The Magic Wand Principle
If you had a magic wand and could change one thing to improve road safety, what would you change?
That's the challenge Terry Cook, Olly Tayler, Kate Monk, Tom Stenson, and Dr Liz Box tackle in this latest edition of Driving Instructors and Vision Zero.
Transcript
So welcome to the Driving Instructors and Vision Zero podcast, where this week we're going to be talking about Tom's magic wand.
Speaker A:But let's welcome the team because we are back up to full strength.
Speaker A:First of all, we're joined behind the man who ran the show better than I ever could, Mr. Ollie Taylor.
Speaker A:How are you today?
Speaker B:Hello, Terry.
Speaker B:That's very kind of you to say so.
Speaker B:Yes, I'm all good, thank you.
Speaker B:Managed to see the.
Speaker B:Now the temperature's dropped slightly from last week, it's a little bit more bearable in the office, but.
Speaker B:But, yes, we're not going to moan about the weather because that's something as British that we do very, very well in this country.
Speaker B:So I was very grateful for some warm weather, although I'm quite grateful it has now settled down a little bit and it's now back to normal temperatures.
Speaker A:We complain when it's warm and we complain when it's cold.
Speaker A:But we are also joined by the award collector herself.
Speaker A:Kate Monk has recently won another award.
Speaker A:How are you, Kate?
Speaker C:I'm very well, thank you.
Speaker C:And, yeah, don't quite know what to make of it all, to be honest.
Speaker C:Rather not mention it, I think is me.
Speaker A:I'm asking you to just tell us a little bit about this award, please.
Speaker C:It's the Tyre Stieff Awards and it was for Road Safety Organisation of the Year for this year, which is super exciting and totally unexpected.
Speaker C:And, yeah, I had a lovely trip to its sort of Litchfield, Coventry area.
Speaker C:At the Bell, was it the Belfry Hotel?
Speaker C:And it's a golf course and it was lovely.
Speaker C:We had a really nice evening.
Speaker A:Excellent.
Speaker A:Well, congratulations again.
Speaker A:I'm also joined by the Master of my universe, Mr. Tom Stenson.
Speaker A:How are things, you?
Speaker D:Oh, very good, thank you, Terry.
Speaker A:Excellent.
Speaker A:On a score out of 10, how would you rate Masters of the Universe?
Speaker D:8.5.
Speaker A:8.5.
Speaker A:Slightly low, but it's all good.
Speaker A:And last, but by no other means least, we are joined by Dr.
Speaker A:Box, who recently stated that she will always find a spare 15 minutes from it if I ask, which is something that she will definitely to regret.
Speaker A:How are we, Liz?
Speaker E:Yeah, I'm very good, Terry, thanks.
Speaker E:Nice to see you.
Speaker B:Excellent.
Speaker A:Well, we're back to full strength today and there is some news.
Speaker A:I just want to throw this one out there.
Speaker A:First, a little bit of political upheaval.
Speaker A:We have got a new incoming Prime Minister which is very likely to be the.
Speaker A:The new King of the north.
Speaker A:And I just want to throw this out there.
Speaker A:Is this potentially an opportunity you know, we swapped governments recently and that brought about a road safety strategy.
Speaker A:So could the changing of Prime Ministers be good, a bad opportunity, or is it just a continuation?
Speaker A:Anyone got any thoughts?
Speaker D:Yes, I think it could be good.
Speaker D:I think the question is, will it be good?
Speaker D:I can't answer that.
Speaker A:Well, we can work on my questioning techniques a little bit.
Speaker A:So does anyone want to tell me if it will be good or bad?
Speaker E:Well, I don't think you're the only one asking this question, Terry.
Speaker E:I think it's been going round and in discussion in terms of.
Speaker E:Well, given Andy Burnham has been very active at a local level and has taken transport and transport safety quite seriously.
Speaker E:What does that mean when he, you know, becomes, as it looks to be, Prime Minister?
Speaker E:Will other priorities crowd things out?
Speaker E:So, yeah, I think it's an open question, but as Tom says, I don't think we know any of the answers yet.
Speaker A:I'm really intrigued.
Speaker A:Really intrigued.
Speaker A:That's all I'll say.
Speaker A:Go on, Ollie.
Speaker B:Sorry.
Speaker B:No, I was going to say, Terry, I think you.
Speaker B:You probably summed up very well in your.
Speaker B:In your little introduction to that.
Speaker B:It's an opportunity.
Speaker B:There is an opportunity here.
Speaker B:It's whether or not words translate into actions.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:I think it depends whether this is a politician who actually values or considers road safety death or road death as important as any other kind of death.
Speaker A:So we'll find out.
Speaker A:Kate.
Speaker C:I mean, there is a rumour that he would be attending one of the colleges of Manchester in the coming weeks for a road safety event.
Speaker C:So that gives me a little bit of hope that he might have some interest.
Speaker C:But it's a really big job being the Prime Minister and I'm pretty sure he's going to have to take some time to get up to speed, and I don't see progress happening as quickly as we would want it to.
Speaker A:So I'm off to Google all the road safety events in Manchester colleges.
Speaker A:So, Tom, you had a bit of interesting news.
Speaker A:Well, I found it interesting.
Speaker A:Do you want to tell us your bit of news?
Speaker D:So we had a new cohort from the Bright Diploma today, and one of the delegates on it is a driving instructor from New Zealand, and he was telling us about the training that he received as a driving instructor, which was around two weeks, and then once he was qualified, it was shocking to hear that they then don't have anything along sort of mandatory CPD or even standard checks or anything along those lines from when they qualify.
Speaker D:The other interesting thing was that the amount of hours that he tends to have with learners because of the way the driving test is.
Speaker D:Is less than six hours before somebody is ready for a driving test.
Speaker B:It's scary, isn't it?
Speaker D:Makes Albert sound pretty good actually.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I'm also thinking just like culturally like I wonder if that's just accepted over there.
Speaker A:You know, it's the norm in the way we accept ours and assume ours is the best, they accept theirs, theirs is the best and somehow kind of fudge it through that and everyone just.
Speaker C:Avoids each other Having driven over there it is very different to here.
Speaker C:I'm not, not excusing the fact that six hours obviously isn't enough but it's not as chaotic as this.
Speaker C:It's much quieter, the roads are bigger, they're open, there are some decent bends but every bend has a recommended speed limit on which is just amazingly helpful when you're not from there.
Speaker C:But yeah, it's obviously not enough.
Speaker B:Interesting.
Speaker A:It's good that you're getting people from New Zealand on the Bright Corso Bright International now.
Speaker A:Yeah, excellent.
Speaker A:We've also got the graduated driving licence announced for Northern Ireland officially now.
Speaker A:Now I'm not going to take full credit for this but it is on the 1st of October which it kicks off, which is my birthday so I think there's some part that I played there but just a brief one of what's coming up.
