In this episode, Terry Cook (creator of The Instructor Podcast) convenes the team - driving instructor, Kate Monk and former police officer Olly Tayler - to confront the lack of consequences for road harm.

The panel analyses a harrowing case where an 18-year-old driver received only 14 months for the deaths of two passengers. Together, they dissect the legal gap between 'due care' and 'dangerous driving' and the 'exceptional hardship' loophole that keeps high-risk drivers on the road.

The team moves beyond the legalities to discuss the necessary cultural shift in parenting and education required to end the 'lost generation' of drivers. This is a vital discussion for instructors and the wider community on restoring accountability to our roads.

The Honest Truth

My Learner Driver

Instructor Performance & Psychology

You are listening to the Driving instructors and the Vision Zero podcast, the road safety podcast that includes driving instructors.

And today we are joined by the award winning Kate Monk, driving instructor and founder of My learner Drivers.

Say hello to the listeners, Kate.

Hello everybody.

And that's a very strange introduction.

I've not had an award like that before.

So thank you very much for mentioning it.

Excellent.

And we're also joined by the award winning Ollie Taylor, former police officer and the smiley face of the honest truth.

Say hello Ollie.

Hello Terry.

Thank you.

And yes, congratulations to Kate on her award last week.

Thank you, Ollie.

You got gold too.

That's enough Earl Loving, because we're also joined by me award winner, just not this year.

Also creator of the instructor podcast and the instructor performance and psychology membership and also a fellow driving instructor.

And today we are going to be talking about the lack of consequences around road harm, road death, dangerous illegal driving, all that kind of stuff.

And I think the sensible place to start here would be with you, Ollie, as a former police officer.

So I'm just going to throw this sort of over to you and let you say your piece on this to begin with, Terry.

Thank you.

Be careful what you wish for.

I always think in cases like this.

So guys, I came across a news article last last week, week before was a couple of, it's been in the last couple of weeks and it's quite a highly publicized case about a, a young lady, 18 years old who passed her test 12 weeks.

So she passed her test 12 weeks before this incident occurs and she was involved in it or she, she had a collision.

She only suffered a minor injury herself.

However, she killed her two passengers, a 17 year old lad and an 18 year old lad.

Now the reason that I kind of this one piqued my interest is that I was reading through the circumstances.

Now I need to put a caveat on this because obviously this is the world that I lived in and worked in for many, many, many years as a, as a truck officer with the police.

So often as not what you get portrayed in the media isn't the full story.

So reading this I was very much mindful of investigations I've undertaken where the media tend to portray things to very much sensationalize them and they're looking for clicks nowadays.

They're looking for clicks, they're looking for look at that sort of thing.

However.

So my commenting on this particular case is bound by the caveat that I can only base it on what I've read in the media and I've read a number of articles about it.

I've been to a number of different news sites if you like to read about this particular case.

And the fact of the case is they're put are pretty much consistent across all the articles I've read.

I've got one in front of me on my screen at the moment.

It's actually the Sky News article about this very case.

And the reason that I picked up on it was that the driver, this young lady driver, 18 years old, had been racing another car at 100 miles an hour, allegedly before striking a train and killing her two passengers.

The thing that really got to me about this case, Terry and Kate, is that is looking at what happened after the collision.

So the offending driver, if you like.

Yes, they're.

We'll call them an offending driver.

They, they were.

They'd offended.

Okay.

Defending driver.

That's not going to upset anybody.

Reported she repeatedly.

This is, this is, this is from, from the news article.

She partied repeatedly in the months after their death.

Frequently uploaded to TikTok and her first court appearance was delayed for two weeks because she went on a skiing trip.

Okay.

So she was then sentenced to 14 months behind bars, having earlier pleaded guilty to two counts of causing the teenager's deaths by careless or inconsiderate driving.

Now that interested me as well.

That particular part of it was I was thinking, oh, I wonder why that wasn't considered dangerous.

Driving 100 miles an hour, you know, that's getting on for double the speed limit.

Again, I don't know enough about the ins and outs and the finer detail of the case, but it just struck me as being, okay, well, that's a, you know, that's, you know, whether it's a plea bargain where a charge is offered and now people will plead to a lower charge.

And that does quite often happen where somebody.

There's a charge of death by dangerous driving is put forward to a court and a defendant will then say they're going to plead not guilty to death by dangerous driving, but they will plead guilty to a lesser charge because they know that the sentencing options are going to be lower for the lesser offence.

So they'll opt to plead to a lesser offence.

And often as not, you'll get a, what they call a plea bargain.

So you get a plea bargain, it'll bounce between prosecution and defense and they'll come to an agreement where they'll say, prosecution will say, but yeah, okay, we'll accept a plea of whatever the offence is.

So you might have a charge put forward, then an alternative charge that often is not, you know, if the defendant can plead guilty to a lower charge, then often as not they will again.

I've been involved in many cases where the defendant would plead to a lower charge, but actually there's one that sticks in my mind where a defendant would plead and we were told they would plead to the charge of causing death by due care.

Whereas actually we were pushing the debt by dangerous.

And we said, no, no, we're not accepting that plea.

We are going to push for death by dangerous in that case.

Okay, full trial.

And as it happened in that particular instance, the jury found the defendant guilty of death by dangerous driving.

So we did exactly the right thing by pushing for the higher offense, which they were found guilty of ultimately.

So there's an awful lot around these sorts of cases, around those deplete bargaining, the evidence available, all those kinds of things.

So back to the case itself.

And I'm like I say, I can only base my slight rant, as you probably gathered by now, on the reported facts rather than what is actually in that, you know, the full evidence package in that case file.

14 Months.

So 14 months behind bars.

So serve half percentage out of seven months, three and a half months for each of those two deaths.

That was caused by a decision that driver made, that, that was a conscious decision.

That driver made it conscious decision to be driving at almost double the speed limit, 100 miles an hour.

That wasn't a, you know, that wasn't an error.

That wasn't a, you know, a mistake.

That was a considered decision by that driver.

So when you look at death by dangerous driving, the highest you can commit on the roads, that, you know, that's murder, stroke, manslaughter on the roads.

Now obviously people don't go out intending to kill somebody.

Somebody doesn't get in a car and says, right, I'm going to go outstair, I'm going to kill somebody on the road.

It tends to be a decision either in the blink of an eye or it could be a decision made some hours earlier that unravels a sequence of events that leads to a catastrophic outcome.

Often as not, if people have, you know, they have an extra drink in a bar or whatever, that's a decision they've made, someone has potential before they get in a car that then results in catastrophe somehow down the line.

But that's still a, that's still a decision made whether, whether that was made in the blink of an eye, whether it was made sometime earlier, that's still a conscious decision.

So whilst it's not maybe premeditated as in the case of murderers.

Premeditation and planning.

And often there's not a big element of planning.

There's still premeditation here, albeit it may be premeditation in the moment when somebody decides to drive out, as in this case a hundred miles an hour, lose control and, and hit a tree as this, as this driver did.

You know, it looks like cars traveling at 76 mile an hour when the driver misjudged a bend on a 60 mile an hour road and killed both passengers pretty much instantly.

So again, when you look at that 76 on a 60, well we're, we're heading towards, you know, that's, you know, that's, what's that 25 odd percent over the speed limit.

That's still a decision.

That's still a decision that individual made which has had a catastrophic outcome.

Now those two poor lads that were killed, their families have got life sentences.

Regardless of what happens to the driver, they've got a life sentence.

