Hazard prediction takes centre stage in this lively discussion among Terry Cook, Tom Stenson, Kate Monk, and Olly Tayler, as they explore the vital role of anticipating potential dangers on the road.

They delve into the importance of training both new and experienced drivers to recognise hazards before they escalate, emphasising that proactive awareness can significantly reduce the risk of accidents.

The quartet highlight the necessity for instructors to foster a culture of vigilance, ensuring that learners build an "experience bank" to draw from. Through engaging commentary, driving demonstrations, and candid conversations, they aim to shift the focus from merely passing the driving test to mastering safe driving habits. Tune in for a fun yet informative journey that underscores the vital connection between hazard awareness and road safety!

Welcome to the latest driving instructor and Division Zero podcast, where we dive into all things road safety.

And this episode will be released to you on August 1st, aka Yorkshire Day.

So allow me to wish my contributors and happy Yorkshire.

First up, we're joined by the only member with a 100% attendance record, Mr. Ollie Taylor.

How are we today, Ollie?

I'm really good, thank you, Terry.

Oh, yes, all good today.

100% Attendance record.

I'll take that.

Yeah.

Only one.

We're also joined this month by this month's WhatsApp group chat suggestion maestro, Kate Monk.

How are we today, Kit?

I'm good, thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Always a pleasure.

And last, but by no means least, we are joined by the man who puts Tom in tomorrow, Mr. Tom Stenson.

How are we doing, Tom?

I'm very good, thank you, Terry.

And Dr. Waltz can't make it today, but I'm sure she's with us in spirit.

But we also joined, of course, by me, the true king of the North.

And if you're in doubt, check out my new Yorkshire history podcast.

Just saying.

But anyway, let's move on because we are here to talk road safety and we're going to be talking about hazard prediction today.

But there is a little bit of news.

One thing that you suggested, Ollie, was the Fink's blog around the drug driver campaign, specifically, kind of almost encouraging driving driving instructors to take a bit more of a leading role in this.

So, yeah, what, what are your thoughts on this?

Absolutely.

It made for interesting reading, I have to say, and drug driving is something that I've always had an interest in, particularly my previous life, only in as much as that.

It was a.

It was, it wasn't forgotten, it wasn't ignored, but it was very much second to drink driving.

And drug.

Drug driving historically was always very, very difficult to pick up.

Drink driving was always relatively straightforward.

You can smell alcohol on somebody, they usually give themselves away by their mannerisms, the way, the way, the way they're driving.

A lot of the time they tell that somebody's potentially in drink and then you pull them over, stop them, ask them to blow into the nice white tube and often as much, you'll get a result straight back, you know, within seconds as to whether or not they, they are under the influence of alcohol, which made life quite easy.

And obviously the campaigns, drink drive campaigns, very successful and a lot of people who were drink driving were being picked up.

But what the problem was was that an awful lot of people who were seen, if you like, were seen in their Manner of driving and the way in which they were presenting themselves was potentially alcohol related.

And they then blew into the magic box and it came back completely zero.

Historically there was actually very little to be done with them.

Very little.

It then turns out that a lot of those people were probably under the influence of drugs.

So when additional training came in, and I say recently, I say recently in the last 15, 20 years, maybe not quite that long in relation to sobriety, like the American sobriety tests.

And we all got trained in what they called field impairment testing.

Field impairment drug, drug, drug information recognition testing, drug impairment recognition testing, fit dirt testing.

And we used to have, we used to be able to do those on the roadside and put people through a whole series of challenges and tasks to establish whether or not they potentially into influence.

And if we thought they got to a certain point, they would then get arrested.

Then you have to go through the blood samples, they get sent off for analysis and all the shenanigans around that.

Then came the golden nugget.

They were the roadside drug tests.

So the road truck roadside drug saliva tests.

Very, very straightforward, extremely accurate in relation to the presence of specifically cocaine and cannabis.

And far, far more drivers were being picked up for drug driving, far, far more than they ever were because the police now had the ability to do it at the roadside.

So suddenly I think what it, what it did was it, it highlighted the, the extent of the problem.

Not necessarily, oh my God.

There's a huge increase in people drug driving.

Personally, I don't think there is an increase in people drug driving.

I think there's an increase in people being picked up for drug driving and drug driving offenses being identified.

Not necessarily an increase in the number.

I think there's always been a high number of people driving under the influence of drugs.

They've just not been picked up historically.

So driving instructors, absolutely.

There is a vital role to play in this process and that is to have honest conversations with students and pupils about drug driving.

Because drug use amongst the current generation in some respects is seen as socially acceptable and having a spliff with your mates is socially acceptable.

Shoving lines of white powder at your nose is seen as fairly socially acceptable in large number in large swathes of society.

And we're not just talking about one part of society, one particular group, we're talking right across the social spectrum here.

And you know, the availability of drugs, the general price of drugs has just made it, it's an endemic in.

Drug driving is a massive problem in this country at the moment.

Huge problem.

And I don't think people understand the risks associated with driving under influence of drugs.

Yes, Drink.

Absolutely.

There's been so much around that and so much publicity around that.

Drug driving, I don't think until now has been given the same airtime as drink driving.

I shall now climb off my soapbox.

Yeah.

I'd reiterate what Ollie is saying there.

When this came back up, I started seeing some more adverts for it.

And I like looking at the Think website.

I bought it up here just to give some of their statistics as well, which just shocks me, but also doesn't shock me.

And that was.

The young men are kind of at that pinnacle of perhaps drug driving.

So some of their statistics are that 41% of young men believe it's okay to drive after taking drugs if they feel fine.

And reported about 51% know someone who drives after taking drugs.

So I just think that is that they're so scary numbers that, as Ollie says, driving instructors, we can't necessarily change the behavior, but what we can do is have those coaching conversations with our learners and at least bring it to the forefront.

And obviously, every driving instructor is using the honest truth to introduce that.

But, yeah, we just should be having those conversations because if we can just get through to maybe one or two, well, those are better numbers.

Do you know what, Tom, though?

It's a good point, because I think as driving instructors, sometimes it's easy to look at some of the stuff that gets suggested that we do and think, right, we have to be experts in all of these things now.

So do we now have to understand every.

Everything to do with drugs and how it impacts us and what different drugs.

There are different categories and stuff like that, and it's where the honest truth comes in.

Because I don't think we do need to be experts.

I think that we just need to have a very kind of basic understanding of some of the dangers.

But even with those conversations, they're really uncomfortable, or rephrase that.

They can be really uncomfortable.

So I use the honest truth a lot of times to start that.

So is that what you do, Tom?

Use the honest truth to start that conversation?

Yes, But I think it's also.

And this is what I think the honest truth had really done for me was be able to allow me to identify opportunities to bring those conversations in.

I was in a training session this morning where there was a trainee and a learner, and the trainee was driving us to a practice area, and the learner mentioned about having passengers in the car.

So straight away I saw that as a great opportunity to talk to this learner about, you know, what friends have you got or what family do you not want as passengers in your car?

And the learner came out with one of the most amazing things and he said, yeah, I'm a bit nervous with my friends in the car because I very easily succumbed to peer pressure.

And I thought what a great thing for a 17 year old person to A recognize but B, to be able to say to somebody that they met five minutes ago.

So that was my way in for us to talk about and not being judgmental to him.

But so what are you going to do in those situations then?

You know, if you feel like you're being pressured to do something, what options have you got that you feel that you could, you could manage?

So I think looking for those opportunities is, is a key skill that we need as instructors and that's where things like the honest truth and my learner driver create that, that gateway to that conversation.