Speaker A:We do have a six month learning period.
Speaker A:There's a program of training along with a logbook, the removal of the 40 mile an hour speed restriction passenger carrying restrictions between 11pm and 6am for those newly qualified under 24, the extension of the current restriction period from 12 to 24 months and mandatory display of an R plate for the first two years which I'm guessing is kind of equivalent to our P plate.
Speaker A:So yeah, we're probably going to talk into this a bit more detail on another episode but any initial thoughts?
Speaker E:Yes, Harry.
Speaker E:I mean I think what's really interesting here is this has been on the books in Northern Ireland Ireland for, I mean over 10 years I think now in terms of they've been trying to get it through and it's really, really good that they've now got to this stage and I can't remember when the webinar was.
Speaker E:It was maybe just before, just towards the end of last year but hearing all of the various different parties involved, so the police, the charities, the government all talking about it as one voice and really positive and how that it's going to happen, it will work and it was just quite a refreshing thing to See that there was alignment about these things and it was.
Speaker E:Seemed to be important and that they were going to go ahead with it.
Speaker E:So I think, you know, we're all looking with interest, aren't we, because there's potential great things to be learned from, you know, what we might be able to apply over here and yeah, all power to them for managing to get it through.
Speaker E:And yeah, looking with interest, it's definitely.
Speaker A:A good step forward.
Speaker A:I was interested actually because I was at the Scottish Convention earlier this year.
Speaker A:Dr.
Speaker A:In Greenwood was up there and someone asked him, if this goes through, do we think that'll have a positive impact on our government and potentially getting gdl?
Speaker A:And his response was really interesting because he said, maybe, but the evidence is already there.
Speaker A:We don't need more evidence, the evidence is there for it, we should just be using it.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:But I suppose it is local or closer to home, so, you know, maybe there's a bit of hope there.
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:Any other thoughts on this?
Speaker E:I think you're right, Terry, about, you know, there's already a huge amount of evidence about what, what happens elsewhere when it's put in place.
Speaker E:And when I was working at the foundation, we did some work speaking to people internationally, saying, well, actually, how did it work?
Speaker E:Implementation to start with, you know, did people take it on board?
Speaker E:What was the kind of adoption curve like?
Speaker E:And, you know, and typically when we see, obviously to start with, people are not so sure and then they pretty quickly get used to it as being the norm.
Speaker E:That's what happens everywhere else.
Speaker E:But I think the key thing you said there is, this is more local, isn't it?
Speaker E:The nearer it is to you?
Speaker E:I think often there's a kind of dismissal.
Speaker E:Dismissal sometimes of, well, that's, that's somebody else.
Speaker E:They've got a whole load of different cultural issues like we've just been talking about in New Zealand, you know, that doesn't apply to us.
Speaker E:So, yeah, I guess that there's still some hope that it's closer to home and might still have an influence anything.
Speaker B:Else before we move on enforcing it.
Speaker B:My biggest thing about gdl, and I'm a huge supporter of gdl, have been since it was very first mooted way back when I was still in my previous life, is actually how's it going to be enforced and by whom?
Speaker A:You know what?
Speaker E:I think this is the enforcement question that always comes up, doesn't it?
Speaker E:I think every radio interview I've ever done on gdl, they always go, but how are we going to Enforce it.
Speaker E:And I always find it fascinating because.
Speaker E:And obviously it's pretty interesting to have your perspective because you are, you were in the past somebody that was going to have to think about enforcing these things.
Speaker E:But we don't enforce speed limits 24,7.
Speaker E:I mean, I know that there's speed cameras and there's various different ways in which you can have your speed enforced, but it's just the rules of the road and therefore we have to spot check and do these things over time.
Speaker E:So it's kind of no different to any other rule of the road.
Speaker E:And importantly, and Kate, I'm sure you'll have a lot to say on this one in particular.
Speaker E:We've got parents and guardians who are the primary enforcers or should be of a GDL system.
Speaker E:And that's much more effective potentially than the chance of potentially be getting caught when, you know, you don't necessarily see as many traffic police out there.
Speaker C:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker C:And I think tied in quite nicely to what I was going to say later on about my nightmare around our culture and how we don't want to obey the rules necessarily, but we have the rules because it makes it safer for everybody.
Speaker C:And actually when we don't have the rules, what that really looks like.
Speaker C:So I think parents have got a huge part to play.
Speaker C:We want to keep our kids safe, we want to keep them alive and protect them.
Speaker C:But that's a whole cultural change that we need to shift with regards to the roads.
Speaker C:Put them out on roller skates, they'll soon wrap them up in cotton wool and put the knee pads on and everything.
Speaker C:But as soon as we put them in the car and we just switch off, just let them go.
Speaker A:Well, we'll touch back on that another time, but I think we've got a little bit more news around your parental resources.
Speaker A:We're road smart now.
Speaker A:Is you want to tell us about this?
Speaker E:Yeah, thanks, Terry.
Speaker E:Sorry, that was a sort of segue into that issue, wasn't it?
Speaker E:Without meaning to be necessarily.
Speaker E:But today I'm really pleased to say that alongside IAM, RoadSmart, the RAC foundation and RAC, I've been working with them in ECM Research Solutions to essentially convert some of the research I did last year on parental interventions into some short practical guidance notes that people can disseminate to parents.
Speaker E:Obviously there's more and more work being done in this area, but the more information we can get out to parents, the better.
Speaker E:So there's three particular pieces that we've launched today.
Speaker E:One is a literally a two page practical Parent guide for parents and guardians.
Speaker E:The other is a Practice to pass scorecard, which is really intended to kind of help parents and guardians if they're doing private practice, to really understand where their young person is.
Speaker E:Obviously working with a pre driving instructor as part of that.
Speaker E:And then also a parenting agreement.
Speaker E:We talk a lot about this in terms of what happens internationally about once you pass your test, actually having an agreement between parent, guardian and young person to say, what does that first three months, what does that first six months look like?
Speaker E:And it's just very helpful to have a resource from somewhere else that kind of helps you do that.
Speaker E:So those are all available to download and to use freely wherever people want to on the IAM website.
Speaker E:So, yeah, do go and have a look at those and do share them with parents and guardians when you're working with them.
Speaker A:Well, I include links to that in the show notes.
Speaker A:But let's move on then to the main topic of today, because taking people behind the scenes every month, I tend to put out a panic shout out at some point in the WhatsApp group and say, what are we talking about this month?
Speaker A:And Tom came up with a suggestion.
Speaker A:We're going to be talking about Tom's magic wand, so we'll let you lead on this one, Tom, what would your magic wand be?
Speaker A:Oh,.
Speaker D:So the idea was to think if we.