They can never get out.

They'll never get out of that.

So for me it just seemed to be that in this particular instance and there are other cases, similar cases that pop up in the media on an all too frequent basis.

Where is the consequence for that driver's actions?

That young lady, what consequence does she, she.

Is she facing seven months in use detention?

Well, she'd have seven months and carry on with her life.

I think she had a three.

Three months.

Three.

Sorry, three year ban.

That all?

Yeah, just sort of.

I'm drunk.

Three years.

Now that'll happen.

That'll start when she completes her sentence.

But she'll be back on the road in three years, three and a half years.

She's back on the roads.

Yes, she's going to have issues with insurance and all these sorts of things, but that will fade, that will fade with time.

That will, you know, over the, over the next, maybe five, six, seven, eight, ten years.

That will.

The impact of what she's done is going to reduce on her hugely, hugely.

But it's back to this life sentence the families have got.

Where is the consequence in all this?

You know, they're defending.

Don't start my defense across Dartmouth defence barristers because that will take us all day.

You know, the defence.

So the defending barrister said, you know, she knows there is nothing she can say or do to take the pain away.

She'll, she knows it'll weigh heavily on her the rest of her life.

She regrets for what happened and is, is deep.

Her friends remain, remain and are in her thoughts, really, for somebody who went partying and somebody who went on skiing holiday instead of facing.

Facing a consequence of her actions.

Again, that smacks to me.

But again, I can speak from a rental position of authority on this, listening to defense barristers in court around road offending, all this deep remorse.

And fine, you can have as much remorse as you want.

After the event, you made a decision to do something that took two other.

Well, in this case, took two other lives.

So this whole idea, and particularly this one really stuck with me because of this whole idea, partying, posting on TikTok, going on holiday, skiing holiday, rather than facing up to the consequences of what she did behind the wheel, at which point I'll get off my footboard.

Well, I think there's actually a couple of questions I want to ask you about that because one of the interesting things for me was it was described as misjudging the bend.

Now, as you know, a former police traffic officer and someone that's worked in this vicinity, if you're doing 76 miles an hour in a 60 zone, that's not misjudging a bend, is it, Ollie?

No, that's absolutely not misjudging a bend.

That is a wholly inappropriate speed to that road.

Wholly inappropriate.

Do you think that this is a different topic?

I suppose, but do you think that when these things are being reported, the terminology matters?

It's not misjudging a bend that should have been reported differently, that should just be reported as dangerous driving or driving that bend dangerously.

And I think you're absolutely right.

And I think, you know, the wording, and sometimes the way things are worded can be.

Can be somewhat misleading.

You know, like you say, driving at 76 mile an hour, misjudged event.

There was no misjudging that bend whatsoever.

That driver, that young lady, literally, there was nothing more than, yeah, you know, driving dangerously to, you know, she'd been racing another car 100 miles an hour.

For me, that's dangerous all day long.

You ask any person on the street, is racing a car at 100 miles an hour dangerous?

You know, you line up to 100 people.

I would guarantee pretty much 100 of them will say yes.

Yeah, I'll just.

I mean, what I will say as well in that instance, and this will apply to everyone's speed limit, was irrelevant to the crash because she was ignoring the speed limit.

She was just doing what speed she wanted.

But the thing I just wanted to ask you about, for a bit of clarity, maybe for me and for the, for the Listeners the due care and attention and dangerous driving.

The could you just kind of tell us the difference between those a little bit in, in terms of the law.

So yeah, so basically the way it's the way the law is written is driving that you care attention is where a driver's the standard of driving falls below what is expected of a careful and competent driver.

I think that's the actual wording without, without getting pulling the wording up on my screen.

The wording is that the driving the standard of driving falls falls below what is expected of a careful and competent driver.

So you're going to, you're going to measure it against a careful and competent driver for both driving attitude, care and attention and dangerous driving.

The difference due care falls below the standard expected of a careful confident driver.

Dangerous driving falls far below.

Okay, so far below the standard expected of a careful and competent driver.

That's your dangerous driving.

So you've got falls below falls far below.

Now how you prove that is you have to.

There's so much, so much you have to take consideration when you're looking at a charge of dangerous driving as opposed to charge of driving extra countertention.

And then you've got the added offenses of causing death.

Well you know, death by due care or death by dangerous the two biggest offenses you can commit on the road.

So when you talk about fault falls below that's actually relatively easy to prove prove.

When you're trying to prove that somebody's standard of driving has fallen below the standard expected.

That's, that's quite a low threshold really.

That's quite a low threshold.

You, you have to meet with regards to the, the charging standards if you like.

So that could be a, that could just be a one off jumper traffic light, you know, potentially jumping a traffic light could be that falls below the standard expected careful and competent driver or, or, or an amber Gambler, something like that.

So the careless driving extra attention is you know, is relatively easy.

You know, for example, just give an example.

I get called to a collision or got called to a collision and there's a car upside down on a country road.

You know, no injury or minor injuries or no injuries.

People have got out.

But this car's popped upside down on a country road.

How did that car end up upside down on a country road?

You know, that they weren't speeding, you know, there was no evidence of excessive speed.

All these sorts of things.

That driver has driven without due care and attention because there's no other way that car would end up in his roof somehow.

That car's end up in his roof.

Okay, now this may be, people may find this slightly controversial and say well you know, anything could happen.

Yeah, absolutely right.

But if somebody's ended up parking the car on its roof, they at some point prior to that they had driven actually on attention because otherwise everybody's car would end up in its roof on every drive they did.

Dangerous driving tends to be, tends to be a longer sort of pattern of driving very, very poor where the standard fast falls far below that expected care for the competent driver.

So to prove a dangerous driving element you have to show that that was far below.

Now that could be prolonged excessive speed, could be dangerous, could be considered dangerous.

That could be the manner of driving.

So case I dealt with many years ago on an a road in Cornwall.

So standard a road and it was a again 18 year old lad and he decided he was going to try and do an overtake on a solid white line system where there was restricted view, the restricted view of the road ahead and he was 50 mile an hour speed limit and he was doing nearly double whack.

But he was doing about 90 on wrong side of the road.

Halfway through the, through the overtake car came into view, couldn't do anything and the car's left head on kill.

And this lad killed the other driver.

He actually went, he went to young offenders for two years for that and has quite an extensive bow and he came out.

But although that was a singular event spanning only a matter of seconds, the circumstances were considered dangerous and that was going to be dangerous right from the outset.

From the moment I was able to build the picture of what had happened and the witnesses in my mind I have that's dangerous, that's death by dangerous driving.

No question you're on the wrong side of a solid white line system at nearly double the speed limit.

That that might have only been for a couple of seconds but that was considered dangerous and he got convicted of causing death by dangerous driving.

So it doesn't have to be prolonged.

It can be a singular incident or it can be a just a few seconds of driving could be construed as dangerous depending on the circumstances.

So driving out your career and attention is much, much easier to prove because the threshold is much lower.

Dangerous driving is considerably harder to prove unless you've got those circumstances literally painted in front of you in glorious satinic color.

I appreciate that.

And for me when I think of the consequences you mentioned there, the lad who got a couple of years in young offenders and when I think of sentencing, I'll hold my hands up and say I have no idea what a sentence should be.

I'm glad I'm not a judge.

I'm glad I have to make that decision because there's always going to be extraneous circumstances, there'll be pleas, you know, stuff like this.