So yeah, so we're always very friendly on this with each other.

On the, on this podcast.

I'm actually going to, I'm going to disagree with Tom on this occasion on a comment he made.

So Tom, Tom made a comment around being able to affect behavior changes as driving instructors.

You know, it's about having those conversations opening up the debate about a topic.

I'm going to disagree with you, Tom.

I think as a driving instructor you absolutely have the ability to change behavior.

I really do.

So when you think about something like the, like the transtheoretical model for change, okay, so you're not looking.

So you've got quick contemplation, contemplation preparation, action and maintenance, basically as your, as the five stages of the theoretical transmitter model change.

Now you're highly unlikely to get somebody from pre contemplation up to maintenance.

That's highly unlikely.

But all you want to do as a driving instructor is to move somebody along that model for change one or two steps from wherever they are at their start point.

And by that, by just moving somebody along even one step along a model for change, you are changing behavior.

And as a driving instructor, you are in a unique position to be able to do that.

Because you can have honest, open conversations in the car in a safe environment.

You're, you're not a, you know, you're not a, you're not a cop, you're not a parent, you're not a teacher, you're not somebody who is an authoritarian, you're a friend, you're a confidant, you're you're trusted, you are trusted with that person, with that pupil.

And they are far more likely to open up to the idea of change and the idea of behavior change if the topic is approached in the right direction and is coached in the right way.

You just said we can't change everyone's behavior.

Oh, now you can change it.

Oh, you change.

I don't like the fact that you disagreed with me.

I felt bad.

Oh yeah.

Using Terry's rudimentary road safety scale there.

Is that what you're doing?

Taking someone from two to a four and a seven to a nine?

Yeah, exactly.

I just called it the Transdean Restorative Model for change.

That's all.

Exactly how you use that word.

Go for it.

Kate.

Sorry, I was going to say that the.

I don't really work with 17 year olds at the moment.

I've kind of my.

Because I've gone to automatic.

My clientele is a little bit older and I'm actually finding that we have more drug issues in that mid to late 20s range and early 30s, particularly in the men.

And they've got family responsibilities, they've got things going on with a bit more, you know, you'd think they'd have grown up by now.

And actually, obviously I know the Honest Truth videos word for word, which I pride myself on and I can regurgitate it in a more age appropriate way to those older learners and it really has created huge behavioral change and they've.

They've sort of not just decided to stop taking the drugs, but they've stepped up to take a little bit more responsibility overall to be able to look after the kids a little bit better.

That the license actually is the freedom that's the ticket to their children's future.

So it's not just a young person problem, is what I wanted to point out and that we can make behavioural change if we can have the right conversations, not necessarily fix everything, but at least raise that awareness and protect their licenses and protect their children.

Tom, I'm curious because you've been driving these trucks for a little while.

Have you had incidences where someone's come into the car clearly under the influence of drugs or potentially drink, but we're talking drugs and then you've had to deal with that.

Have you had those situations crop up and you want to tell us a little bit about one potentially of how you dealt with it?

If you have.

Well, I've had two actually and they were both young, so young 20s male and a 17 year old female.

And they both Absolutely stank.

When as a non, I'm a non smoker, I've never taken drugs.

I can smell it a mile off and so I generally let it be for five minutes before we even move the car just to see if it dissipates, if it's on their breath or just on their clothes.

And if I can still smell it after a few minutes I then will broach the topic and it's very uncomfortable and I have to say I'm really sorry, but I can smell it on you.

Just, just tell me about that.

What's, what's going on and on, on these two occasions it, it was parental drug use that was getting into their clothes and actually opened up a whole bag of worms with like safeguarding and a really quite a, quite a big problem for me.

But I ended up supporting them through quite difficult changes.

Both of these separate people.

And yeah, the smell was all.

Not necessarily them, but just people around them but still to be dealt with in a similar way because the, the effects they, they have, the smoke is obviously affecting other people as well.

What about you, Tom?

Yeah, I mean mine, mine are kind of the, the opposite side of that where it was the, the learner who was taking drugs.

They were open and honest about this and, and, and again this is my opinion.

I think what people do to themselves as long as it doesn't affect others, that's entirely up to them.

You know, lots of people drink alcohol and do crazy things and you know, but what they do is up to them.

But the fact that they were open and honest and that we could have that conversation about actually what people do behind closed doors is up to them.

But if they're driving under the influence of drugs, well actually that isn't just what they're doing behind closed doors has and can have an effect on other people.

And in the two main occasions that I'm thinking of, both of them were, I would say they were well aware of that.

Whether that changed post test, I don't know and I don't know whether they were just saying the right thing.

That will remain to be seen.

But I think, yeah, just that opportunity to have that conversation to be non judgmental and to see what people's views are, what their beliefs are, how they feel like that could affect other people is just such a great starting point.

And yeah, we, we definitely should be doing this to attempt to change people's behavior.

Nicely done.

I appreciate you guys sharing that.

I think I'm going to share my story just because it's the side of it, I'm gonna.

Which it was similar to Kate.

She'd come in smelling a weed, spoke about it Saddam and it's her partner's.

And I'm like, okay, well you can't drive kind of.

We spoke about it, we dug into why, we looked at whatnot.

But then I got quite excited because she said, oh well, could we, I've got like an hour or whatever it was scheduled.

Can we do some theory instead?

Like great, she wants to use her time.

Until I thought for a second I thought, hold on, she does stink a weed and she's going to be in my car.

And A, what happens if someone walks past and smells this driving and cuts through the car?

But B, also what happens after.

So if no one walks past and smells it, well, my next pupil gets in and it smells like this.

So I think that there's definitely the idea of, you know, we've got to look after his pupils and taunts them and help them understand the ramifications of what's taking place.

But I think we also need to make sure we keep an eye on ourselves in that as well.

So yeah, I thought I'll share that, but appreciate you guys sharing that.

So, yeah, that is the the Truck driving campaign from Think Encouraging Instructors.

I know I've said it already, but one more time.

The honest truth is a great place to start with these awkward conversations.

Two minute videos that work wonders.

So yeah, I'll include a link in the show notes as always.

But a little bit of other news.

The Ready to Pass campaign has made a few changes so I'm going to run through these briefly and then I'll open up to you guys to share some thoughts.

So first of all, they are changing some of the phrasing.

Not all, but some of the phrasing from passing the test to driving safely, which I find quite exciting.

Also offering advice on choosing an instructor and specifically talking about checking the badges in the window, making sure in driving has a badge, which I think is brilliant.

They've got all that on there.

There's a recommended learning sequence.

I'll be honest, I'm not as keen on that one.

But either way, reflective questions there for each skill and one that I find quite interesting and ask your instructor prompt for each skill as well.

So I think I'll come to you first on this, Tom, because a driving instructor, a driving school owner and vice chair of the ADI njc, you must be pleased to see these changes.

But what are your thoughts on them?

Could we have gone further?

Yes, I think we have to be happy that some changes in the right direction are being made.

I think it's very easy that we moan that it isn't the huge step forward that we want, but sometimes little steps, you know, like Tesco's, every little helps.

So, yeah, I think there are good things.

I agree with you.

I think having the suggested kind of sequence is not really my favourite thing.

I think having more information out there for learners to recognize that there needs to be a badge of some sort in the window if you are being charged money or money's worth for those lessons.

Because I think there has been more notice of illegal driving instruction and I think it is a very good step in the right direction that DVSA are accepting that coaching has its place because they're looking at reflective questions.

And that can only be a good thing for the industry because there's lots of evidence that suggests it's a great thing.