Speaker D:If everything lined up, if we had this magic wand to wave, and it would create driver training in the UK to be how everybody in this call and people listening to this would like it.
Speaker D:So how could we have more of a focus on road safety instead of passing the test?
Speaker D:And how could we create driving instructors to be focused more on individuals instead of getting people to pass a test?
Speaker D:My.
Speaker D:My kind of magic wand would definitely start with instructor training.
Speaker D:And what I would like to see is kind of a.
Speaker D:Not necessarily a dedicated, but I would like to see a qualification system that adds in all of the elements that you've kind of spoken about before on different topics, Terry.
Speaker D:So things like.
Speaker D:Things like safeguarding, things like business management, first aid, which I think is just things that don't often or aren't often included within training.
Speaker D:And our system of training driving instructors, although it has changed over the last 20 years, it seems to have been such a slow process in order to move towards road safety instead of passing a test.
Speaker A:Why do you think there's such a resistance still to that stuff from instructors?
Speaker A:So even just the broad scope, what you've said, that safeguarding the business management, also the changing of how we Teach people.
Speaker A:There's still a resistance to that.
Speaker A:Why the driving instructors or some driving instructors so resistant to that?
Speaker D:Because it's easy.
Speaker D:And as humans I think we're a little bit lazy.
Speaker D:We don't like to do the maximum effort, we like to do the minimum amount.
Speaker D:And it is just kind of a little bit easier for some people to just do what you've always done.
Speaker D:Why go out there?
Speaker D:And I think some of the things that I've heard from other instructors, especially when it comes to development, is if I go and spend £2,000 on a training course, how much more can I charge my learners?
Speaker D:And if I can't charge them anymore, what's the point of me doing it?
Speaker D:But again, I think that's focused on that short term perspective as in what can I get now instead of what can we do as an industry that is going to reduce road deaths?
Speaker C:I'm going to bring you back to your New Zealand comment earlier where their training is just the two weeks.
Speaker C:Two weeks and they're okay with that.
Speaker C:And we're off now we're setting our target at 40 hours in the same sense that they're accepting two weeks is okay, we're off, everything's fine, we've done our two weeks, we're saying the same for 40 hours.
Speaker C:And you and I both know that that's nowhere near enough to get to the level that we want people to be at.
Speaker C:And our society is very much set up for the bare minimum input to get the minimum output.
Speaker C:And it kind of comes back to learners as well when they're driving.
Speaker C:How many lessons do I need?
Speaker C:What's the least I can get away with?
Speaker C:How much is it going to cost me?
Speaker C:How can I spend less?
Speaker C:It's no different to us as we're training as instructors.
Speaker C:So I think yes, I like the qualification system, I really do.
Speaker C:And I think it needed to be, needs to be one that's respected, one that actually has value to it and it probably needs to cost a little bit more, which people won't like me for saying.
Speaker C:But if we want respect for a qualification, if you go to university, how much does a degree cost?
Speaker C:And the outcome of this is life and death for some get it wrong and someone's going to make a mistake and that'll be that.
Speaker C:So qualification, Yes.
Speaker C:I don't like the Part 3 test as someone who doesn't necessarily like being tested and I work with lots of people who actually would make fabulous instructors, road safety oriented, put them on the pressure of that 45 minute standards, sort of part three test and they go to pieces.
Speaker C:So a qualification system that you could work through, modules with coursework.
Speaker C:Think back to our GCSEs and A levels.
Speaker C:It wasn't all tests for everybody.
Speaker C:There were big chunks of coursework that could be taken away, done in your own time in less stressful scenarios that you could bring back to the table.
Speaker C:I would like to see that included.
Speaker C:I'll pass it back to someone else now.
Speaker A:I want to ask you both a question, Kate and Tom.
Speaker A:And I'll ask you first, Kate.
Speaker A:I think, because I've got a feeling I might know Tom's answer to this.
Speaker A:If there was a qualification process now to get through, or if there had been one when you became an instructor, would that put you off?
Speaker A:Become an instructor, or would it have enticed you more or would it have made a difference?
Speaker C:So my reasons for becoming an instructor were more that I needed to find a job that I could do sitting down and I couldn't be made to stand up and I. I couldn't see how anyone would make me stand up while sitting in a car being a driving instructor.
Speaker C:So, yes, for me, I would quite happily have taken the qualification to get to that point.
Speaker C:I didn't set out to be a driving instructor today.
Speaker C:I set out to have a job that suited my needs at the time.
Speaker C:But if it had been offered out of school so a little bit earlier, then, yes, I guess if you've done a university degree and you've gone to college and you've sort of thrown yourself into another route but decided not to take that, the thought of going back to university or back to college would put me off doing it in a. I guess in a college environment, if it was more of a bit like bright coaching, really quite a bit separate, you sort of pop in, go away for a while, pop back, go away for a while, that is not so intense, then yes, it would be okay at this age.
Speaker A:Would it have deterred you?
Speaker D:Yes, yeah, it would have.
Speaker D:If that was the case and I've been open about this, my intention was to never be within this industry for nearly 15 years.
Speaker D:It was a complete and utter stopgap.
Speaker D:So I think if it was any more difficult than it had have been, no, it would have put me off.
Speaker A:It's interesting because I've been talking about this recently and there's a lot of people currently in this stream, yourself included, that are real assets that wouldn't be in it now if that had been put in place.
Speaker A:I still think it should be.
Speaker A:I still think it should be put in place.
Speaker A:It's almost like me and you have snuck through because I think it would have deterred me 10 years ago.
Speaker A:It wouldn't do now, but 10 years ago I think it would have deterred me.
Speaker A:I was maybe a little bit more dogmatic of you.
Speaker A:So that was interesting.
Speaker A:I appreciate that.
Speaker A:Ollie, do you have any thoughts on whether it should be some quality, you know, more robust qualification process for driving instructors?
Speaker A:It's a tricky one.
Speaker B:I think the process as it is at the moment is robust.
Speaker B:There is a structured process to becoming a driving instructor.
Speaker B:I think the problem lies in when people have gone through that path free, they've got their parts free, they've transitioned from pink license to their green license.
Speaker B:And yes, they have a standards checks, but actually they are, they're periodic.
Speaker B:Whereas it's very easy for someone then to fall into the shadows as a driving instructor, to be the kind of driving instructor that you don't want representing the industry.
Speaker B:And there are those, there are those out there, we all know there are those driving instructors out there who are purely in it for churning out as many students.
Speaker B:And all they will do is take students on test routes and get them through the test.
Speaker B:They are not producing good quality, safe drivers out of the back end of the system.
Speaker B:So where the problem lies within there, and that does lie partly with the instructor that actually what it's some sort of safeguarding against those instructors who are purely there to make, to make money.
Speaker B:That's all they're interested in.