One thing I am quite strong on in terms of opinion is that if someone is found guilty of dangerous driving, I don't really understand why there's not a lifetime ban there.

You know, if you're convicted of dangerous driving, irrespective of whether someone dies or not, if you're convicted of dangerous driving, for me that's just a lifetime ban.

It shouldn't be.

You're back on the road in two or three years.

It's just never a driver car again.

I don't see why that isn't a thing.

Again, the sentencing I'm less opinionated on because I'm glad someone else makes those decisions.

But Kate, what are your.

Anything you want to share on, what Ollie said or anything you want to add in terms of the consequences aspect?

Yeah, so it's really hard, isn't it?

Because all the things that I'm striving to achieve and change at the moment are aimed at a cultural shift in attitudes towards the roads, in driving instructors, in learners, in parents, in the wider community.

And how are we expecting anybody to take this more seriously?

If the sentencing is as minimal and as least impactful as Ollie is describing?

If the sentencing took it as seriously as it is, as we think it should be, would people's attitudes towards learning to drive towards that post test risk towards taking more responsibility for being safer on the road?

If the consequences were that much greater, would we see a change?

I don't know the answer to that.

What do you think?

I mean what we've doing is we're taking away the stick to beat them with, you know, and yes, carrot is usually more effective than stick, but I've heard you talk about this before, sometimes you just need to show that the consequences, whether that's not passing a test, whether that's getting arrested, losing your license, you know, or whatever, but if those consequences are taken away and if you think of the reporting aspect, very few road death or road harm or road crashes are actually reported.

Very few.

But we see things like this reported where it's talking about the inadequate sentencing, the fact that you can drive dangerously 100 miles an hour, 76 mile an hour on a bend, on a 60 road, kill people and be about driving again in a couple of years, right?

So that's not going to deter anyone.

And we also have that attitude.

And I think everyone has this attitude.

And this isn't a criticism, but we as people have the attitude of, well, that happened to them, it won't happen to me.

And then when you layer on top of that the fact that the reporting they're seeing is, even if it does happen to you, don't worry because you'll be back on road.

Well, you'll be out of young offenders, you'll be out of prison in a couple of years.

I'll be back on road in a couple of years as well.

So when we look at it like that, there is no deterrent.

Road death and road harm is treated less seriously than any other kind of harm.

It just is.

It absolutely is, Terry.

And I've seen that time and time and time again.

And I've always, I've always, you know, there's times I can bite my lip when I thought, hang on a minute, why is this, why is this incident being treated?

And you know, the driver, okay, they may have no previous evictions.

They may.

Yes, you're absolutely right.

You have mitigate, there is mitigation.

You have mitigating factors and aggravating factors when sentencing is decided in these cases.

So they'll, a judge or a magistrate or a judge will look at the mitigating aggravation factors in a case and that will determine the ultimate sentence that is passed because they have sentencing guidelines they have to adhere to.

So there are sentencing guidelines for every single offence out there.

And the sensing guidelines book is like Encyclopedia Britannica for those that remember Encyclopedia Britannica.

It's vast.

Then you've got this whole thing of this, you know, the, this guilt plea, what they call an early guilty plea.

So somebody pleads guilty to the offence for which they're appearing, they will automatically attract a third off the sentence they would have got.

So if they were going to get three years, they plead guilty, they're only going to get two years, that's only actually going to be 18 months because they're likely to be out after 50% served and potentially serve the other half on license.

So, but an early guilty plea for me, and this is, again, this is a slightly different topic, but an early guilty plea would be to plead guilty at the earliest opportunity, literally at the first hearing.

Are you going to plead, you know, the first hearing for any, you know, cases, the plea interactions, hearings for cases are usually very early in the process, so they'll know if it needs to go to full trial on the enlisted pro sentencing hearing.

If somebody goes guilty, there's no trial.

It'll just be the facts of the case.

There'll be a sentencing hearing.

If they don't plead not guilty, then there'll be a full trial.

So you know, for people who plead not guilty, they're putting witnesses and victims and things through the mill because they know that they'll be ripped apart in court.

And I've seen it countless times.

So for me, if somebody then waits right to the last minute, so they'll literally wait till the last minute, then they'll suddenly go guilty.

That's not an inner guilty plea for me.

That's that they decided to go guilty when they've realized that they, they actually are back, is against the wall and they've got nowhere to go.

Well, that shouldn't attract a third or sentence.

If you want to plead guilty, you do it at the first opportunity you decide to plead not guilty.

The first opportunity you run through guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, until it battles against the wall and you know you've got nowhere to go.

Or if I plead guilty now, I'm going to get a third of my sentence.

No, no, no, forget that.

You had your chance to be guilty at the earliest opportunity and you didn't.

So this early, early guilty pleas for me are an absolute misnomer because they're not early guilty.

Please.

Some are, absolutely.

Some are.

An awful lot aren't.

An awful lot will pay the system as long as they can.

Then they go guilty at the last minute, Often on the advice of the solicitor, they'll go guilty because they now get a third of their sentence.

The other one there is the exceptional hardship plea or loophole if you like.

Because I was thinking back to our, our first conversation, the first recording we did for this, and you were telling me about the number of points some people have and there's one person with like triple points in their license.

So that's been bugging me genuinely.

And so I did a little bit of looking up and obviously if you're, if you get 12 points on your license, it's an automatic six month ban.

I think it is.

But there's over 6,000 people with more than 12 points on their license.

So when we think of a deterrent, the point is just aren't a deterrent.

They're just not.

They can't be.

Because if, if you, if there's 6,000 people with more than 12 points, how can that realistically be a deterrent?

Because I would argue that the people that do see that as a deterrent would be avoiding those points anyway, because they're going to be the people that go, actually, it's not the point, it's the fact that I want to drive safely.

And one that sprung up when I were looking, and I remember this from a few years ago, was Steve Coogan, who was driving car driving at 97 miles an hour lead hardship because he had to do some driving for his celebrity work role.

Whatever he were doing at the time and didn't get any points, he got off, he got less points or no points, I can't remember.

And he's driving 97 miles an hour, but they've let him off because you needed to drive for work and it's like, well, if you need to drive for work, don't drive at 97 miles an hour.

You know, there's, there's mistakes, there's honest mistakes, there's, there's.

And I'm not saying, I'm not condoning it, but we are human.

There is thinking it's a fault is on and it.

It's actually 30, because the speed would change the week and that you didn't spot that one sign because it's not been put in a great place or has happened.

A local area to me recently left the old sign up despite putting a new speed limit in.

And there were two speed signs saying different speeds.

So, you know, mistakes can occur, but there is a big difference to that.

And driving at 97 miles an hour, because people know that 70 miles an hour is.

This has to be the speed limit somewhere.

You know, anything above that's illegal.

So I just think that with all this stuff, there's just very little deterrent for anyone that's going to drive badly anyway.

And Kate, I think he was saying before we started recording, if I'm wrong, I can edit this, but you were saying that you, you work, do some work with people who, who have made these mistakes or made these decisions.

Do you want to tell me a little bit about that and about why and what they're saying?

Yeah.

So it's working on the safe and considerate driving courses and these are people who have crashed.

It could be anything from a minor scrape in a car park through to a flat on your roof on a rural road or a head on.

All sorts of reasons.

And they all have such, I say they all have such varied reasons for doing what they've done.

There's a very distinct age group.

So if it's a younger male that's walking into the room I can pretty much guarantee and I don't like to judge, but if I was a betting person, I would put money on.