And on the sort of end of that, the more that learners can offer feedback to their driving instructors about what is working, what isn't working, what their thought process was, can only make driving instructors better as long as they've got this growth mindset.

So I think most of those are a positive.

They're not as big a leaps as I would like, but every little helps.

Although I'm yet to be seen or yet to be convinced with the suggestions of what to learn.

I've always loved the ready to pass campaign.

As you said, there's always room for improvement, but I just think it is a good resource.

And there's always been parts where I felt like that backers are driving instructors.

And I think that this goes even further because there's still a lot of instructors out there that don't believe in coaching.

You know, the get in car, I'll tell you until you can do the thing and then off you go.

And the argument they'll sometimes put up is, well, driving test dvsa.

Well, this is in the public domain, DVSA actively talking about reflective questions and stuff like that.

But maybe I'm just having a quick look, then maybe I'm being a tiny bit harsh when I talk about the recommended learning sequence, because even with maneuvers as an example, it's got them as skills 17 to 20, whereas control and position are skills five to seven.

And I've often done like turning the road very, very early on in lessons, not waiting until like 17, if using their skills example.

But that would come under control potentially, you know, so maybe there's room for this to overlap.

Maybe they have to just phrase it in a way that the public likes or can understand, I don't know.

But, Kate, what are your thoughts on this?

Well, quickly, on where you're using turning the road and things like reverse around the corner.

For me, in our local town, Oakhampton, there are no loops.

We don't have any roads that connect to other roads.

So we have to teach reverse around the corner on day one.

We have to teach turn in the road on day one.

And I think it's really valuable for control.

So I don't like there being a specific order for things because I definitely don't do things in the standard order.

And it works for me.

So whatever works for each, each instructor in the.

In their area, I think matters.

But overall, that I was really pleased to see that email come through because what it tells me is they're listening.

They're listening and they're starting to make changes.

For me, language matters.

Really important that we do start, you know, we can change attitudes with the language that is used.

So the reflective questions in there, that that skill is a safe driver.

If we can get a driver thinking about what they've done wrong, what they do differently when we're not sat with them, that's kind of the ultimate aim.

So the fact that they're embracing that and bringing that in, I was really pleased with.

Of course, I had suggestions.

I have said I sent them on to lots of people who will hopefully move them forward.

But things that I would love to see added are the, like, the show me tell me section, the tell me questions.

Tell me how you would deal with situation A, B, C. You know, driving at night, if you've got a friend in the car, drunk, as part of the driving test, as part of that theory, training, as part of ready to pass.

So that those conversations are happening without an instructor necessarily encouraging it, that they're already starting to happen as friendship groups.

I had lots of other ideas as well, which I've forwarded on.

But what I was really pleased to see that they are listening.

So perhaps they might listen to some of my suggestions.

It's really easy for us as instructors, and I'm guilty of this as much as anyone, to get into DBSA bashing, you know, because, let's face it, over the last few years, they've done a pretty crap job on a lot of stuff.

We can't hide from that.

But they are hampered in some areas and they're not making excuses.

They are hampered in some areas.

Legislation, although we've seen they can change legislation where they need to, but they don't have their hand tied in some areas.

They have to report to people they've had problems that have come up.

But I do genuinely think they listen.

I think they're just a political organization.

And when you want to change somebody, it can take 5, 6, 10 years to change somewhere.

You can't always do it as quick as you like.

So I do think they're listening.

And I've always liked, I say, the Reddit pass company, but not liked all of it.

But I'm curious, Ollie, as someone that isn't a driving instructor, what are your thoughts maybe on the Ready to pass campaign overall and these potential changes?

Terry I think overall it's a good thing.

I think it is a good thing.

And I think it's also encouraging that the DBSA are reviewing it.

So they're not just throwing something out there and then, and then leaving it.

They're looking at it and saying, okay, so let's have a review.

Let's see what is and isn't working.

And actually let's make some changes.

I'm never a fan of making changes for changes sake.

You know, changing the name of the driving test to, I mean, what you said it was to safer driving or drive safer or something, I'm like, really?

It's a driving test.

Everybody calls it a driving test.

You know, is there a real need to start changing things for the sake of names of things for sake of changing them?

And that's only goes back to 30 years as a police officer where we'd go round around in circles and you'd get the same thing.

Hence, you know, during my career, you know, there was some things that had about eight different names.

While I was, you know, throughout my 30 years policing, I was like that.

But it's still exactly the same as it was 30 years ago.

Why, why don't we change?

Anyway, by the by now, Kate's point about show me, tell me the show me, tell me questions.

Now, studies have shown and stats will tell us that collisions involving younger drivers aren't often down to skill, a lack of skill.

They are almost always down to attitude and behavior and a decision that's made, a poor decision that's made in the blink of an eye or the decision that's made sometime earlier.

So actually, for me, I think the Ready to pass campaign, if I had, you know, back to Tom's magic one we talked about a couple of episodes ago, is that having a much greater emphasis on the attitude and behavior side of driving.

Yes, the mechanical skill set Is vital.

Absolutely.

But actually, that whole mindset around driving and what would you do if and Kate, you know, drunk passengers in your car or you had a mate who encouraged you to drive faster or, you know, whatever it might be, is that there's an opportunity to make a real difference in the mindset and attitude of those people who are about to take a driving test.

I'm gonna slightly disagree with you, Ollie, on your language.

So the language around what they're calling it, it's moved from skills you need to pass your driving test to learning the skills you need to drive safely.

That for me is a huge step forward towards our test focused, whole industry.

Learners want a test, instructors want to pass through tests, train for test.

And actually what that's saying is, let's just forget the test for a minute.

You need to learn to drive safely first.

So the skills to drive safely matter more than the test.

It's a teeny, tiny change, but it is, you know, we want to change a culture here and a whole attitude towards the driving test.

And it is a.

It's a very teeny, tiny step in that right direction.

So that was my only correction for you.

Julie Noticed and taken on the chin.

I'm like, Tom, can I just say.

I agree with both of you.

Ever the Duke of Matt Colonel Tom.

I agree with you on that one, Kit.

And I think almost like we aimless at learners, obviously, when we're talking about that, but I think for instructors as well, you know, we kind of said it before that there's so many instructors out there that teach for a test.

And I'm sure now we're going to get to a point where there's some learners that see this online and go to their instructor and say, why are you teaching me this?

When it says this?

You know, and I think that's such a great thing.

And the negative is that there's so much.

Maybe we need to talk about this in more detail at some point, but there's so much poor social media out there talking about driving tests and learning to drive and that aspect of it that I'm sure you guys have this as well, that we get the learners coming to us seeing this because it's so clickbaity and we then have to work around that.

Whereas this, we've now got a tool of the organization that runs the driving test are saying this.

You know, there's things that work in our favor.

But no, I think that's a good thing.

I think we're all in agreement at least that it's definitely a good thing.

And steps in the right direction, which is good.

So let's move on to the main topic of today, which was your suggestion, Kay, which is hazard prediction.

So talk to me about hazard prediction.

Well, I quite like that.

Tom called it hazard anticipation.

It's taken away from the learners.

Thinking about older drivers who've made mistakes, crashed and come on our safe and considerate driving courses.

When we, I sort of look at the reasons people crash, the majority are people who just aren't looking where they're going or seeing what's in the road ahead.

So if we take it back to the learner stage, what aren't we teaching them as learners?

That means that they go out and stop thinking and stop processing and end up crashing as adults in whatever age.

They come back to us.

So I thought who better to run this by than the Ollie Taylor, obviously, who is the king of hazard perception or prediction or anticipation and Tom.

