be forcing young drivers to take the test earlier than they would like. I like to think that the people I have taught are capable of safe driving for life and they will remain safe and competent drivers. That's why we do what we do.

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Driving Lessons Whatever the Weather

There's been a lot of it recently.

The weather plays an important part when teaching people to drive. It adds things to teach and provides greater challenge to both learners and driving instructors alike. lately we have experienced almost all weather conditions in only a few weeks. Lets take a look at the opportunities for teaching that this provides.

  A couple of weeks back we had a bit of a snow flurry. This is the weather type that makes me assess the abilities and constitution of the pupils I have booked in for that day. Some learners just do not like the idea of snow on driving lessons. They fear skidding on corners and develop a sudden mistrust of other drivers who they see as driving too fast for the conditions. One of the most dangerous things I find is the wind tunnel effect when driving into falling snow. The tendency for the eyes to focus on the snow and the Star Wars hyperspace effect really takes attention away from the important things like other vehicles and pedestrians. I remind the pupils to constantly focus on scanning for hazards and try to ignore the snow altogether. It can spook the learner something terrible. The chances of skidding on light snow are quite minimal at normal speeds. You really need ice on the road to skid.

   But we've had plenty of that recently. The misery starts before work getting that windscreen cleared and he cockpit warm enough for human habitation. Luckily I have a driveway with a gate so I put the car well back towards the house and leave it warming up. Sometimes I will leave it for 30 minutes then easily clear the ice from the windscreen. Warm water is used to clear the ice from the roof of the car so U can put the magnetic roof box on without fear of it slip sliding away. That would be no good at all. I always give the tyres a good visual check as well. Lessons from the past when I was young and let my tyres get bald and then wondering why I couldn't get around a corner. Be sure to  check those inside edges. A nice chat about early braking before bends and allowing more room to stop pus the young learner more at ease.

   A couple of slates blew off the roof this week thanks to hurricane Doris. Of all the extreme weather conditions it's high winds that bother me most. I have visions of the roof box blowing off and flying through the windscreen of the car behind. Pupils don't like it because of the noise. Add a little rain to the mix and the noise can be terrible. Some pupils comment on how they can feel the car move in the wind when driving. They never felt the car being effected by wind as a passenger. A talk on maintaining a firm grip on the wheel while trying to keep as much safety space around the car would be a suitable topic for these conditions. High sided vehicles weaving about in the road are something to watch out for. Cyclists can have a bad time of it as well so give them plenty of room in case they swerve.

  Sometimes it seems like the rain will never stop. It has rained non stop for days recently. What is it about the windscreen wiper controls that pupils find so difficult? Push the stalk up one click seems an easy enough instruction but damned if they don't always put them on full speed. Then the rear wiper. Then turn them off and use the indicator stalk instead. Time to pull over for a full tutorial I think which would include turning the wipers off when the rain has stopped to prevent the awful dragging sound which they just don't seem to notice. The pull to the left when driving through large puddles can take some learners by surprise. I like to steady the wheel or gently move us to the right if need be to stop us drenching pedestrians with a bow wave. Apparently it constitutes assault to drench a pedestrian and they can take legal action.

   Now it looks like the weather is calming down a bit. Time for me to go out and wash the salt off the car ready for the coming week. Nothing I hate worse than a dirty driving school car. I would remind instructors that driving with your car so dirty that you can't see the rear number plate is highly illegal and sets a bad example to others. Time to get the bucket and sponge out.

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Learning to Let Go of Learner Drivers

The Road to Driving Lessons can be a bumpy one.

Most of the time a driving school runs smooth as silk. Regular pupils have regular lessons. They book the same time week after week so the days take some sort of shape and we all know where we are. More work and less stress is always a good thing. Sometimes though there are ripples in the pond which always seem to come at once.
   People give up on driving lessons for many reasons. So long as it's not because they have a problem with the instructor this can't be helped. Starting a new year is a bit of a turbulent time in driving instruction. Pupils from the previous year don't get back in contact and return to their lessons as they said they would. People pass the test in time for Christmas leading to a lot of new intake as we get into the new year. Many of whom are learning to drive as a new year's resolution, not because they really want to which can result in a lack of commitment.
  A couple of pupils have this week decided to give up after only a couple of lessons. They both paid in advance so it's refund time. I haven't actually lost money from this but it certainly feels like it as a few hundred pounds disappears from the business account. I really should charge some sort of admin fee for the time taken messing around with internet banking but that seems a bit tight. If I wasn't independent and had a school name to hide behind maybe I would. Dealing directly with people is a bit different though and I would hate to have a petty argument over a few pounds. Trying to convince people to carry on and give it a bit more time can be dodgy. They may resent it after a couple more bad lessons and decide that you are only interested in taking their money. I find it best just to refund the remaining lessons, wish them well and let them go. Learning to drive requires a certain focus and determination. Not something an instructor can provide and if they don't have it then success will be very hard to come by.
   I've also asked a pupil to leave recently, or rather refused them any more lessons due to extreme time wasting. Week after week they cancelled with one excuse or another. As they book for the week after I can't really fill the space and the income I lose soon adds up. They get good at cancelling just before the cancellation fee takes effect as well. After a couple of polite warnings it's time to wish them all the best and let them go. We can't afford to lose valuable lesson time on people who will not commit.
   I even had a pupil who was so obnoxious and negative on the first lesson I gave them the lesson for free just to get them out of the car and away down the road. After a few years in this game you can tell when it's going nowhere with certain people. I feared that this was the type of person who would post a bad review out of pure spite. If that happened the money I lost on the lesson would seem like nothing compared to the bad publicity and potential loss of business so on with the friendly face and in a gentle voice apologise that they are not satisfied and here's the lesson for free. This is the stuff you just don't get taught about in Instructor college. Keep it clean and professional leaving them no cause for complaint. The next pupil will hopefully be nicer and we're all back on track. Hopefully things will settle back down in the coming weeks and it'll be a rip roaring 2017.