They flipped out on a wet corner on a rural road.

That seems to be a really, really, really common thing that happens.

The older drivers, it's a bit more of a mixed bag.

Some is attitude, respect for the rules and some just make, just, just make, I say mistakes.

I had one the other day, for example, he swerved to miss a cat.

The steering correction that kicks in kicked him back the other way and he over, over then compensated with that and ended up doing a head on into a another car going back the other way.

But the, the younger people are sort of my main interest in why, why are they making those mistakes?

So 76 and a 60 on Aurora Road.

Yeah, we all know that's completely insane.

Why on earth would you do that?

It's unsafe, it's dangerous.

But actually one of the biggest things that have come out of the conversations I've had recently is that they don't actually know how to judge what speed to be doing on these roller roads.

They've not been taught a limit point or how to use a limit point or how to assess speed.

So 76 for them, they're obviously thinking about a dual carriageway.

They don't necessarily understand the rules.

Now I'm not saying that's it for everybody, I'm absolutely not excusing it.

Some people don't know the rules.

Some people know the rules but just don't believe in them, don't think it's for them.

And some people think rules are really stupid and we'll break them.

There's a whole variety there, but there are a huge cohort of young people who come in who just simply don't know, they don't understand.

And when we then go out and we work on that awareness and hazard prediction and the commentary, drive and how to read road signs and how to plan, within a few hours they're coming out much, much safer.

These are things that they just weren't taught.

So it's a tricky one because, yes, summer attitudes.

I had A young lad, 22, five pints, two o' clock in the morning, decided to drive home, fell asleep at the wheel, drove off a cliff and Liv was absolutely fine, actually walked away with very minor injuries.

And I think he was, he realized how lucky he had been, but he didn't realize the risks he was taking.

So, yeah, it's, for me, it's improving our training that we're providing.

We need to give people better skills, better chances.

But alongside that, it's teaching that respect.

And I kind of mentioned earlier to you, Terry and Ollie, that some of this is parenting.

Respect for rules comes from long before we start in the car.

And if parents aren't respecting the rules, for example, we've mums and dads who are checking their phones while they're on the go, then what can we expect the kids to do?

And I reflect back on when the smoking ban came in and I remember distinctly remember the first day it happened because I was in the Welsh Mountains and everybody was piling out the pub.

I was doing my Duke and Veddenborough, but all outside the pubs there were full of people smoking their cigarettes.

And if someone were to walk into a pub now and light up inside the pub, the whole room would be an absolute uproar.

They'd be turfed out quite quickly.

And I mean, I don't go out drinking at all anymore because I've got kids, I don't have a life anymore.

But for those who do, I'm pretty sure people don't really smoke in pubs anymore.

And if we can, you know, if that cultural change has happened with, there are bigger consequences and a social pressure to not behave in that way, can that be applied into road safety?

Should parents be teaching their children that sort of attitude at a younger age that these things just aren't acceptable and that the peer pressure from that community around you means that you will respect the rules because everybody else around you is expecting you to do that.

That's a really interesting point, Kate.

Very.

And therein lies a million dollar question.

I think you are 100% right.

There are other areas of life where there's been a cultural shift.

Now the smoking ban in pipes is an absolute classic example.

There are, there are other examples that spring to mind.

Recycling.

I haven't got them figured in front of me, but they are remarkably high because there's been a cultural shift in, you know, we're not gonna, we are going to do our bits, you know, to, to.

But again, this is young people a lot often it's not this.

Young people driving this because, you know, they're environmentally aware and, you know, yes, we're going to recycle that.

I'm not going to throw it all in one big thing to go to landfill.

We are going to do our recycling.

And again, exactly like you say, sort of driven by sort of those influences in life.

But the problem we've got is that when you get behind the wheel, the same rules don't apply.

And I don't understand it.

That's the bit I do not understand, is the same rules don't apply, because I've said it many times before in my presentations is I strongly believe we've got a lost generation of drivers out there.

You know, I drove to.

I drove up to North Wales about a couple of weeks ago, and some of the driving I witnessed on the motorway was just appalling.

It was shocking.

And on some of the A roads around Wales as well, I drove literally right down the center of Wales.

And again, I just look around at the drivers and think we've got no hope.

Because people are taking chances.

Pretty much every drive they go on, they're taking a chance.

And if they're taking chances, then anybody that they have influence over in their household or wider family group, whether it's aunts, uncles, grandparents, things like that, they're going to take their cues from those influences, those people that they look up to as a source of inspiration, a source of what is right and what is wrong at the end of the day.

Absolutely.

What you said, I totally agree that if mum or dad or aunt or uncle is, you know, behind the wheel and constantly looking at their mobile phone, well, whoever sat in that car with them is going to assume that's entirely acceptable and they're going to do exactly the same.

But if it's good enough for that, it's good enough for me.

I was going to say people could be very much like sheep, can't they?

They.

They tend to just follow what they see and everybody, if everyone else is doing it, they're just going to do the same thing as well.

And if everyone else is getting away with it, they're going to get away with it too.

And if the consequences are as lack, you know, as lapse as they are from above, that messaging we're sending in a bit like the graduated driving license reply being, no, you can't have one.

Well, that's.

Is that showing?

Government is taking this seriously?

So we've got all that messaging coming in and then all the sheep essentially following what everyone else does.

And we end up in this position where bad things really do happen quite frequently and the consequences aren't as strong as they should be.

There doesn't seem to be a consequence.

And I think that's the nub of this, is that, you know, do something catastrophically wrong on the road, as per the case that we've highlighted that, you know, a decision, a physical decision to drive dangerously, however you want to describe it, that takes the lives of two other people.

Yes.

She, that driver didn't go out, intended to do that that day.

You know, I've no doubt that, you know, that was a, that, that was a snap decision that that driver made that took the lives of two other people at her hand.

Basically.

That was entirely her decision.

Entirely her.

She has killed two people.

No question there.

That is not, and that is not up to debate.

She has killed her two passengers through a decision she made.

But the consequences to that decision seem, on the face of it, looking at the media reports, to be piecemeal.

You know, what, what deterrent and exactly the question Terry asked right at the beginning, what deterrent does that case show to other young people?

Well, actually, what's, you know, to them to a 18, 19, 20 year old?

Well, what's, what's seven months in, you know, what's seven months in young offenders?

Yeah, what is that?

Seven months?

That's not.

Probably not even a birthday or Christmas, depending on when your birthday is.

It's like to be, you know, sets seven months over the summer, which is the deterrent and, you know, the deterrent for making catastrophic decisions behind the wheel just isn't there.

Whether that's through points, you know.

Yes, claim, claim exceptional hardship.

It was the case that I hollered to you, Terry, and it was 200 and.

No, it was over.

It was, I'm sure it was over 200 points.

This, this lad in his early 20s had over 200 points in his license.

How do you get to over 200 points in your license?

How many times can you claim hardship?

Can you claim it once?

Maybe I might accept that, but that's it.

You've had your hardship and you're not listening.

And exactly as you say, you know, a license is a privilege, it's not a right.

Having a driving license is not.

It's not a fundamental right.

It's a privilege that you have to work for.

And actually, once you've got it, you need to work to keep it.

And if you can't abide by the rules and you can't adhere to road traffic legislation and you, you go out and you kill somebody.

I'd agree with Terry.

As controversial as it is, I'd agree with Terry.

That's it.

You've had your chance.

Sorry, public transport, pretty much.