So, yeah, I have lots of things to know, but I'd love to hear what you guys say first.

Let's start with you first, Tom, because I know you need to, to nip off before long.

So share your thoughts on this.

What do you do?

I mean, I love this.

I think when, when Kate, you mentioned this, I thought this is, this is fantastic.

It's, it's right up my alley.

There's lots of good research that's come out of this from sort of the last 20 years.

And it was actually quite a few years ago, this was the first time or one of the first times I actually heard about error training as well because it was used within some of the research and a lot of the research that's come about sort of over the last 20 years shows a big, strong leap towards those drivers who have had training on anticipating and predicting hazards, even if they can't see them, have better outcomes after.

But what all the research has shown, and at the moment I've not found any, there is no research that has seen crash statistics after.

It is only things that they've used such as rapt, which is the risk awareness and perception training.

And a lot of this was used with sort of eye tracking and things like that.

So they found through most of the, the, the meta analysis was that they would track eye, eye movement before and after they've done this training and they found that the drivers were more aware of potential hazards that could crop up.

But I think even that is a strong indication of what we should be doing as driving instructors and trainers.

And I think what we can do and Some of the, some of the research did.

This was unlike the hazard perception videos.

I might show my learner a video and pause it at some point and ask them to predict or anticipate what they think might happen next, as opposed to watching it and going, oh, there was a car there.

Because yes, we're looking at that first part, which is I've identified a hazard, but what we're not doing is doing the whole of this hazard prediction, which is what could happen, what has happened, what am I going to do with these outcomes?

And that's really where we need to be kind of helping with our learners, showing them videos potentially or in real life training sessions.

Instead of asking my learner, what can they see ahead?

I might ask them that, what can't they see?

What do they think might happen?

Where would they look next?

Where do they think the hazard might come from?

So instead of just saying, what is the hazard?

Well, that's directing them directly to it.

I want them to think about those other factors which hopefully will improve their thought process of what potentially could happen.

And that's generally the thing.

As experienced drivers, we've had more experience, we've seen other things, we've catalogued it and thought, well, actually there is a high chance that might happen.

Where a novice driver, they've not experienced it, they think probably chances are that's not going to happen.

When I've had it happen to me five times just driving towards picking you up.

Fred, it's been more.

We move on to.

Ollie, I want to just ask you for your take on instructor driver training overall.

Do you think that, that, that hazard anticipation is something that instructors practice enough of because.

Oh, there we go.

Okay, what do we call it?

Ali Coyote.

We call the sniper.

There you go.

Problem solved.

Do we.

One word answer again.

Do we need to do more of it?

Absolutely, yes.

Ollie, Kate referred to you as, I think, the hazard perception, hazard prediction, hazard anticipation.

King, what are your thoughts on this?

I'll take that, Kate.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I've been very fortunate in as much as a.

A former police advanced driver and advanced motorcyclist, I had the benefit of going and undertaking some incredible driving courses while I was still serving some amazing course.

Some of the best courses I did and it was those driving courses that taught me how much I didn't know.

And I have remained some of the stuff I was taught in this driving because a lot of the stuff I was taught in the driving courses, I, I have remained and I practice every single day when I go out driving.

Now Tom will be well aware after a little project we got involved in last year, the, the whole idea of, and I still really like the idea of we look but do we see.

And this is whole idea that you know, everybody looks at things on the road but actually do they read those things on the road.

And for me there is so much stuff out there that you can use to reasonably predict what is going to happen next.

Exactly as Tom was saying.

I learned it in a slightly different way Tom.

I learned it in a four step process and this is still a process I use and it goes around in my head when I'm out driving.

Every time I go out driving this same four, four step process and it's what can I see, what can't I see, what kind of reason we expect to happen next and what am I going to do if things turn out differently to the way I expect?

What's my contingency plan, what's my plan B?

And that just ticks around the top of my head all the time.

And I, when I go out driving I, I still, you know, it's a game I play with myself and it's all about can I reasonably predict what's coming up next by looking at what's around me?

Not just looking two foot, three foot front of a bonnet, but it's almost like a, I liken it to.

We're all old enough in this, in this, this particular forum to have remembered Kit Knight Rider on kit in the 80s.

Kit was there with the Kit red light.

Apart from Kate who's far too young obviously I can see her laughing at me and Kit's red light going backs and forwards across the, across the, the, the front of the car.

And for me hazard anticipation is being like hit and it's, it's scanning your environment all the time as far ahead as you can see it at that moment in time and then coming back to the far ground, the middle ground, the foreground, but also side to side.

So depending on what road you're on or what type of road you're on will be how far those observations will be thrown ahead of you.

Dual multi lane character got to be much, much far further ahead of you because of the speeds that are involved.

And you often find that the, the sight lines are better.

Looking through bends, looking through the next three or four bends, looking as far ahead as you can but also then bringing it back and looking at what's in the middle ground and the foreground and down the side.

It's almost like a pinball machine, watching that pinball come down and down and down, not forgetting what's behind you, what's coming up behind me because the amount of times that I've been on blue light runs, on multi lane carriageways, busy two lane, three lane carriageways and I've sat behind somebody, I kid you not, I've sat behind people with, in a big marked traffic car, all the lights going, all the sirens going for four or five miles and they just haven't looked in their mirror once in that time.

Bear in mind there's a massive great traffic to car.

Sapien would really like to get past them and, and it's all about looking for those, looking for the little things.

So looking for the paint on the road, looking for the unusual signage, looking for, you know, there was what I was thinking about this afternoon before we started, this was one that I'll never forget was the shape of the trees.

It was a road we turned onto, on a driving course and we turned onto a road off.

It was up in Somerset and we turned onto a, it was an A road.

It's quite a small A road.

The driving instructor, I was driving and the driving instructor said to me, he said, right, what can we really expect to find on this road?

And I was like, I haven't got a Scooby, haven't got a clue.

He said look around you.

And suddenly it fell into place and I looked at the trees and the trees had almost a squared off shape to them.

That was because that road was well used by HGVs and the HGVs cause the vegetation to grow in a certain way.

And until I'd, and every time I see that now, I'm instantly reminded about that there's going to be HGVs on this road.

I can really expect them to be on this road.

They're going to be coming over the white line.

So it's all about.

And for driving instructors, Terry, it's about looking beyond the obvious, starting to think about getting students, getting your pupils to look for those little clues out there that can give you a really good idea as to what you can reasonably expect to happen next.

And I've, you know, I won't go into it, we'll be here all day.

There's some really, really good examples as I've been out doing driving assessments for another part of the work that I do.

And even people who've been driving for many, many years have come back and said, oh my God, I had absolutely no idea there was that much stuff out there to see.

I Said it's all there for you to see.

Nothing's hidden.

You just got to.

It's.

It's not that you haven't seen it, because you've seen exactly the same things I've seen.

I've just interpreted them in a different way.

Through experience and practice, I've interpreted what I've seen and what you've seen in a different way.

To be able to make a reasonable assumption as to what I can.

What I can expect to happen in the next five to ten seconds, in the next hundred yards, 500 yards was all about predicting the future.

I look at it about predicting the future.

When you're driving, it's a great game to play and a really good game to play for instructors to play with the students.

It's brilliant.

Tom.

Oh, sorry.

I. I just wanted to quickly add in because as Ollie was talking it.

It popped into my mind.

I saw a video this week, last week, actually, from a driving instructor who posts quite regularly on social media.

And we obviously know that, that that information must be gospel.

And the.

The video was about this, this instructor telling the learner that they shouldn't be looking at hazards.