Speaker B:They're not interested in road safety, they're not interested in the net generator drivers.
Speaker B:They just want to use it as a machine to make money.
Speaker B:But actually how can the, how can the training process filter those ones out?
Speaker B:And that is, I think is where the problem lies, is, is the process.
Speaker B:As I see it from my, my, my very sort of simplistic view of it is that, that driving instructors need to get to a standard of lesson delivery, if you like.
Speaker B:So you need to be able to deliver a lesson to a standard, the DVSA standard.
Speaker B:But much like young drivers, where is the attitude element of that?
Speaker B:Where does the attitude element of being instructor sit within that process?
Speaker B:Same as it does with young drivers.
Speaker B:Where does the element, attitude, a bit of young driver, a new driver, sit rather than just getting to that minimum DVSA standard on that, you know, at that point in time, on that day you were good enough to pass your driving test, at that time, on that day you were good enough to pass Part three and become a fully qualified driving instructor.
Speaker B:For me, there seems to be a bit missing in the process that covers off the behavior, attitudes that a, you know, instructors.
Speaker B:And there are many, many, many really good instructors out there, many that I've met over the years.
Speaker B:But actually, where.
Speaker B:Where are, where are all the checks and balances with regards to that part of the process?
Speaker C:I don't have an answer for that, Ollie.
Speaker C:I don't know at the moment.
Speaker C:We don't have any, but I.
Speaker B:More rhetorical questions.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:The part three at the moment is very good for identifying the key skills needed to be an instructor.
Speaker C:So with that risk management, actually keeping your learner alive to get through their lesson, it doesn't venture into all of the things that you are mentioning, which is where if we waved our magic wand, would it.
Speaker C:Wouldn't it be great if we had a compulsory online modules for driving instructors that perhaps ventured into that side of things or further hours that they must sit an additional 10 to 20 hours that perhaps dealt with the road safety rather than just the key skills.
Speaker C:Maybe make part three a step towards the final qualification.
Speaker C:So there's still another stage that comes after that, maybe 12 months after the.
Speaker C:The pathway has passed so that we are allowing people to develop those key skills first, the ones that we really need, and then building from there onto that more the, you know, the better coaching, the attitudes, the road safety risk after that.
Speaker C:So we're not mixing them up too much.
Speaker D:I like that idea, Kate.
Speaker D:However, my opinion is it should be the other way around.
Speaker D:I think if there was a module, how to get somebody to move off a car, then that could probably be done quite easily online or in a very simple thing.
Speaker D:I think what the Part 3 doesn't help instructors to really do is be able to assess them on their ability to be road safety professionals.
Speaker D:They're tested on their ability to can you keep the car safe and can you make somebody make the car move forward backwards, left and right safely?
Speaker D:Yeah, I think right there it's.
Speaker D:And I know we're talking about magic wand here and this is why I kind of like this idea is being able to think of actually if there were no restrictions at all, what could we have?
Speaker D:And yeah, I think having that possibly the other way around.
Speaker D:I'd love to see how that would work.
Speaker E:Yeah, I've just been finding it fascinating listening because obviously all of you are much closer to the sharp end of driving instruction than I am.
Speaker E:So I'm learning a lot.
Speaker E:But I was thinking from my perspective because I'M always thinking about what does good driver education look like, irrespective.
Speaker E:And I think some of the things you've mentioned, Tom, they're really important because what do we want to see?
Speaker E:We want driving instructors and their pupils to be able to understand and perform good risks, perception, good hazards, anticipation, emotional regulation.
Speaker E:We want them to be able to practice and demonstrate.
Speaker E:Think about how you kind of manage all those peer influences we know are going to be sort of, you know, difficult when people initially pass their tests when they're young, fatigue, self awareness, all of those sorts of things.
Speaker E:And from what you're saying, it doesn't sound like any of that is really covered at the moment in, In.
Speaker E:In the process about reflective practice or anything.
Speaker E:So there's a lot of time teaching control and less time helping people manage themselves.
Speaker E:And it feels like for me, that's kind of where things need to go.
Speaker E:But it sounds like the next step up from kind of what's there at the moment, from what you'd be saying.
Speaker A:I want to just touch back on a couple of things that Ollie said, actually.
Speaker A:But then we probably best move on to the next magic wand, because one thing or two things you mentioned, Ollie, one, you were saying about how some instructors are almost doing it just for the money.
Speaker A:I think there's a lot of instructors doing.
Speaker A:I think there's a difference in our job to all the kind of teaching roles, because there's not many people, I don't think, that leave school and like counting down time till they get to 21 second become a driving instructor.
Speaker A:It's not a.
Speaker A:A job that people particularly want to go into.
Speaker A:A lot of people, or most people, I think, fall into it.
Speaker A:You gave your example before, Kate, about.
Speaker A:You wanted a job that was good for your health, where you could sit down.
Speaker A:You know, I came into this job because I had some issues in my home life that allowed me to be more flexible.
Speaker A:You know, we fall into it and I do wonder often, and maybe I'm going to change a magic one.
Speaker A:Now I'm saying this.
Speaker A:I do wonder often if we could do a better job of promoting our job and showing the goods of evolving and get people excited about the prospect of being an instructor, not be an instructor and earn 60 grand a year.
Speaker A:And, you know, there's no nonsense we see.
Speaker A:But the other thing I'm gonna say you were talking about, and it's been mentioned a few times there, the stuff we do on lessons always reflect.
Speaker A:Dumbart, Freestand, the checks, that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:The example I fall Back to.
Speaker A:And this isn't because you're here, Ollie, but it's the honest truth on a lesson.
Speaker A:I will regularly dig out the honest truth videos and watching my pupils, I wouldn't be doing that on a part three.
Speaker A:I'd be highly unlikely to doing that when I'm being assessed because an examiner would not want me sat there for five to ten minutes potentially with a pupil talking through that important thing, you know, even if that pupil is openly saying, I'm not going to wear a seatbelt when I passed or I'm not wearing a seatbelt when I car my mates, the examiner doesn't want to see that conversation for that length of time on a lesson.
Speaker A:I'll do it for 20 minutes, no problem.
Speaker A:If it's needed.
Speaker A:Yeah, so I thought I'd share that, but go on, Tom, and then we'll move on.
Speaker D:Sorry.
Speaker D:And I don't want to take this over.
Speaker D:That was my first swipe of the wand.
Speaker D:My second swipe on the way back was that all social media would be banned unless it was agreed by a group of road safety professionals who said, yes, this is acceptable for this video to be released.
Speaker D:And I'll stop ranting now.
Speaker C:Maybe we should set up that little organization.
Speaker C:Top.
Speaker A:I wasn't gonna say anything about this in this episode, but just because you've said social media, I'm gonna say it.