If we pretend, you know, take out all the seriousness of what's happened and just put them into a supermarket Supermarket's quite busy.

Got a whole mix of people in that supermarket with their trolleys.

And you get her coming in and she decides to be a bit like my 10 year old and ram it round the supermarket at top speed, up and down the aisles, smashing into the walls, causing as much damage as possible, hitting people and then pushes to the front of the queue.

Are we going to accept that in the supermarket or is someone going to stand up, a security guard going to stand up and say, come on, out you go, you're banned, we don't want you back.

And they, you know, 200 points in that example.

She comes back 200 times and does the same thing over and over again.

That wouldn't be allowed.

Like people are going to block her from entering the store.

They will stand there and say, there is no way.

I don't care that you need to eat.

I don't care that you need food.

Food.

You are not coming in here and doing that again.

It's not acceptable.

I mean, I love to make a childlike analogy, but for me, that just great analogy.

My 10 year old's not that bad.

Actually.

He is much better.

He does it without the trolley now and just runs up and down like a loony.

He's working on it.

I think the point to come back to there is what you said, Ollie, which is the rules go out the window when you get in a car.

The rules change for people's perception of rules change.

And I've spoke about this before, so I'm repeating myself slightly, but there's that old cheesy phrase, you know, an Englishman's home is his castle.

And I think it's.

I don't think it's true.

I think that I'm using the Englishman.

But an Englishman's home is his car.

I think that's how they view it.

And I think different cultures view it differently, but predominantly England.

It's like my car.

My rules are not in a fun, honest truth way, but in a. I get to do what I want.

You know, One thing that sticks out to me some, I learned years ago, way before I was an instructor.

I'm gonna say something nice about an ex girlfriend now, but I was in the car park, can't remember what I'd done.

But some.

Someone did something.

I said, what?

What's that idiot doing there?

And my ex girlfriend who was sat next to me when she's doing what you did five minutes ago.

And it made me stop in my tracks to go, she's right, I did that exact same.

It Wasn't anything dangerous, it was something in a car park, you know, but it made me stop in my tracks and go, she's right.

When I do it, it's okay because I'm in control, I'm in my car.

But when someone else does it, that's not okay.

And I think that we view that so much as drivers and there's an ego thing, there's a massive ego thing there.

And it took me years to get that out of my system.

And it started from my ex partner saying that to me.

And it come out of my system as I trained to be an instructor, because you have to reflect on your own driving.

If you least if you're trained properly, you do.

And it comes out of my system more now when I work with learners and work with PDIs, because I'm encouraging them to reflect, which helps me reflect.

And I think that the problem there is that most people, when they're driving, they're not going to reflect.

They will see what other people do and reflect on their performance, but they won't reflect on their own performance because they don't need to.

And it's okay if I do it because I'm in control.

So when I cut across you on the motorway, Ollie, that's okay because you can break, I know you can break, that's fine.

But when someone does it to me, nah, not doing that, that's not right.

You're a bad driver.

It is.

And it's how, it's how to get across when you haven't got the backups of the court system.

When people do get it catastrophically wrong on the roads or even when they do something minor on the roads and they just get points after points after points after points, you know, and they end up with 200 plus points in the driving license.

It's trying to get through to the next generation that whilst these cases are out there and there are these people out there, that is not acceptable.

That is, you know, it is not acceptable and it's absolutely fine.

And it is the right thing to do, to call out bad driving.

If you're in, if you're in a car with somebody and their driving is that poor, then you call it out.

The current generation of happy to call out just about anything else.

You know, if, if they, if they, you know, if, if you misgender somebody, they'll call that out straight away.

They'll literally, they'll let you know about it within a millisecond.

But actually, let's put that into a car and somebody's misbehaving in a car, driver's not driving well or passengers misbehaving or something.

We'll call it out.

And it's, it's, it's trying to encourage young people that calling out bad driving and bad driving behaviors is just as acceptable and just as being.

Being just as responsible as calling out anything else in any of the part of your life.

Just because it's road safety related doesn't make any difference.

But there seems to be this blocker that young people will sit in a car absolutely terrified, absolutely terrified and they're afraid to call it out.

And I don't understand why they're so afraid to call it out and they're so willing to call out just about anything else.

I don't think that's just young people though, Ollie.

I know of many grownups who've had lifts with friends who are 50 plus and who won't call out the friends.

Bad driving because of the social awkwardness, isn't it?

That that kind of stepping on toes and making, making a scene.

And so they've sat there silently terrified.

Three drives.

I think it's, it's definitely a wider.

Not just young people, but a wider thing as well.

There we go.

Now we have a major problem on our hands.

Well, we really do, isn't it?

We need an entire culture change on this very topic and we need to start a campaign.

So Terry, here's your next job.

We need to start a campaign to call it out.

Call it out.

That's what we need is a campaign that everybody, everybody will get behind.

Some sort of campaign that everyone will get behind.

I think we can have a chat with the Think campaign there, can't we, Ollie?

No, let's keep it in house.

Let's keep it house for the three of us.

I like the videos they make.

Come on, let's get Tom and let's get Tom and Liz involved as well.

Let's get, let's get a five way campaign going.

Call it out.

Yeah.

I like how you initially aimed it at me though.

But I do have a spare 17 minutes on Thursday, so we'll sort it then.

You put catman Together in 17 minutes, Terry, a man of your caliber.

Thing here is we look at these consequences and how they're really not good enough.

You know, you mentioned before about the.

In fact, I'll throw this one in that briefly.

You mentioned before about people drinking, you know, and changing the culture around smoking in pubs and that kind of stuff.

So there's a massive reduction in breathalyzer tests and it's just another thing that's reducing those consequences.

So if there's no consequences, we need to get them earlier.

As you alluded to before.

We need to change the attitude, change that mindset, or maybe not change, but develop a different mindset.

How, how do we do that?

Well, Terry, that is a big question, isn't it?

I think instructors, I think instructors, we're so well placed.

We're, we're there, aren't they?

We've, we've got these people in our cars for 40 plus hours that, that we can have those conversations around the risk.

The honest truth.

Obviously I'm always going to be a big fan of Ollie and the honest truth, but having those little two minute videos to watch and then reflecting with the learner, how do we make it applicable to them and their life?

And when might they be tempted to break those rules?

And actually what can you put in place to prevent them to create a bit of an action plan to not tempt themselves to break?

Something that's come up in my research over the many years I've been doing this is young people, you know, road safety is really boring and the consequences don't happen to them.

It's not going to like, you know, all the optimism bias.

But if you make it all about them, as in all of those consequences and apply it to their life, what does their life actually look like?

If they got three points in the license for speeding or if they did, you know, hit someone and kill someone, what would that actually do to their life?

And we're looking at what their friends are going to think of them, what their family going to think of them, who's going to trust them to give them a lift in the future?

What might happen with their job?

If they can't drive for a period of time, do they need their car to get to their job?

And if they can't get there, what realistically is going to happen?

And then if they lose their job and they can't get another job because they can't drive there, or they're limited for a while, well, what impact does that then have on the finance and the quality of their life and their ability to socialize and take holidays and do all the nice things that young people like to do?

And if you really tailor that conversation into those young people's actual everyday activities and that the hindrance to the inconvenience and yeah, it takes away the enormity of the actual damage that's done, but we just put it into a really understandable kind of level that they can engage with.

It does make them change the way they think.

I'm not saying it's easy.

I have some that.

It takes me many, many, many conversations over a long time to get those opinions changed.