The hazards should always be in their peripheral vision.

They should always be staring at the space available.

And it frustrated me so much that even.

And I tried to think, how could I have misinterpreted that information?

Were they trying to give me the correct information?

I've misinterpreted it, and I cannot work out how that would benefit any driver to just use your peripheral vision.

Considering that there is hundreds of years worth of research on how our eyes work and how our brain uses that information, and for the likes of Ollie and all the other advanced drivers and all the information and research that we have from eye tracking for people to be out there giving their opinion instead of what's based on actual evidence.

And this is where driving instructors need to kind of pick themselves up a little bit.

And the comment that you made, ollie, which I 100% agree with, is that driving instructors need to be getting their learners to do it.

My issue with that is if driving instructors don't do it, they're not going to be able to teach it or they're going to find it much harder to teach it.

I will just say, before you come into this, Kate, and I may put the video out for this because it amuses me greatly.

As you were describing that, Tom.

The expression that the three of us pull at the exact same time was amazing.

Sorry, Kate Godfrey.

That's okay.

Yeah, I completely echo what you say there, Tom, obviously I was looking in horror as you were saying that working with Neil, I'm have.

It's like having my own personal CPD every time I speak to him.

It's amazing.

So I'm learning lots and lots about research and evidence and things.

And the latest slides that he's put out are the accident liability by age and driving experience.

So what it ultimately says that it doesn't really matter what age you pass your test, that you're at the same sort of high risk phase.

The day that you pass your test it's slightly lower for the 6 year olds versus the 17 year olds.

But what doesn't change is that that risk drops, completely drops within that first 12 months.

So it doesn't matter how old you are when you learn those risks literally do a straight line down to really, really low risk within 12 months.

So, so what is it that's happening within 12 months for all drivers of passing their test that they're suddenly then doing that's keeping them safe?

And I, part of his other research is the skin, the sweat response.

So he skin conduct, skin conductance hazard perception study.

I'm no scientist so I just, I just look at the pretty pictures and try and make sense of them.

But the graph that I've always referred back to is the one where he's got two female learners age 20 year old, one's experienced, she's been driving for three years, one's a learner driver and the hazard sort of there's a car pulling out from the side road, the experienced driver kind of gets that spidey tingly sense, anticipates that that hazard's going to come and they get the sweat response that can be measured.

When the car actually then pulls out, they get a huge reaction, they do the right thing, they slam their brakes on and you know, problem is avoided.

The learner driver who has, you know, no, very little experience, just that's a flatline response, there is no reaction, there's no spider tingly sense, there's not even a reaction when the hazard's happening.

It's not until after that they start to get some sort of skin response.

And what that tells us is that they aren't seeing.

And when they're not seeing, obviously they're not reacting.

Put that into the importance of hazard prediction training.

If we don't teach them to do that, they're just not going to react in the way that we want them to.

And then we look at the other graph and think, well if they're all passing their tests and at really, really high risk and they're learning on as they go within that first year.

Why on earth as an industry are we letting people pass their test at such high risk when we could have done all that hazard perception and prediction training prior to that so that they're hitting the ground at test ready day at that lower risk level because they can already do it.

I think the last slide that he very kindly provided me as well was on the graduated driving license.

Obviously that's a whole other topic.

But what we can do alongside to support a graduated driving license and what actually works, we've got things like the parent care interventions, the resilience training within schools, telematics, black boxes, more on the road like the minimum learner learning period practice, more varied practice on the road.

But one of the biggest ones, the most reliable ones is evidence based and backed that has a perception training really, really reduces the crash.

It gives people the skills to avoid and predict those crashes from happening.

So the evidence is there to say we need to do more of this.

The question is how as instructors can we upskill instructors?

Should we all become Rossper everybody to then be able to pass that on to the learners before they take their test over to the next person.

I just want you to come in next Tom, just because I'm sure you'll need to disappear in a minute.

So yeah, I am.

I'm going to go.

I mean this is from a purely kind of personal thing.

It would be good to find out Kate, because as I said earlier, I'm yet to find any research that's been done actually on post test collisions of whether it is reducing it or not.

I mean all the numbers suggests that it would but I'm yet to find any actual kind of research that has done that.

So it'd be good if you could ask Neil if he's.

If he's got any or if he could kind of point me in the right direction of that because obviously as a layman I can only search a certain amount of this information on the Internet.

But I'm going to take that opportunity just to say thank you for having me but I do have to leave because some of us have to work for a living.

Do you want to take a moment to remind people where they can find you?

They can find me on these episodes or they can find [email protected] where you can contact me through there.

And obviously when you leave all the listeners will leave as well because you are indeed the star of the show.

So bugger off.

And Ollie, I believe you want me to come in next.

No, I had a question.

I had a question for your listeners really well, and for both you and you and Kate as well, to be honest with you.

And Tom hadn't even bothered to stay.

Lack of moral fiber and all that.

Only kidding.

Tom, you're listening back to this.

Is that when you think about hazard anticipation training, hazard perception training, do you start it before the car has even moved off?

And I'll tell you the question is, at what point do you start to do that?

Do you start to do that when hazards are starting to appear?

Or do you think about potential hazards before you've even moved off, on, on your drive?

Now, by that, when I go out driving, I'm looking at.

I'm looking at the weather.

So what's the weather doing?

Because the weather is going to have an impact on the hazards I'm likely to find out there while I'm driving.

If it's a sunny day, what is the position of the sun?

Is it high in the sky, is it low in the sky?

If it's one, end of the day, the other, am I going to be driving into the sun at any point?

Therefore, do I need to make sure I've got my sunglasses with me to ensure that if I am going to be driving into the sun or turning into the sun at any point, I'm not blinded by the sun.

So I think, right, where's the sun at the moment?

I look at the time of day.

So I think to myself, right, what time of day is it?

Is it school run time, morning or afternoon?

If it is, what hazards am I going to encounter?

Depending on the route where I'm driving, what route I'm driving, Am I going to encounter people going to and from school?

Am I going to encounter school kids at the end of the day that have been pent up, have been caught up in classrooms all day and are now bouncing around the road like Tasmanian devils, pushing each other and having a jolly time?

Is it the morning?

Is it likely to be delivery time?

Are there, is it bin day?

Is it bin day where I'm going to be?

Are the bins out?

Is there going to be a bin lorry stuck in my way somewhere?

Is it lunchtime?

Are there going to be people out who come out of their offices who've gone to get something for lunch?

Are they going to, is it the early evening?

People come home from work, are they going to be out walking their dogs?

So I'm thinking about all these things before I've even turned the initial and put the car on.

So for me, hazard anticipation and hazard prediction starts before my wheels even start rolling.

Because there's an awful lot I can start to get into my plan, my driving plan just by thinking about weather, some position, time of day and other bits and pieces like that.

And already you've made a real inroad into what am I likely to expect and what can I really expect to find while I'm out there?

Well, I think I'm going to give you a few examples and I think the answer is it depends for me at least.

And one of the things I love the most genuinely is when I get a pupil or message me before a lesson.

Now that could be an hour before, it could be a couple of days before.

And they'll tell me about something that's going on in their area.

You know, they'll tell me about some roadworks that have cropped up or there's a, like I live near Bradford City center, there's often parades there.

So they'll tell me about stuff like this.

So they're anticipating potential hazards.

But you know, things that are going that area even before the lessons died.

And I think these are, these people are going to be driving and they're going to be taking this into consideration when they're driving.

In fact, they're doing that my job for me because the, that they're doing that before they even get in the car, nevermind the hazard perception before the world starts moving.