Speaker A:If you are a person that is setting up a Facebook page and taking past pictures from other driving schools and sharing them to sexualize young girls and you can screw off, you need to stop that stuff.
Speaker A:You need to shut it down.
Speaker A:If you're driving, listen to this and you come across that page, please report it.
Speaker A:Facebook isn't taking it down at the moment.
Speaker A:However, the more people that report it, there is more chance of it being taken down.
Speaker A:I'm not going to name it because I don't want people to search for it, but you're a jackass if you're doing that.
Speaker A:Let's move on.
Speaker A:What would your magic.
Speaker B:Oh, sorry, Dr. Vox.
Speaker E:Well, no, I.
Speaker E:That's a really serious point you've made, Terry, and a really important one.
Speaker E:And the other one that that really gets me is when people are showing dash cam footage of people dying.
Speaker E:We've got to get over that.
Speaker E:People, this is not what we should be doing.
Speaker E:It's not trauma informed.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker E:It's not ethically right.
Speaker E:And it's definitely not going to change people's behaviors.
Speaker E:So, yeah, I completely agree, Tom.
Speaker E:We do need some standards because the standards are so low in all of these different areas at the moment that, yeah, it's just unacceptable, isn't it?
Speaker E:So, yeah, I just.
Speaker E:Just wanted to mention that whilst we were on our.
Speaker E:Our soapboxes.
Speaker A:I appreciate it.
Speaker A:Maybe we need to do an episode on social media discourse.
Speaker A:Ollie.
Speaker B:What.
Speaker A:What's your magic wand?
Speaker B:So my.
Speaker B:My magic wand?
Speaker B:Well, it's not mine, it's actually Tom's magic wand that I'm going to wave around.
Speaker D:Sure.
Speaker B:Tom won't mind in the circumstances is slightly different.
Speaker B:And again, it's born out of experience that it's all very well having the ability to be able to sort of look at the influence and changing attitudes and behaviors of the next generation of drivers, which is great.
Speaker B:The problem we've got is we've got a current generation of drivers who are completely lost.
Speaker B:They're totally lost out there.
Speaker B:I did.
Speaker B:I drove to Buckinghamshire back last week and I was staggered at the general standard of drive.
Speaker B:I've been on the British motorways.
Speaker B:Staggered.
Speaker B:There was a guy.
Speaker B:I told this story at a presentation I gave up in Buckinghamshire and I was following a white van on the M4.
Speaker B:And I thought.
Speaker B:At first I thought the driver was having a medical episode.
Speaker B:That was my first thought.
Speaker B:I thought, my God, they're having a medical episode behind the wheel there.
Speaker B:They're literally crossing to lane three and then half into lane one.
Speaker B:They're all over the place.
Speaker B:Then I thought, maybe a swarm of angry bees has got into their vehicle, they are trying to swap them out again.
Speaker B:And that was the problem.
Speaker B:Anyway, so I waited till it was safe and pulled up alongside them to try to get past them, at which point I realized what the problem was.
Speaker B:And what the problem was was in the heat.
Speaker B:Their windscreen sucker mount for their mobile phone had obviously got so hot it appeared part of company of the windscreen and had fallen down to the floor.
Speaker B:Now, they picked this up and this.
Speaker B:This.
Speaker B:This thing was in several pieces and they were lent on the steering wheel and they were trying to reassemble their mobile phone mount whilst doing 70 miles an hour on the M4 and in.
Speaker B:And all over the place.
Speaker B:Literally all over the place on the motorway.
Speaker B:So my magic wand would have to be a periodic reassessment of everybody's driving.
Speaker B:And for me, it would be.
Speaker B:Every 10 years, when you renewed your photocard, you can tell I've given this very little thought.
Speaker B:Every 10 years, when you renew your photocard license, you have to have an assessment, an hour's assessment.
Speaker B:You book it with a driving instructor.
Speaker B:With an assessor, doesn't matter who pay for it, you'll pay for it.
Speaker B:But you have to go and have a formal assessment and you have to pass that assessment.
Speaker B:If you don't pass that assessment, you've got an opportunity, you have an opportunity to go to a driving instructor and have a couple of just refresher lessons on driving for a driving instructor to go, right, you didn't pass your assessment because of A, B and C. Let's see what you're doing wrong.
Speaker B:You've got a month, you go back with that the following month, or within a month you go back, you retake the assessment.
Speaker B:You are the partos.
Speaker B:If you fail that assessment a second time, you go back to have an L place and you will have L place and you will then have to comply with all the conditions of a provisional license until you are deemed fit and safe to be back on the road for our lost generation.
Speaker B:But actually having lifelong learning, continual assessments, I say continual, every 10 years isn't going to be very many, isn't going to be very much.
Speaker B:What are you talking about?
Speaker B:You know, 17, 27, 37, 47, 30, maybe four assessments throughout your driving lifestyle.
Speaker B:Four, maybe five across your entire driving career, effectively.
Speaker B:But actually the ability to do that one, it would generate tens of millions of pounds for road safety, for road improvements, for road engineering, for education.
Speaker B:It would generate entire new industry around assessments.
Speaker B:You've got a brand new industry being built around assessing current drop drivers.
Speaker B:But you have to do it, you've got no choice if you don't do it, if you try and sidestep it, you don't do it well, you're not licensed, you'll revert back to having a provisional license until you can show that you are still competently capable of being safe on the roads.
Speaker B:Because everything else you do, any other qualification you get in life, you have to re qualify every year, every three years, every five years, depending what the qualification is, you have to re qualify.
Speaker B:Qualifications do not last infinitum.
Speaker B:Driving license at 17, you never have to, you never have to have any other sort of assessment until you give up your driving license.
Speaker B:I've, I've met drivers over the years in their late 80s and early 90s who haven't had any form of driving assessment since they passed their driving test.
Speaker B:Many of them or the generation is now getting less and less and less.
Speaker B:My, my grandparents were in the generation during the war years, they didn't have driving tests.
Speaker B:My grandma and my granddad never took a drive plane test.
Speaker B:Ever and were never assessed at any point in their life because of their competency and capability.
Speaker B:And capability to be able to drive safely.
Speaker B:So I'm going to climb up my soapbox now briefly, but my magic wand is reassessing every 10 years.
Speaker A:Before we come back on that, I'm going to share my magic wand because it's very similar, very similar.
Speaker A:I actually put down 10 years for reassessment, but I've got every five years to do a theory as well.
Speaker A:The reassessment will be similar again to what you've said.
Speaker A:But even though we're using magic wands, still don't think a magic wand could get enough examiners.
Speaker A:So this would need to be something done through like the iam or it could even be a driving instructor that assesses.
Speaker A:You know, you go for a driving instructor with two hours, they assess whether you need to go for a test.