So it is.

It can be hard work with some.

Some people will pick it up straight away.

So things that I have found that will help is making.

I mean, I come from really small town where we all know each other.

We know everyone's parents as well.

Parents know parents.

So when we've got a new driver coming into town, if they're bombing it down and driving like a bit of a. I don't know what word I'm allowed to use on this one, but we'll say tit.

If they're driving like a bit of an idiot, then the consequences are very much that their mum's going to find out.

Everyone's seen them, they know who they are, they knew who the car is and they're going to be called out on Facebook on the local hub, which is highly embarrassing.

And mums get involved.

I don't know what it's like in a city.

I try to avoid cities with the.

With as much as I can, but making sure that those learners know that they're being watched by their community, by their family, by the friends.

Friends of family, but by dash cam as well.

That's a really.

We can review footage on dashcam.

It does get submitted to Operation Snap and making them realize that actually they are on show here, Other people are watching, other people are going to be judging and forming decisions on them as people and their opinions on that personality.

What else have I written down here?

So calling out other drivers who are behaving in a dodgy way as well.

You know, when you're on the motorway, you might have someone that's swerving or swaying in their positioning in front of you to make sure that you're pointing that out and ask, well, what could possibly be causing that?

What kind of distraction do you think they've got right now to make learners realise that actually they are going to be watched, they are going to be judged if they make mistakes like that, that, you know, that people are thinking that they might have been drinking or they might have been using their phone and that they can't just get away with it.

And I think instructors are really well placed to have those coaching conversations alongside everyday lessons.

It doesn't have to be anything extra just within their lesson.

Pass it back to you, Arleigh.

What do you think on that?

It's this whole, and this is a question that's gone around my head many, many times.

It's this whole idea of this cultural change calling people out again, yes, social media will call people out but you've got a certain amount of anonymity and you can, you can find that can become very toxic and it can actually become quite damaging as well.

And then you, then you'll get, the armchair experts will suddenly appear and you'll end up people going down rabbit holes and suddenly you'll get people dragged in about she done nothing wrong.

And I've seen it on social media where some poor, poor individual has, you know, it's been a mistaken identity or there's been a, you know, there's been some sort of confusion.

But the time, you've, by the time a rumor has started, you know, it's, it's, it's busy, run down a mountain gathering pace.

Try again to stop that.

If, if for example, the subject of the room or the subject of the post actually it was mistaken identity or it was some, you know, the poor person actually wasn't involved, something a bit different or it was a, you know, it was a, it was a different car or whatever that actually ended up being quite damaging.

Yeah, I guess.

Although, although I'm not averse to calling people out.

I'm not averse to that at all.

But I think it should be done, it should be done at the time.

I said I think it should be being done at the time.

So Kate, I'll ask you a question.

Your tenure.

You've got a 10 year old son, haven't you?

Yeah, 10 and 7.

10 And 7.

Just bear with me with this question for a moment.

There's a reason behind it.

If you had said to your, your sons, your 10, 10 and 7 year old sons and you said to them, right, there's, there's a jar full of cookies there, really nice cookies.

Do not take any of the bogus cookies, okay, they're there, but do not take them.

It is, it is.

My rule is you do not take a cookie.

You then come home from work, they're at home and you find that there they are both stood, both, you know, they're both stood there with a cookie in there in their hand, sticking in their mouth, eating a cookie.

Which.

Did you deal with that at the time or would you wait for six to eight weeks before you dealt with that?

You definitely deal with it at the time.

I actually wouldn't tell them often.

I'm glad you said that because that leads me on to.

I'm not adverse to develop personal prosecution at all.

Speed awareness what's driving you?

Second Driving.

Why do people, why do we deal with motorists who've had their hand in the cookie jar when they were told not to and they're being dealt with six to eight weeks later when they probably drive over that interim period they've probably been driving exactly the same as they were when they got stopped by the police, you know, six, eight weeks earlier.

And now we're going to tell them off all that time later.

Yeah, your son's got their hands in the cookie jar.

We're not going to leave them six weeks to tell them off.

I've always been curious as to, as to why we do that because I tell you why I ran an operation.

I put together and run an operation but actually it was, it was if I went to ex university CHRIS BURGESS EX UNIVERSITY and it was actually shown to have some real benefits and effectively what we did was we did a, the low level offending on the road.

Low level offending.

We did an intervention at the roadside.

So we actually did a full on intervention at the roadside.

It was almost a say considered driving what's driving you type intervention but did it in the back of the patrol car.

So they're sat in the back of the patrol car at the time the offense was committed.

They went away with their tail, well intruding between their legs.

Having had the, this, this developed intervention, some of the providers did not like what we were doing because weight from the, we were doing it at the roadside.

Yeah, that's always the thing, isn't it?

Consequence Then this, this ties into consequence.

Yeah.

So business have always got their self interest, haven't they?

In a sense that treading on toes in that sense is really tricky but I totally agree on the spot would be great for, for a driver education.

The other thing that's been mentioned over the last few weeks to me is rather than a speed awareness course or a.

Even as the three points to take your license away or the car away for 30 days and just remove the vehicle so that it's a really sharp impact so you suddenly you are left without your car.

This is what it's going to be like 30 days, no car, no driving.

Deal with it, you know, hardship, whatever, but you're going to have to deal with it.

And I thought that was an interesting concept because I hadn't thought of it, you know, ever being an option to take something that.

That hard.

But I think.

And on.

Yeah, the, I mean, Chris Burgess is great, isn't he, to have the, the on the spot education.

But then how.

I guess the, the what you call resources needed to actually do that on the spot are challenged at the moment.

There's not enough to go around to.

Do it and bear in lines of problem.

Now it was just traffic officers that we delivered the operation.

Operation One Chance.

It was called.

Bizarrely it was called Operation One Chart.

You've got one chance.

This is your one chance to amend your wellness.

And it was run across the traffic offices across Devon Hall.

When we ran it, ran it for six weeks, we ended up with about 180, about 180 drivers through it.

And the results were really interesting.

The.

The fact that we were able to do roads tied into conventions and because those officers are out there anyway.

So actually the resource required to do it was very, very minimal.

Very minimal.

It was.

And that was the whole beauty of it was that it can be done at the raid side, you know.

Yes.

Business that got self interest.

Of course they have.

And they didn't like what we were doing because it was taking, you know, it was taking business away from.

From then.

But actually what we did show was that, did it have an impact because you were dealing with the offence at the time, not dealing with the theft of the pity jar six weeks later.

And I've always had that.

It's always.

There's always been an interest to me around these, these diversion prosecution courses that they are.

They just seem to be disconnected to the offence because of the time lag between spending and consequence.

Yeah, I mean, I don't have much to do with the speed awareness.

My interests very much lie on the road helping people actually develop skills.

And the first thing we do when we sit down with a new pair of people is, you know, they don't have to tell us what they've done that's resulted in them being there.

Sometimes they don't know, but most of them will be quite open and we go through the incident and the crash and it's in sort of isolation before.

We then sort of apply the morning's learning to that and then create a bit of a plan on how we can go and what we can work on in the afternoon to help them fix the things that have led up to them having that crash.

So it is included, we just revisit it.

But for the speeding ones, I mean, if you're caught by camera, that would be Difficult.

I don't think people take the speed awareness course as seriously as they should.

I think doing it online, we have this debate amongst the trainers quite often that doing it online makes it so easy for people.