But in terms of what I do with the pupils, there's always elements of that.

So there'll always be some kind of hazard prediction prior to the wheels moving.

But I think a lot of that depends on what's going on and what it is.

So sometimes it might be a brief conversation, just a few minutes to, to look at what's going on and then kind of make a start.

But I often find for me that when there's something unique, so if a learner regularly has a lesson at a similar sort of time, but then we change the time, that's a great opportunity to talk about how the driving scenario might be different.

To talk about how you alluded to the position of the sun would be different, you know, or how dark is it going to get dark when we're driving mill to talk about those potential changes.

So when something I shouldn't say unique, but something less common to that lesson occurs, we can be at side of road for quite a long time talking through that stuff beforehand or during the lesson.

But when it's something that may be a bit more familiar, we will still discuss it.

We'll get in the car and we'll talk about the potential things coming up.

But it's maybe a bit more just an assessment before we set off for having an in depth conversation, if that makes sense here.

Are you similar to that or is there something different?

Yeah, I think so in context around here and Ollie will know it well, being from Devon as well is it's summer now.

It's silly season that every, every single lesson we go out on we have to look at the traffic, we have to look at the dual carriageways and just make an assessment of where is safe to go, where is sensible to go, where to avoid.

How are people going to be driving?

I think with, with teaching someone to drive, we share responsibility.

So in the early days these learners can't necessarily process the level of thinking that we're asking them to with the hazard prediction training.

So it might be that we, with that share of responsibility that I do more of that thinking for them and tell them and talk them through the risks while they are dealing with the basic car control and learning that as that process continues and they get more competent and able to just be able to cope with moving the car, we then start threading in that sort of panning over the responsibility as such that actually, okay, today so you're able to steer in a straight line today and you know how to use your clutch.

Let's add in the next thing.

So we, I wouldn't say I throw it in right from day one from the off because it can create overwhelm, especially with some of the more anxious learners.

But it's definitely something we build up to, to my lesson yesterday where I've, I've been teaching her for a very long time and for 45 minutes she drove totally on her own and she was, we were on really tight little lanes and she was trying to get all her positioning correct on the wider lanes and then meeting lorries and she did the whole thing herself beautifully and she read it perfectly.

I think you will get there eventually, but perhaps not from the off in the early lessons.

Yeah, absolutely, you're absolutely right.

And you know, you wouldn't expect them to have that level of awareness and knowledge of less than 1.

But I was just.

I think my question was one of curiosity as to how instructors approach hazard anticipation as a topic within lessons.

And it's interesting to see how you and Terry, you know, have approached it.

And it comes as absolutely no Surprise, you know, slightly different approaches from both of you, but no surprise whatsoever, knowing you as I do.

But I just wonder how many instructors do it the same way and how many, you know, are actually putting, putting the emphasis that's needed into what, what is out there we can use to help us predict hazards.

And there is so much stuff out there and it's just the things that, things that are going to be fixed.

There are fixed things out there, lamp posts, hedgerows, you know, these sorts of things.

But then there's the, the things that you will come across, the things that you'll come across that you'll be able to look at and go, having looked at that, I can reasonably predict what's going to happen in the next 10 seconds by that, by what I've seen, by interpreting what I've seen in a way that maybe others don't.

And there's so many examples of that that I've used over the years that, you know, two people look at the same, exactly the same scene in front of them.

And depending on how your brain's wired for driving, you'll look at it in two completely different ways.

You'll still see the same things, still see exactly the same thing.

You just look at it in a completely different way.

And one way you go, I can redo visit what's going to happen next.

And the other way is going to be, well, I'm just going to carry on driving and keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best.

Yeah, I mean, I definitely with, with those who are capable of that extra thinking, it's, it's a.

Before the wheels move and they'll spot things like the bin lorry potentially going to be in an area and that especially around here, because if the bin lorry isn't certain roads, we literally will get stuck 30 minutes behind it.

So it's quite important that we know what's going on around so we don't completely ruin our lesson.

Something I wanted to say was, I call it an experience bank, your hazard prediction training.

It's.

You don't necessarily, you don't know what you don't know.

You don't necessarily understand that something's going to happen because you've never seen it happen before.

And it takes all of those little teeny experiences building up in that bank to get a driver who can put all of those dots together.

And with my learner driver, a big reason for doing it was to try and get parents starting that stop, building that experience bank, because obviously they're out in the car from day.com.

If the parents could demonstrate and show them each of those little dangerous things, each of those little risks that crop up and they can sort of point it out and apply it to that new driver.

Or even before they start driving, we start building the experience banks.

By the time they actually get in the car, they can.

They've got it.

They kind of put those little dots together.

I think it's absolutely vital to get someone who can think things through straight away, and we kind of avoid that huge risk to no risk in the first 12 months.

I'm curious if this is something that you come across or if this is something you agree with, because I think this applies to both instructors and pupils as well.

It's something that I see that has a prediction whether it's before the wheels are moving at side, at road, whether it's while you're driving.

I think to people that don't do it very well or don't intensively.

Intensively.

That's the wrong word.

Intentionally do it.

It feels like more work.

I think that's how a lot of people view it.

This feels like extra work.

But what they don't realize is it makes driving easier.

So putting that work in initially of learning how to do it and then doing it actually just makes driving so much easier and more pleasant.

And that's kind of where I feel the resistance from it.

And same with instructors.

Instructors teaching, that feels like more work, but they don't necessarily always realize that it's gonna help create better drivers, safer drivers, and it actually help people pass a driving test.

Is that something you come across as well?

Absolutely, yeah, very much so.

I guess I'm lucky in this area because we are so rural and so many mad things do happen.

That for me, I know, and our local instructors, we have to, because lessons are so varied.

But for those who live in the city, I definitely notice it's a little bit different.

I don't like to say instructors want to do the bare minimum because that puts everyone to disservice, but there are instructors who don't want to go above and beyond in their lessons.

And there are learners who don't want to go above and beyond in their lessons as much as there are some instructors who will, and they just want to get through that test.

And because.

Well, it's not specifically on the test that has a prediction training, they're not questioning it.

That's where I'd like to see a little bit more of the.

Show me, tell me, tell me what you would do in this imaginary situation, because that's just going to encourage everyone to talk about it, I think until it features more in a, in a test, I can't see people jumping to do it, even though it's the right thing to do and for the good of the people passing.

No, my.

I guess my face is a little bit low.

Please make me feel better about that.

It's interesting though, you mentioned about being rural then, because I live kind of almost like the border between Leeds and Bradford and both cities have got different reputations.

You know when you're in Leeds and you've got a learner in Leeds and say, right, we're going to go to Bradford, they have a very different reaction to when I got someone from Bradford saying we're going to Leeds.

And it's fascinating seeing how someone that has been trained up in that Leeds area and you take them to Bradford city centre, how they have to handle the different hazards that occur there.

But Ollie, I wanted just to come to you with this a little bit because I'm intrigued on your thoughts on this because stepping away from learners for a second and looking at drivers, experienced drivers, and how lacking their planning and their hazard awareness can be.

One of the things that you and I have spoken about a little bit is the idea of me coming to you for some training, which we've spoken about recently.

I'm keen to do, obviously, the MARVEL that is Mr. Ollie Taylor.

But one of the reasons why I want to do that is I've recognized a little flaw creeping into my own driving and it's focus.

So while the hazard prediction and the planning aspect may be there, I'm noticing that my focus and my attentiveness of driving is starting to wane.

I'm having to catch myself and come back now.

That's human.