Speaker A:You know, I think all those details could be worked out further down the line, but I think I'm very, very similar to what you said there.
Speaker A:What I was thinking.
Speaker A:I think the major difference for me was 10 years for a practical assessment, but every in between that we do a fairing assessment as well.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So yeah, but I think, I think you want to come back on this one, Liz.
Speaker E:Yeah, thanks, Terry.
Speaker E:It's just because I've really spent 20 years in the policy world and assessment reassessment has come up a lot over that time, particularly for older people.
Speaker E:And actually I've been involved with some research that's been done looking at what happens internationally because some different countries they do have medical assessment for older people related to driving, field of view tests, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker E:And weirdly what happens is that those, those populations aren't necessarily safer than the existing population that we have here.
Speaker E:Because we know of older people in particular, they're very good at self regulating their driving.
Speaker E:So they're kind of only go out when it's not rush hour, they do left junctions, they only go to their local shops.
Speaker E:It obviously reduces their mobility and their options.
Speaker E:But they're generally quite aware, obviously there is a proportion of people out there that aren't aware of their limitations and will go driving regardless.
Speaker E:And those are the difficult people to get.
Speaker E:But then I wonder whether an assessment, would it pick those people up.
Speaker E:I mean your example there, Ollie, of the motorway case, which sounds horrific to have experienced, that person's not going to be reassembling their mobile phone on their assessment test, are they?
Speaker E:They're going to be on their Best behaviour and then the bad behaviours happen when they're not on or they don't think they're being watched in any way, so.
Speaker E:And we started the podcast, didn't we, talking about a new incoming prime minister.
Speaker E:And what does that mean for road safety?
Speaker E:Gosh, you'd have to be a really brave politician to say that's what you're going to do.
Speaker E:Because the mobility implications of people in, you know, middle and later life losing their mobility, not being able to get to work, all of the things that, that influences.
Speaker E:I'm not saying safety, it's not important, we shouldn't be looking at it, but I just, I, I can't ever see that being taken up.
Speaker E:I think we can definitely do more that that's safe for every 10 years.
Speaker E:That's get everybody.
Speaker E:An eyesight test would be a great start, wouldn't it?
Speaker E:Because at the moment we're just talking about older people with that rather than everybody.
Speaker E:And, you know, everybody has eyesight limitations that happen at various different ages.
Speaker E:So I think it's something we could build.
Speaker E:It's definitely on that 10 year, but I think reassessment would definitely be the very last thing I could see coming in.
Speaker E:Not that it's not valuable, but just the practicalities I think are so challenging.
Speaker B:Can I just quickly come back on that one a moment, Terry?
Speaker B:Liz, what you say is absolutely right.
Speaker B:And the point you made there was a really interesting point you made about people who are on their best behavior for an hour, basically.
Speaker B:They know they're good, they know they're under assessment, they then drive, allegedly drive according to the rules of the road.
Speaker B:Now, over the last few years since I retired, I've actually done a lot of driving assessments out in industry.
Speaker B:An awful lot, in fact.
Speaker B:One organization in the last 12 months, I've done probably getting over 200 driving assessments for one to one driving assessments.
Speaker B:Hour on driving assessment.
Speaker B:Now, it's absolutely outstanding what people will still do even if, even when they know they're under an assessment.
Speaker B:Because actually what I, what I've been able to pick up is people's bad habits, bad habits that lead or can lead to collisions.
Speaker B:Things like hazard awareness, hazard perception, distance between vehicles, adherence to speed limits, things that they, that the individual driving along, you know, palm steering, you know, doing corners and junctions on palm steering.
Speaker B:Yeah, we're not, we're not HDB drivers.
Speaker B:That's what we say to them.
Speaker B:We're not HDB drives.
Speaker B:AGB drivers.
Speaker B:Do you.
Speaker B:No, no, no.
Speaker B:We're driving a van Driving a car we're driving whatever it might be driving.
Speaker B:But it's really surprising how people's bad habits when they get into driving become the norm and then they'll go out and assessment and they will drive because I say to people, just drive like, you know, normally drive.
Speaker B:Do not try and impress me with driving because the chance of you impressing me are fairly slim.
Speaker B:So actually drive like you're going to drive like you normally drive and actually let's look at it, let's look at your driving and where the areas for improvement are.
Speaker B:So whilst I agree that people will potentially do the best they can to drive as well as they can for 45 minutes, in my experience in the last few years doing the driving assessments for drivers who maybe have had their driving license for 10, 20, 30, 40 years, that actually their drive in habits come out very, very quickly.
Speaker B:And if you know what you're looking for, you can spot them instantly.
Speaker B:Lack of use to mirrors, all sorts of bits and pieces that just come out in people's driving.
Speaker B:So I think, I think the idea that people would try and drive to the driving standards during an hour long assessment, I think they'll give themselves away, I really do.
Speaker B:So that assessment being the last step of the process, I totally get it.
Speaker B:And there's a, there's a whole world of hurdles you'd have to get over, but some form of reassessment periodically to, to, to, to assess someone's competency and safety.
Speaker B:Are the, Is this individual safe on the road?
Speaker B:And I've had individuals I've taken out or I've gone back and I've said this individual really, really needs to go out with an, with an experience, you know, an experienced individual, particularly with larger vehicles, vans and stuff like that.
Speaker B:It was a van related industry that I was doing it in that they need to go out because actually their driving ain't great.
Speaker B:They've got a driving license but their driving really isn't that great.
Speaker B:So whilst it's kind of happening in industry and out in the, those that drive for work side of the house, that doesn't often that pit that you don't pick up an awful lot of those, those who don't drive for work, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say it, I mean I'm lucky I'm here because nobody can throw things at me.
Speaker B:But again, through experience, I have to say mums on the school run are some of the worst drivers I've seen out there.
Speaker B:They're awful for a whole variety of reasons mums on school runs but can be terrible drivers.
Speaker B:You know, they've got so many things going on their heads and kids shout at them from the back and always, you know, they're late for school or some stuff, their feed kit or they've forgotten their violins, their music lesson.
Speaker B:Those people don't get picked up in these kind of driving for work assessments, which a lot of organizations do, and they've got some quite robust systems.
Speaker B:But I think people give themselves away, I really do.
Speaker A:I think you were next.
Speaker D:I've got a contingency for this, Ollie, because in this new qualification process, driving instructors, part of the module is going to be.
Speaker D:They'll be trained in how to use an electromagnetic cannon that's attached to their car so when they see really bad driving, they can just disable that vehicle.
Speaker D:So if they were then alerted to then go and have to take the assessment, we get the best of both worlds.
Speaker B:EMP pulse.
Speaker B:An EMP pulse out of your car, shut down all the electronics.
Speaker B:Love it.
Speaker C:That's very fun.
Speaker B:I think, you know, the police have already got that.