You get people turning up in their pajamas or with no top on, still lying in bed, just not giving it the respect that it needs to have, whereas.

Yeah, exactly.

If they have to come in person, it's.

Yeah, it's incredibly uncomfortable, it's inconvenient.

But surely that's.

That should be a consequence.

I'm doing my little.

We should have that push, shouldn't we?

We should have that consequence as a result of what they've chosen to do.

You might be sorry, I know they are.

There is talk about additional powers for police officers to potentially seize vehicles at the roadside and do instant bans at the roadside while somebody's.

Which I think is a fantastic idea because we've, you know, again, I can think of people who've been given, you know, sort of given reported for offenses which is.

Which would potentially end up in a loss of license, that you have to wait for a court to decide.

That court decides and disqualify somebody from driving.

But actually, you know, you know that there's 99, you know, 99, 100% chance they're going to lose their license.

Take it.

Take a drink driver.

Classic example.

There's drink driver, somebody's stopped at drink driving, they glow over the limit of the roadside, go back to the station, they go.

They're over the prescribed limit for alcohol at the station, they get charged with driver that says alcohol.

They get given a court date a month down the line, they're free to drive for the next month.

Hang on a minute.

We know you're over the drink drive limit.

You have committed an offence.

You know, there's an offence that you are.

You are over prescribed limit.

That is not in debate.

There is a piece of paper to say you're over prescribed limit, but actually, no, we're going to let you out driving for the next month.

You know, if they then defer and they then want to adjourn and adjourn, they could be, you know, they know they're looking at a band.

They're driving for the next three, four, five, six months.

There have been cases where people have done that.

They know they're going to be disqualified and they've gone out, you know, driven again and they've driven, drink driven again when they've been.

Yeah, never an excuse or injured or killed somebody.

Hang on a minute.

You you blow.

You blow positive police station.

Well, that should be instant ban.

There should be a power to say, right, your vehicle's taken off, you go to court, that'll determine how long the ban is.

But actually, and the ban, you know that time that it's like time spent on remand, look at it as remand vehicles, your vehicles on remand, you know, and in that interim time, if you get a 12 month ban and the case is two months down the line, well, actually it's a 10 month bank.

You've already been off the road for two months.

But if actually your vehicle is seized and your disqualification starts from the moment that you blow over at the police station, because that's an evidential sample.

So, you know, there's a, I know there's a whole nother debate there, but it's a consequence.

Again, there's no consequences for what people are doing on the road.

Well, there's very little consequence.

Getting thought are very slim.

That's the first thing.

The police actually having the time to go out and catch these people is, is minimal because resources are stretched thinner than ever before.

So people go out on the road and commit offenses knowing that the chances are they're actually going to get away with it.

And the chances are they will get away with it first time on, second time, eight.

But there will come a time they won't and there will probably be the time when it all goes wrong on them.

You know, this young lady that hit a tree at 76, that wasn't the first time she'd be driven at those speeds.

Not a one off.

No way that's going to be a one off.

That is a, that is a pattern of behavior.

That's an attitude towards driving.

And it all went out of shape on that particular occasion.

We guarantee she'd been racing cars at 100 mile an hour.

Yeah, that was just the way that that individual drove.

Shouldn't have a driving license.

You've given up your right, responsible right to have a driving license.

You cannot be a responsible driver.

Therefore, thanks very much, Shelby licensed back.

You are now disqualified.

That's it.

End of end game.

There's no discussion, no debate.

Disqualified because what will it take?

What will it take to actually get people to take it more seriously?

People are dying.

You know, in the case of that young lady, two of her friends have died.

Should it be that someone has to die that we all start to take it more seriously?

Or, you know, people who speed, they don't, okay, they haven't hit anything or Anybody, they just got caught speeding, but is it going to take them hitting something to make them realize that they shouldn't speed?

So that's the problem, isn't it?

Yeah.

They don't care about road death until the road death impacts you.

Yeah.

So let's make those impacts stronger before people actually die.

Just going back to what we're saying about the more immediate someone's license.

Pretty sure that was mooted in the world safety strategy.

Talking about, you know, that was one of the things that was suggested was that there's that roadside disqualification basically, which.

Long overdue.

Long overdue.

I think that would be a big step towards people going, if I want to get caught, excuse my language.

If I get caught, there's a really good chance I'm going to have my car take off and I'm not going to be disqualified from this point.

That's.

And that's not going to be good.

And that's going to be that.

That's going to be those freedoms.

Now the problem we then have is that people will then start to shout about human rights and right to private family life.

You've just taken away my right to private family life by taking my car from away.

You know that, that people will start, people will start to shout and bang and tell people, regardless, the fact that committed defense is, that's, that's a side issue.

Forget the fact I've committed offenses that are potentially going to make me lose, you know, I'm going to lose my license.

Well, that's, that's not the problem.

The problem is you're infringing on my rights to a private and family life by taking a car off me.

Yeah.

A driving license isn't a right, is it?

It's a privilege, as you've said before.

And as, as we know.

So I think we need to make sure that that is kind of bold and center, that if you want the privilege of driving and sharing the road with everybody else, then there are rules to that.

Yeah, but I think that goes back to what we were saying before.

The Englishman's home is his car is his castle.

You know, it is a right.

This is how he's viewed by a lot of people is a right.

It's not a privilege.

You know, I don't know if you've had this one before, but I had someone once quote the Magna Carta to me saying that the Magna Carta means that it is a right and they don't even have to have insurance.

And it's like these are the people that obviously you can't argue with, but you're going to struggle to argue with.

Yeah.

Want to go back to.

That'll be the free law lot then, Terry.

I've come across the free law more than once that don't believe in statute at all.

They don't believe in law.

They don't believe in the rule of law in the slightest.

And there's plenty of them around.

And there'll be those out on the road that do not believe in the rule of law.

That is, until something happens to them and somebody commits offence against them, in which case they then want the police to investigate it to the end degree, which slightly amuses me because the law doesn't apply.

You don't believe in the law, so how can the law apply when it's against you rather than you won't adhere to any of the laws?

I've dealt with motorists who are free from the free law.

They call themselves free.

I think they're freeman of the land, I think they call themselves.

And they literally will do whatever they want because they don't believe in statute, they don't recognize law.

Well, that's fine.

You can recognize it or not as much as you like.

The laws are still there and they still apply to you, whether you recognize them or not.

Then you come to the other one, which is.

I think I might have said this last episode actually.

But how do you choose which rules to break?

We all break rules at some point, whether it's a moral rule, a legal rule or, you know, a rule enforced by a company.

We choose which rules to break.

You know, a mobile phone example, best example.

Some people will park up at the side of the road with a handbrake on in winter, leave the engine running because it's cold and feel that that is acceptable to text someone, that's illegal.

But in their eyes that's fine because they're parked up the handbrakes on.

Other people will feel it's time to text while they're driving because they're only looking down for three seconds and they don't know the impact it has on the brain afterwards.

Other people will feel that they just don't care.

And it's how do we choose which rule to break?

And some people will think it's okay to do 40 in this 30 zone because it looks safe.

I can see a lot, you know, and I think that that's partly over problem.

But I want to come back to what you were talking about a little bit, Kate, before, when you were kind of giving suggestions as to what instructors can do, because I'm going to give mine.

But one thing you said that kind of amused me slightly, but also I think it's true.

You spoke about raising it in the groups and people's mums seeing it.

And I thought, you know what?

I think most of us find the consequences of our mum worse than the consequences of the law.