You know, it's very difficult to stay like fully attentive to someone for two hours.

It's gonna come.

But I've noticed this bit more than usual.

So I'm curious if that's potentially the problem with.

Or license holders, if you like, that they don't notice when the driving is starting to have this weak point and therefore they don't try and fix it.

Do you think that's one of the problems that's out there?

I think there are a number of problems out there, Terry, with the, what I call the lost generation.

The lost generation of drivers.

And that is the vast majority of drivers.

You know, there are a lot of.

A lot of examples of Paul driving on the UK roads.

As instructors, you'll See them every single day.

And there's, there's an.

For me, there's a number of reasons behind it.

One is lock, is, is loss of focus, exactly as you say is.

People become, people become complacent.

And with complacency will come loss of focus.

Because if you've done the same thing 20 times, a hundred times, 200 times, and it's always have the same outcome, why should this time be any different?

So actually I don't really need to think about what I'm doing behind the wheel because I'm very familiar with this piece of road.

I can know exactly where all the lumps and bumps and corners are.

And the same thing happened every time I've driven it.

So nothing, nothing's going to change.

You'll then not expect in the unexpected.

When the unexpected does happen, it all goes bending.

That's when collisions occur.

But I think people, they want, they become complacent.

And two, they also feel that they are immune from anything in their little steel boxes.

I'm in my little steel box.

I'm protected by, you know, a couple of mil of steel and a seat belt and some airbags.

Therefore nothing bad's going to happen.

But the problem is, is that things go wrong when people least expect it, in the blink of an eye.

And by the time something starts to go wrong, it's too late.

Because, you know, whether they could have foreseen it or not, that's, it's gone at that point.

Whereas so many things can be foreseen if you just have, if you just look, you can honestly predict so much stuff when you're out on the road.

And Kate's point around, yes, it's more work.

Kate, you're absolutely right.

I totally agree with you for both drivers and for instructors.

But if it's something you practice every day, even when you're not teaching and you're practicing yourself in the car, like I do every day when I go out, I do the same.

It becomes second nature.

You can rewire your brain.

My brain has been completely rewired as far as driving goes.

And yes, I had the very fortunate to have all the training I had and to be able to practice that craft every day, day in and day out, and do high speed blue light runs pretty much every day.

So I was in a very fortunate position that my rewiring was actually a relatively easy process.

But I've done it for so long now, it is completely second nature.

I don't really have to think about it and I can process Potential and possible hazards very, very quickly and decide, is that something I'm going to need to deal with because of the fact of the way of how I've driven over the years in my professional life?

So it's, it's something that you can absolutely learn, anybody can learn.

This doesn't.

You don't have to.

You just have to be able to observe a pair of eyes and the brain to be able to process that information.

That's all you need.

And you can train yourself to pro, to process it pretty quickly and to spot those little things that very, very, very few other people spot.

Well, you know, I say they spot them, they may spot those things, but it's understanding how that fits into the bigger picture.

How does that lady walking the dog on the offside of a country lane, giving the dog a little bit of a tug into herself, having not looked back at you, and she's halfway around the left hand bend, what does that mean to me?

Well, that means there's a car coming towards me.

There's a vehicle coming towards me.

Absolutely, because she's instinctively just tucked the dog in against her, but it shifted.

It's not to do with me because she didn't look back at me.

So I know it's nothing to do with me.

I can't see around the corner.

She can, she can see around that corner.

So I see that and I go, there's a vehicle coming towards me.

I'm going to a narrow spot.

I'm going to hold here till that vehicle appears.

Lo and behold, three or four seconds later, there you go, a vehicle's just appeared.

Because that lady and her dog told me to expect that vehicle to come.

But how many people realistically would see that and go, there's a vehicle come towards me.

That's an actual example.

That was one.

I was out on an assessment and I told, I told the person I was on assessment with, hold here, there's a vehicle coming towards us.

And they looked at me somewhat blankly and said, where?

I said, I can't see it yet, but it's on its way.

And they said, how on earth you know it's on its way.

So the vehicle then came into view and they looked at me and said, how on earth you know that vehicle's coming towards us?

I said, you tell me, talk me through what you saw.

They saw exactly the same thing I did.

They hadn't made the connection and they hadn't looked at that in a different way and gone, there's a reason that lady's done that that's not just because she fancied doing it.

There was a very specific reason for it.

These are the things that I'm talking about.

But my, my experience and my years of doing it has meant that I can look at that one thing in a slightly different way.

But anybody can do that.

Anybody can.

I think as instructors we, we have to be ahead of the learner generally.

We have to see the risks before we go into the risks so that we can then watch to see if our learners are assessing the risk to then take action to stop them from actually killing us.

So instructors in theory are quite well versed in spotting things early.

Something I use in lessons that works really nicely is a proper commentary drive demonstration.

So it might be that we go for 10 minutes where I drive and just say everything that I'm seeing and everything I'm thinking and doing and anticipating.

And it generally the learners are really, really, they obviously enjoy it, but they learn so much from it and they're like, oh God, if, if I could drive like that, it would just be so much easier, make it look so easy.

So I think, and I don't think demonstration is used anywhere near enough because learners feel they want to be on the road driving must be driving to be learning.

And they don't realize that a lot of that learning can happen in the passenger side.

The risk of getting parents to do it is that parents obviously don't drive as nicely as we do.

So getting them to demo drive it, they need training first as well, which is where that working with parents before you go out with a learner to get the parents skills up a little bit.

So when they do their demonstration drives, the learners can learn something from them too.

But yeah, try and use more demos in your driving would be my, in your lessons would be my biggest suggestion.

Commentary driving is great.

It's so, so good.

And I do, I use that all the time.

If I'm doing out, going out doing driving assessments with people, I will quite often sit in the passenger seat and say, right, just listen to what I'm going to talk about.

I'm going to talk as if I was driving now.

And I want you to look at and see if you have seen the same things I've seen at the same time or not.

And then you'll be surprised.

You'll do that for 10, 15 minutes.

You pull out and have a quick debrief and they'll go, I didn't see half of things you saw, not until you spotted them.

And then I saw, I've seen half those things.

I said, that's fine.

But now, you know, the sorts of things to look for.

That's, you know, and that's the whole.

This is the whole point of, you know, and this is this, this whole lost generation of drivers we've got.

They do not look.

They.

They're looking but they're not seeing and then certainly not scanning their environment.

They, you know, they are complacent.

Then they assume they know what's going to happen because it's always happened the same way.

And they take chances, especially out the motorways.

Oh, my lordy Lord.

Motorway driving at the moment in this country is appalling.

Just really, it's.

People just don't look.

They have no idea what's going on up ahead of them and they certainly don't see banks with big red brake lights up ahead of them.

Hence you see big clouds of black smoke coming off tyres as people suddenly look up.

Probably been looking at their phone or, you know, in a daydream or thinking about them, but not focusing on the task in hand.

And that's where a lot of the problems occur.

Focus, distract them being distracted by whatever they've been distracted by.

They're not having their focus on that task in hand.

And this is where a lot of our problems are coming from.

A lot of our problems.

I'm going to say that that's why I. Delta Cup.

I don't think I am.

I think it's just a slight counter, counter view on that because one of the.

We've got to be honest about this stuff and it's hard to look into places at once.

So if you use your example of the motorway, Ollie, you know, if we're looking ahead, we look at the sign to see which lane to be in while we're looking there someone, there could be a car in the right hand lane that just shifts position slightly, which if we happen to be looking ahead, we would have seen in our peripheral and then we're ready for it.