Speaker B:Sorry, Tom.
Speaker B:Do you know the police.
Speaker B:The police in America tried that.
Speaker B:They.
Speaker B:They fire.
Speaker B:They've got.
Speaker B:What they do is they've got a little mechanism they fire under a fleeing vehicle that emits an electromagnetic pulse out of the little device which basically shuts down all the vehicles electronics, basically shuts it down.
Speaker B:They tried that in fleeing for pursuits in the States, among some crazy other stuff as well.
Speaker B:But that has been tried.
Speaker D:I'm going on to ebay now.
Speaker C:Sounds amazing.
Speaker C:I'm going to throw out there.
Speaker C:Is there a place for AI assessment in this?
Speaker C:If there was some sort of phone holder in a corner with an AI?
Speaker C:I mean, I'm nowhere near clever enough to describe how this would actually work and the logistics.
Speaker C:But AI can watch outside the car, inside the car and your period of assessment is then maybe a month and you have to sign up and they assess it over a month long stretch and then the results of that decide whether you need to go to a driving instructor, to a driving assessor or a driving examiner.
Speaker E:Yeah, I think that's a great idea, Kate, because we know from some of the observational research that's done with cameras and vehicles that people actually forget it's there after a period of time.
Speaker E:I think it's normally about two weeks and then people revert back to their usual behaviors.
Speaker E:So, yeah, that potentially could be something.
Speaker C:That pains now, but I can't make it.
Speaker C:I'm quite sober enough for that.
Speaker E:And, Terry, I was just gonna.
Speaker E:And I think you wanted to talk about this topic, too, as part of Magic Wand Elements.
Speaker E:But I think this would solve everything for us.
Speaker E:And I think it just comes down to culture, because I think my initial instinct when Tom mentioned this was, okay, yes, it's driving lessons, it's driving instructors, it's the driving tests we need to improve all these things.
Speaker E:But I think we're actually asking too much to driving instructors because we're kind of expecting them to create safe drivers in a system that sends conflicting messages absolutely everywhere.
Speaker E:So you'll spend an hour teaching patience and anticipation and risk assessment if you're the absolutely best instructor.
Speaker E:And then the learner goes home and they see speeding normalized everywhere.
Speaker E:There's aggressive driving everywhere.
Speaker E:Phone use is normalized, you know, risk taking.
Speaker E:We've talked about on social media how much that's normalized.
Speaker E:So it kind of makes me wonder if we're kind of looking in the wrong place.
Speaker E:And we need to redesign the entire system, which is.
Speaker E:Well, I mean, I guess if we've got magic wands, we can do that, can't we?
Speaker E:But I think practically it's going to take us a long time.
Speaker E:But I do like my analogies, and I wondered about this one in the sense that, like, if you were teaching nutrition and you could imagine a nutrition teacher and they can spend months teaching healthy eating habits, and then the students go out in the world and there's fast food everywhere, the portions are huge.
Speaker E:You know, advertising promotes unhealthy choices as the thing.
Speaker E:You want to have your friends reinforce those poor habits because you're going out to all these fast food places.
Speaker E:You know, you can still make a difference as a nutrition teacher, but the environment is completely working against you.
Speaker E:And I think that driving instructors have the same issue.
Speaker E:So, yeah, I think we really need to look at culture.
Speaker E:And we were talking about this the other day, Terry, weren't we?
Speaker E:But I was recently in Sweden, and, oh, my God, culture smacks you in the face in terms of how different it is to hear, like, safety literally is a shared priority.
Speaker E:And I know they've had vision zero for decades, but that really seems to permeate into everything that they do.
Speaker E:There's.
Speaker E:There's no debate about safety.
Speaker E:It's just that's what you do.
Speaker E:And it wasn't just in a safety conference.
Speaker E:I felt that you go out into shared spaces.
Speaker E:So there's no graffiti, there's no litter.
Speaker E:There's, you know, collaborative public behavior.
Speaker E:There seems to be respect for the environment and it's like a cultural value.
Speaker E:And that shows that it takes generations of messages coming from the top, people kind of growing up in that and accepting that from the bottom, and then that sort of reinforces that value.
Speaker E:So I think until we.
Speaker E:I mean, we've obviously still got to operate until that perfect world is there, but we're very far from that here, aren't we?
Speaker E:In terms everybody's willing to blame everybody else rather than think about what's my role in this and what can I do that's different?
Speaker E:And that felt very different.
Speaker E:So.
Speaker E:So, yeah, culture.
Speaker E:There you go, there's a big one.
Speaker A:I think I will say this before I let you come in, Tom.
Speaker A:I often think about that and I think about 17 year olds, the reputation they've got.
Speaker A:They're not stupid, they're just 17, they're human, they're not fully developed yet.
Speaker A:And I think that culture's a big one.
Speaker A:And it's why I was excited when we got the road safety strategy, or at least the introduction of the road safety strategy.
Speaker A:Not because of the strategy itself, what may it contain, but it feels like as driving instructors, we've now got something backing us up, you know, we've got something we can point to, we've got other people shouting about, I know the road safety sets does, but when the government says summit, that becomes mandatory like a law, it does generally get heard.
Speaker A:So then it's not just, oh, my instructor says that because he wants to get an extra six hours off me and earn a bit more money.
Speaker A:So I fully agree.
Speaker A:I think that cultural thing is massive.
Speaker A:Yeah, sorry, Tom, go on.
Speaker D:This is kind of for Liz, really, on your magic wand.
Speaker D:I'm going to use the word road safety, but do you think road safety should be taught in schools?
Speaker D:Is that part of changing the culture?
Speaker E:Yes, I think so.
Speaker E:But often when you look at some of the research elsewhere, there's a study in Australia that was done, which I absolutely love because it followed people through time to see what education they had.
Speaker E:Lots and lots of people, people.
Speaker E:And then they looked at, you know, did they get penalty points once they passed their test, et cetera.
Speaker E:So one had a traditional safe driving course, you know, don't drink, don't do all the things we ask people not to do, and somebody, the other group had what we call a resilience education course, which is much more about making decisions, refusal skills, communication, social skills.
Speaker E:And what they found was those that had the resilience education skills had much better outcomes in terms of not having you know, having safe driving in the future, even though it wasn't remotely to do with driving, but it was those components within that actually makes them safer.
Speaker E:You know, looking after other people needs to be valued, courtesy needs to be normal.
Speaker E:You know, risk taking isn't glorified, all of those sorts of things.
Speaker E:And safety just turns people off so often, doesn't it?
Speaker E:But actually when you're looking at all the risks that young people face, you know, being able to communicate their, you know, their red lines about things is really important.
Speaker E:It doesn't matter what risks that they're facing, they need to have the confidence about what to do in those situations.