It's like, I don't want to disappoint my mum.

No police.

Fine, mum, no.

Just.

Just three things I want to say for any instructors listening now.

And I'm going to try and keep this simple.

And one is a conversation I try and have with every learner.

I do try and shoehorn it in.

And as I ask them, what are you going to drive differently on the test compared to how we drive different on lessons?

How are we going to drive differently when your mum's in the car?

How are you going to drive differently when your friends are in the car?

How are you going to drive differently if there's a police car behind you, if you're in the car by yourself?

It's really, really interesting listening to those answers because you get the odd one that says they won't drive very differently, but usually they'll come back and they'll say, oh, I'll do this on my test.

I'll do this while mum's from me.

If a police car's behind me, I'm going three miles an hour, no speed limit, you know, And I think that that's a really good starting point to start to see how people think and how they're going to behave post test, because I usually find they're quite honest, which ties me into the next one, which is the honest truth.

Now, I'm not saying this because you're here, Ollie, but I think that any instructor out there that finds these conversations awkward, the honest truth is the easiest way to start them.

It is the perfect way to start them.

So, yeah, if.

If you find these conversations awkward or you want something a bit more prominent that details a bit better, like a short, sharp shock almost, the honest truth is perfect for that.

And also just using what else is available, you know, and by that it could be anything, you know, reach out to Ollie, reach out to Kit, reach out to me and say, will you come and do a presentation at my local association?

Will you come and do a presentation from my giant school?

Will you come and do a presentation?

We're going to get a load of us learners together, you know, and I'm sure if we can, we will.

Don't have to be us three.

It could be anyone.

But use what's available to you as well.

And I think if you do those three things, you use the resources, like the honest truth, you use what's available to you, like I've just said, and you start those conversations.

I think that's the simplest way that we can make a start.

It's not going to change things overnight, but it's just going to make a start.

I think we all just need to make a start, don't we?

We have worked in the way we've worked for a very long time, and we're at a point where things definitely aren't getting any better.

So if it's not getting better, you've got to change it.

And it's just trying something new.

And trying something new, like now, next lesson, just try.

That's a really nice way to look at it, Kate, because there's one thing I've learned over the years is that if you try something that doesn't work, that is not a failure, that is just something that doesn't work, put it to bed, try something else, you will find something that will work without a shadow of a doubt.

Now, I know that all young people are different.

And, you know, instructors, instructors around the country have got a devil's own job because they might have 20 or 30 pupils on their books.

That could be 20 or 30 completely different approaches to learn to drive.

So, you know, huge respect to driving instructors out there who are trying to, you know, flexing and adapting for every, every lesson they're delivering, which is, which is amazing.

And to have that, that ability to do that flex and adaptation is incredible.

But actually, that's what it needs.

It isn't going to.

It isn't just a rinse and repeat.

It's not going to be rinse and repeat eight times a day.

There has to, there has to be that flex and that ability to be able to work with a pupil, to develop, develop their own strategies, because those eight peoples in that day are all going to be different.

And how they're going to approach road risk is going to be in eight different ways potentially.

So I think the days of just rinse and repeat, right?

This is my.

Then this is lesson one.

This is lesson two.

Regardless of your.

You as an individual, I'm going to teach lessons 1 to 20, and that's what I'm going to do.

You know, I'm not.

It is just literally, this isn't going to work.

Now, I'm not saying that all instructors out there do that because I know there are many, many instructors out there who do, who do exactly what's needed in this flex and adapt an individuality.

But there are going to be instructors out there who are still just going to be doing the rinse and repeat without a shadow of a doubt.

You know, it's trying to get us, it's trying to get a culture change not only within the driving community, but in the new structure community as well.

And to have this idea that those forward thinking instructors like yourself, Terry, like Kate, like there are many out there, I could name the really forward thinking instructors that go, right, what needs to change to make a difference?

We need to change as instructors.

You.

I say we, not an instructor.

Instructors need to think about how they're delivering lessons and actually what is the focus of.

Yes, of course the focus is on the DBSA minimum standard.

Of course it is.

That's the only way they're going to get that practical test pass certificate in their hand at the end of the day.

But actually it's so much more than that.

There's so, so much more than that that they need to be thinking about.

And it's this, you know, it's this idea of who do you, who do you collaborate with?

Who do you collaborate with to achieve that?

Because often as not, you aren't going to be able to do it on your own.

You're going to need to have that collaboration with people like my learner driver.

Yes, the Honest truth, of course I'm going to mention it, but there's other, there's, there's plenty of other stuff out there.

Exactly.

As Terry has said now with the, the Honest Truth community, we've just launched as well in the last week or so, there's a massive source of collaboration, massive source where you can go on to the, those that.

We've got about a hundred people signed up now.

I want that to be a thousand instructors on there, want to be 10,000 instructors on there.

That's a place you can go to ask for that help and support.

That's, that's going to, that's the forum for it.

That's where you're going to get resources.

That's where you're going to get instructors.

Show and tell.

It's a show and tell error.

Sorry, Terry, this isn't, I didn't mean to bring this in, but it just seems relevant in the context of what we're talking about.

If you're looking at collaboration, if you're looking at ideas, you've got things you want to Share.

There's a community out there for it, you know, and it's.

It's specifically the driving instructors.

It hasn't got all the toxicity of social media about around it.

It's there for instructors right across the country to be there to support and help each other.

That's what it's there for.

That's about.

That's this collaboration piece we're talking about.

As soon as you've just done your end of episode plug, Ollie, that seems like the perfect time to wrap up.

So, Katie, do you want to take a moment just to remind people where they can find you?

So I founded My Lana Driver.

So we're almost finished and that's not something I say very lightly because it is quite a big project, but we're about to restructure the course and sort of on the downhill run to being complete.

So it's on.

Mylenarddriver.co.uk I'm obviously on Facebook, so come find me on there and yeah, happy to chat anytime.

I don't think it'll ever be complete.

I think that when it's complete you'll go, oh, I've had an idea, I'm going to add this.

You know what we.

There's a lot still I want to do to it.

So I say complete as in I think it'll be perfectly usable, ready for evaluation, hopefully by July.

And then I will continue to evolve it slowly at a slightly less stressful pace.

And yeah, I have got many other plans of what to do after this one.

Excellent.

And Ollie, go on one more time.

No, I've done my plug.

No, I've done my plug for these.

Like I say, the honest truth.

Any instructors who aren't signed up.

Www.olbe honest truth.co.uk all the details are there.

For those that are signed up and delivering, you've got my heartfelt thanks for everything you're doing to keep the next generation of drivers as safe as possible.

And for those that haven't signed up to the community, you'll.

You'll have had an email sign up and join the community and let's make it a really, really good driver Structure community where it's there and everyone's there to help everybody.

And it's like I say, the resources section have been added to all the time.

You should go and have a look at TikTok videos in the resources section.

I don't know, Kay, have you seen the TikTok videos yet?

Yeah, so I've seen some Paris's, they're really good.

I haven't been on for the last week.

Well, I've been trying to recover from the Intelligent Instructor Award in the last week.

I had a bit of a sore head.

That's quite understandable.

So, yeah, so thank you, Terry, as always.

And yeah, let's, let's work together to make a change.

And we can, if we all work together, we can make a change of that.

I am, that I am fairly confident.

Definitely you guys.

Thank you guys for joining me.

Thank you guys for listening.

Make sure you click subscribe and you can find links to everything we've spoke about today in the show.

Notes.