And the reason I'm saying that, from my experience and your guys, I'm sure I'll appreciate as well, people are very quick to find excuses and we could be doing a commentary drive or whatever it is we're doing and someone could say, well, I wouldn't have seen that because I was looking over here, which is a lot of the time a perfectly acceptable answer.

But I suppose the difference is if you are consistently scanning, you're going to see an awful lot more.

If you're consistently planning, you're going to See an awful lot more.

It might be impossible to see 100% of everything because you can't look in your left mirror whilst you're looking in your right mirror, you know, but the more you can scan and the more that you can take in, the less chance you've got of missing anything and the more chance you've got of spotting more.

One of the questions I like to use is which hazards will you prioritize?

So we're encouraging them to look for all of them and then choose the one that poses the biggest risk.

And it kind of helps avoid that focus slipping to that bit over there that we, yeah, we need to know is there, but we've got to keep looking at the other things as well and then choose what matters most in that moment.

And that's a really good point, Kate.

And that's exactly what I do when I'm out driving.

I prioritize the hazards.

So I will look at what the hazards I've got coming up are and I will think right, you know, and when I'm out with people doing assessments, I say what I look for.

I look for the next person who is going to royally screw up my day that I'm going to deal with first.

Then I'll deal with the rest of the, you know, the rest of them.

But that person that I can see that's it's got the highest potential to screw up my day.

That's my big, that's my, that's my priority at that moment in time.

And what you say, Terry, about scanning that, constant scanning?

Yes.

When you get used to it and you, you get a rhythm for scanning, it becomes a lot easier.

And you can pick up so much more by constantly scanning and having that far ground, middle ground, foreground background and just literally backwards and forwards, just gently backwards and forwards, picking out those hazards, picking out the most priority hazards, focusing on that until that no longer becomes a hazard.

Right, that's not a hazard anymore.

I've dealt with it, I passed it.

That's in the background.

Forget about it, let's move on to the next one.

And it might be that you're actually identifying and prioritizing multiple hazards at once, especially on faster roads.

On multi lane carriageways, you're dealing with numerous hazards, but again, with a bit of practice, you can start to thin the hazards out and look at the ones that aren't going to be, aren't going to be a priority to you.

I can put them to one side, I can deal with the most, the priority ones and you can see those subtle movements in people's driving as well.

You think, you know, you say about great example I had done just recently driving at the M5, and I'm in lane two and I can see in lane one there's an HGV and there's a van behind the HGV in lane one.

And I look at the van, there's not much else around me.

I look at the van and I think that van is gaining on that hgb.

They're going to want to overtake that shortly.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go out into lane three early.

Lane three is clear at the moment.

I know they're going to come into lane two, so I'm going to move out into lane through that's left, lane two clear for them, literally, as I've got four wheels into lane three than one indicator into lane two.

Well, that's fine.

I predicted it, I was expecting it, I was ready for it.

Happy days.

Previous past Savannah, lane three, back into lane two, back into lane one.

But that was because I was constantly scanning and I'm looking for these clues and signs that are going to help me build my driving plan.

So looking at other drivers for me is a really big part of how I plan my drive.

Often as not, it's the stupid things they're doing and I just want to get past them as quickly as possible and put them, put them in my rearview mirror, to be fair.

But they can provide, other drivers can provide a wealth of information that can help you plan your own drive safely.

Just the far mid, near rear routine I work up to.

But before we start on that with learners, I get them to grade their view.

So the bonnet being zero, the absolute furthest thing they can see in the road ahead is 10.

Where are they looking as they drive along on average?

Because in the earlier days it does tend to be sort of the three, the four, the five, maybe if we're lucky and we're getting all this wibbly, wobbly steering and they can't quite hold their position in the road and they're not seeing the hazards and they're trying to encourage them to get up to that sort of, where's 10?

What can you see at 10 before we move into the far mid, near rear?

And it fixes a multitude of other problems.

Once their eyes are up, they're starting to relax a little bit.

Their sitting position is better.

They've got a better view out of their mirror.

They're not sort of looking down as much.

It's more that they're looking out and ahead, but that helps with their peripheral finding those markers to keep them within the road.

And then obviously they're able to look at that furthest point and then we introduce the far mid, near rear, the scanning back and looking behind.

So there are steps to get up to that point and I think it's really important that when you've got a learner who's not doing what you think they should be doing, though they're clearly not seeing the things ahead.

They probably aren't seeing the things ahead and maybe they can't hold their position in the road.

It's probably to do with where they're looking and where their eyes are returning to.

We want them returning to 10 that, that furthest point.

They can see the limit point but with some learners it's going to be five or six and it might be they don't want to go any fast and they're scared of speed and that's probably because they're looking at the road racing at them rather than the furthest point where the road then doesn't feel quite so fast.

So it fixes a whole multitude of other problems as well as has a prediction.

Nice going to share two examples because Ollie, you mentioned Night Rider earlier.

I actually spoke about Knight Rider on a lesson recently.

A few.

Paul was talking about it.

There's this one scene, I don't know why but it stuck in my head, which was Michael Knight was having a power nap in the car while Kit was obviously driving speeding.

Police car comes behind him, pulls him over and Kit tells him to pretend to be deaf, basically so then he wouldn't have heard the police car sirens.

And the cop said to him, can advise you to check your mirrors more often.

You'd have seen me.

And he has slowed down.

And it just was an interesting point talking to that particular pupil because I kind of raised it.

He's like, oh yeah, because I can spot for these cars in my mirrors as well.

Yes.

And you said, Ollie, before about the queue when you were following that, that,.

That car that time.

But the other one specifically with planning.

I've used this example a few times on, on lessons is Final Destination.

When you think of the film Final Destination, there's a couple where there've been quite bad car crashes and you can kind of see these series of events where one thing had led to this crash and it's like if any of those one things had been different, if one of the drivers had seen one of those things and changed what they're doing.

All right, that'll spoil the film.

But if they change what they're doing, then that crash would have been avoided.

So like you guys have said, you know, we scan, we plan, we rank as hazards, but it might be that we miss one because we're looking here, but because we've seen here, we're still covered.

Because it then it stops it from being, you know, a disaster and becomes just a.

A small problem rather than a big problem.

Or it gives us time to think or time to plan or just makes us more aware.

So just on that note, thinking you fault planning.

No one queues up behind a log truck anymore because of that film.

So planning definitely can work for anyone.

Is there anything either of you two like to chip in before I raffle?

No, I think you've kind of messed that off, to be honest, Terry.

I don't think so, other than let's please do more of it and encourage parents to start doing it properly, Give them a helping hand if they need to and start getting them doing at home between lessons.

Because we can, as we've been saying all along, we can make this change, we can encourage a behavioral change and improve skills.

And if you want to know how to do it, head across to my learner driver.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, I'm not going to plug Mrs. Terry's show, but yeah, we've got the step by step guide on how to do it on my learner driver, funnily enough.

Thanks, Ollie.

Let's get the plug at the end.

So one more time, where can people go to find my learner driver?

So we're online on the website, we've.

We're on Facebook as well.

I'm on LinkedIn and we've just updated the website, actually, so I'd be keen for you guys to take a look and pop any feedback on.

So that's mylearner Driver Co uk and we have some, like, professional videos coming in the next week or two, which is quite exciting.

Excellent.

And Ollie, where can people find you?

You can find [email protected] there for all driving instructors and a way to open up those conversations about tricky, slightly thorny topics like things like drugs, for example.

It all comes full circle.

Big.

Thank you for joining me, guys.

A pleasure as always.

Brilliant, Terry, thanks for having us.

Thanks, Terry.