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Teaching Driving in Your Own Back Yard

Driving Lessons are happening further afield for me in Nottingham these days.

Strange how things work out. For the whole summer I have been delivering driving lessons in my own area of Nottingham. Enquiries in this area have dropped off recently in favour of more enquiries from the city centre and other areas. Not to my advantage at all but you've got to roll with it I suppose.
   To be honest there are pros and cons to both for me. If everyone is 10 minutes away it's super convenient in terms of coming home for a coffee in between lessons. The long working day can seem much easier when there is time for multiple comfort breaks and I must say I have gotten used to it. There is time to answer those text messages and sort out all the emails on my phone without having to start all that when I get home after work. Knowing I can come home at the end of the day with everything sorted is such a high.
  The many road works and traffic jams have had little effect on me this summer and arriving for driving lessons on time has been no effort at all. The mileage driven in between lessons is at a minimum reducing the amount of fuel I use and the time between servicing the car is extended meaning I am quids in.
  The down side is that it can all get a bit stale. Doing driving lessons on the same streets five times a day can be a bit of a drag. Sometimes when I come home I simply don't want to go back out again which means the day has no momentum and can seem to go on and on. Sometimes it's good to have a bit of a rush on, but not too much obviously.
  Now I seem to be working more out of my area. If the first lesson is a bit far out then it's an earlier start to the day. One lesson was taking me 40 minutes to get to instead of the usual 10 minutes. That's half an hour of unpaid work and more petrol being used. Getting through that school traffic is stress I don't need. If the lesson is in a busy area at the wrong time it can be a nightmare getting to the next lesson on time. I pride myself on my punctuality and hate being late even by a couple of minutes. The mental stress of being in traffic that just isn't moving while the minutes tick away is enough to make my head pop.
  On the brighter side it does add some variety to the day. It's good to see areas I haven't been in for a few months. Structuring lessons to fit in these areas and cover the learner driver syllabus properly gets me thinking on my feet, making the day go by much quicker. Finding new streets I haven't driven down before to create new short cuts is always enjoyable. It's good to increase one's local knowledge in case you ever want to drive a taxi. Knowing more of the city helps me deliver interesting lessons and stops pupils thinking we're just having a bit of a drive around the same old streets.
  I hope that the enquiries pick up in my own area before the weather gets really bad. When the roads are snowy it's good to not have to fight your way through between lessons which can get a bit exhausting. A mixed bag of local pupils and lessons further out is good as long as it's the first lesson and the last one that are nearby. Nothing worse than that long drive home after work. We all need an evening to relax don't we?

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Chasing Those Pesky Phone Payments.

You always know where you are with cash. Sometimes the old ways are the best when paying for driving lessons.

Keeping track of payments can get to be a very time consuming process with the bank transfer over the phone payments. My heart always sinks a little when at the end of a first lesson the pupil asks to pay by phone instead of with cash right there and then. They always seem to want to pay latter and never there in the car at the time. If they are paying for a block of lessons then there seems to be less of a problem and the payment is usually prompt. if on the other hand they are paying for lessons individually then it can all get a bit tedious.
   There seems to be a laissez faire attitude with phone payments. People don't seem to see the problem in paying late or letting it slip their mind altogether. With cash people seem to see the importance of prompt payment. There's nothing worse than making small notes in the diary about who's paid and who hasn't. After a full day on the road then coming home and answering texts and emails the last thing I want to do is start checking the online bank and then start firing out reminder texts to people who have not paid.
  It makes for an untidy account book to have lots of smaller payments listed instead of the one big one at the end of each week. I wouldn't even consider the card machine where there is a tariff for using the machine. I wouldn't want to put lesson prices up just to cover that. Still, spending half a lesson looking for a working cash machine can be a bit of a bind as well. Better if people just got prepared and had enough money to pay for the lesson when they turned up. I suppose that's asking a bit much in our modern society.
   On a totally unrelated tangent I see that there has been the first driverless car fatality. The car didn't malfunction or have any kind of fault. It simply couldn't see the lorry that was in front of it because the lorry was white and the sky was bright. The guy on the telly was saying that 'driverless cars' is the wrong thing to call them as there will always need to be a driver on board at any given time. Looks like people will have to pass a driving test anyway, even if they want a self driving car. Good that our jobs look safe for the immediate future. Trouble is that people may pass the driving test and then never really gain any real experience and so never become skilled at driving. Not exactly the best route to road safety but there you go. Hope I didn't sound too whiny there.

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Pitfalls of Arranging Driving Lessons by Text

There are advantages to actually talking.

As an independent driving instructor in Nottingham I have to keep admin time down to a minimum. I'm sure you know what I mean. When getting home after a full day's teaching I can't face 10 phone calls as well as sorting out emails. It would take all night. In response to voice messages I have a standard text I paste in which thanks the person for their message and asks where they are and when they are available. This helps me to filter out people who are too far away or need lessons at times where I am not available. Helps keep the fruitless phone calls at bay. If someone specifically asks me to phone and talk then I will. People do prefer to text rather than talk anyway it seems. If someone texts and I call them straight back chances are they will not answer even though they must still have their phone nearby.
   There are disadvantages to texting though. Many people don't read them properly and so only tell me when they are available and not where they are. I don't get to ask the questions I would like to ask and neither do they get to ask me anything.
   I arranged a lesson by text for last Thursday morning. After driving out to Carlton and locating the new person we set off only to find that she required an automatic car and I only have a manual. It was her partner who had arranged the lesson so we had not communicated at all. I showed her the texts I had received and pointed out that there was no mention of an automatic vehicle. I dropped her off back at her place and drove home. I couldn't charge her for the lesson as it was a genuine misunderstanding. I bet if we had spoken on the phone then the subject of an automatic car would have been mentioned.
   One good thing about texts is that if someone turns up at the wrong time then you can use the text message to show that you turned up as per the message and prove yourself right. It's a satisfying feeling to be right and know that you can prove it. Ha.
   You can never be sure that a text has been received. If on the very rare occasion I need to cancel a lesson and I send a text I always imagine the person stood on a rainy street corner waiting for me because they haven't seen the text. Lots of people do receive texts but ignore them. The youth are very good at this. I have asked people if they want a driving lesson and don't get any reply at all. When I asked a pupil if he realised I was waiting for a reply so I would know if I can book someone else in he told me he never realised. They can forget that there is another person waiting for a response. I suppose in these times of social media and suchlike the amount of pointless noise they have to screen out is pretty amazing.
   You really can't beat the personal touch of actually talking on the phone. I think with all the time pressure and amount of information we have to deal with nowadays it may become a thing of the past.

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The Subtlety of Inter-Driver Communication

Some things just can't be found in the Highway Code.

I've noticed recently how difficult it can be for some pupils to grasp the idea of communicating with other drivers by means of signals, speed and position. Many pupils need something definite they can use such as a fixed distance from a junction to put on the indicator rather than considering what they are actually telling other drivers. Many pupils find it difficult to look directly at other drivers and thus miss out on looks and gestures that would give them quality information on what another driver intends to do. They will even miss thee obvious flashing of headlights and so miss the gap that was being offered. Apart from 'Mind Driving' by Stephen Haley there aren't any learning resources which deal with this kind of thing.
   A pupil recently had an issue on test with the timing of indicator signals. When changing lanes he will look into the door mirror with his fingers on the indicator stalk expecting other drivers to know telepathically that we want to move over to the right. I explained that putting the signal on can influence other drivers into doing what you want them to do which is either hold back and let you in or get passed quickly and allow you in behind them. No signal means no response so they will just sit along side you and prevent the lane change. Get that signal on before you try to move. There is no set time to put on an indicator. You have to look at the overall traffic situation and consider the message you are putting across when you signal. This is something learned by experience.
   When manoeuvring some pupils will keep moving in and out of reverse gear for no good reason. They do not consider that the revering light is being turned on and off so any driver sat waiting won't know what we are doing and may assume that we are abandoning the manoeuvre and driving on. They may get into gear and prepare to move off only to find the light is back on and we are actually continuing to reverse. I can see how this would be annoying.
  Pupils who tap the brake on and off instead of using one smooth application of pressure fail to realise that the brake lights are on and off which is confusing to following drivers. Brake lights are probably the most important signal there is when it comes to preventing accidents. Getting the brakes on lightly and early gives more warning to the following driver and increases safety.
   Flashing headlights is a bone of contention for me. I always teach pupils that it is only a warning of your presence and can be interpreted in many ways. The vast majority of pupils when asked believe that flashing headlights definitely means someone is letting you through and would proceed if someone flashed their headlights. Totally wrong and potentially dangerous but that's what people think.
   Eye contact is important. Being let out of a junction is easier if you turn your head and look at other drivers. Such a simple thing as this adds a touch of the personal I find and people are much more willing to let you out once they know you are looking at them. Pupils on driving lessons tend to avoid eye contact as a result of nerves and miss out on opportunities to proceed as a result. Arm signals from cyclists would be a welcome addition to the world of signals as they seem to be something of a rarity.
   So there. Have a good think about how you communicate with other drivers and explore how it can be improved. it makes driving a much easier and pleasant experience and fosters a friendlier attitude on the road. Word up.

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