Speaker E:So yes, but I'd love to see eventually that we end up with a PSHE programme that is much more about resilience education because at the moment I think schools are inundated with knife crime programs.
Speaker E:You know, they've got lots of very well meaning initiatives.
Speaker E:They haven't got enough time in the program because they don't give enough time to any of these things anyway.
Speaker E:So they're all competing but they're all kind of trying to do the same thing.
Speaker E:So.
Speaker E:Yeah, I think that's an interesting question.
Speaker C:I really like that resilience.
Speaker C:I think if we could have that with our kids learning how to do that, it would be amazing.
Speaker C:I'd love to go to Norway and Sweden.
Speaker C:I have never been.
Speaker C:It's high on my list of places to visit, but I thought I would mention the other side when.
Speaker C:Where places don't have rules and where things do go wrong regularly.
Speaker C:And going back and it's not quite 20 years, but it's not too far off.
Speaker C:20 Years ago now, we spent a lot of time in Southeast Asia and South America, for example, Cambodia.
Speaker C:And I sent you a picture earlier of a pickup truck which was, I mean cramped is a bit of an understatement.
Speaker C:It was loaded with motorbikes, with people with everything you can possibly imagine all shoved in.
Speaker C:In Cambodia, my husband and I, we went into an Internet cafe because this was pre WI fi and we had an hour on Skype to our parents.
Speaker C:We came out of the cafe and there'd been a motorbike crash outside of the Internet cafe and the person had died.
Speaker C:All that was left was the chalk paint that they drawn around the shape of the person, a bit like in the movies so the police could come back later and investigate.
Speaker C:In Indonesia there are some islands, well, there are lots of islands, but some of them where safety standards are non existent and when there's no room Left in the bus, you're put on the roof and that's just a standard procedure.
Speaker C:The Vietnam we.
Speaker C:I sent the motorbike picture where we sat on our balcony and just watched motorbikes drive by.
Speaker C:And there is one balancing a tray of banana, what looks like banana milkshakes.
Speaker C:So it's quite a skill.
Speaker C:Some carry TVs.
Speaker C:We mentioned four or five people with kids, babies.
Speaker C:No helmets on the bike.
Speaker C:Gas canisters we've seen as well.
Speaker C:In Laos, it's quite normal to get on a bus on a coach, to be greeted by a person carrying a machine gun, handing out sweets, because you get raided on the bus journeys.
Speaker C:They run, they come down and shoot you.
Speaker C:And in Bolivia and other places in South America, the drop offs the edge.
Speaker C:My husband's cousin, or God's cousin, she lost her leg.
Speaker C:Cause the bus fell off the edge and it's thousands and thousands of feet down into the bottom.
Speaker C:And that's just accepted, normal.
Speaker C:And I think it's really important that, you know, here in the UK we are actually, we have the opportunity to be really quite safe and that as a culture, if we were to respect the fact and sort of take.
Speaker C:Make the most of the advantages of the opportunities we're presented, and that's not just in driver training and learner driver, that's in education, that's across jobs, that's a whole culture, things would be so different.
Speaker C:But I think it's really easy to forget that there are places that are much, much worse.
Speaker C:And if we don't stick to the rules, if we don't do something about obeying rules, we end up with guns on our buses as normal.
Speaker A:All this kind of ties in together.
Speaker A:It kind of seems to fall in the bracket of culture.
Speaker A:When Tommy were talking about the qualification process, well, that kind of falls under that bracket as well.
Speaker A:And what you and I, Ollie was saying about the reassessment thing, in fact, I will just chip in one other thing on that.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker A:So I started a role now with William Merritt Driving School, which is disability driving school, and seen a lot of assessments there of some older people and some people that have, you know, got some form of disability that are having their driving assessed.
Speaker A:And one of the things I'm doing is, is training them afterwards.
Speaker A:So, you know, they get assessed and then they're sometimes told, right, you need six hours of training and then they'll come back for some training.
Speaker A:And it's really interesting seeing how sometimes they'll.
Speaker A:They will try and drive better than they normally do.
Speaker A:They're like, oh, drive better.
Speaker A:You know, six hours in, you can't, as you alluded to all, you can't keep that up for six hours.
Speaker A:But then some of the conversations are fascinating things that they learned 30 years ago and that they've forgotten.
Speaker A:Or they'll complain about everyone else on the road but not realize they're doing the same thing themselves.
Speaker A:And I think that that training opportunity is even better than the actual assessment.
Speaker A:In that impact you get to spend time and have the conversation with someone.
Speaker A:So I thought that was worth chipping in there.
Speaker A:But just going back to uk, I know that that was.
Speaker A:Well, in fact.
Speaker A:Is that your magic wand?
Speaker A:How would you phrase your magic wand around that?
Speaker C:Well, I think I need a magic wand to magic my magic wand, to be honest.
Speaker C:How do you fix an entire culture that, that is so much more than one magic wand.
Speaker C:I would love to live somewhere where everyone respected each other and drivers respected each other and that there was no knife crime and there was no, none of the other things that we have to deal with in the road and in life in general.
Speaker C:How do you fix that?
Speaker C:It needs a very big magic wand, I think maybe a fairyland.
Speaker E:Well, I kind of wonder if they're, you know, we should end on a hopeful note.
Speaker E:I'm not sure if we're coming to the end, Terry, or that feels like we can't get any bigger than culture.
Speaker E:But I think when we look back, cultures do change, don't they?
Speaker E:Even in the uk we've seen cultures change around a lot of different health behaviors.
Speaker E:Fascinating to seeing what's seeing about drinking culture now amongst young people and how that's changing.
Speaker E:Sometimes these things come in waves and it changes with generations and it goes backwards and forwards.
Speaker E:But I think if we can keep on consistently in our own little ways, keep on to push the culture in the right sort of direction.
Speaker E:I mean all the work you're doing, Kate, on like parents and guardians, I really hope in the next five years there's much more understanding amongst that group about actually what can be done despite the fact that the law doesn't tell them to do it.
Speaker E:But actually in terms of they spent their, you know, whole, whole careers as parents looking after young people.
Speaker E:What does that mean for this next step?
Speaker E:Even though these young people are moving independence into adulthood, there is a role to still play here and I think that is something that will shift in the next hopefully five years or so and then things build on it.
Speaker E:So I think.
Speaker E:But it's just a long term project, isn't it.
Speaker E:But we have to all be pointing in the right direction and keep on giving those messages and not be going the wrong way.
Speaker E:Because unfortunately in our sector there's a lot of belief that things will work or this is the right way to go.
Speaker E:And we know that that can be pushing things in the wrong direction as well.
Speaker E:So we all need to be pointing in the right way.
Speaker A:If this comes back to what we were talking about the other day, in fact, people can go and listen to this on the instructor podcast, which was out yesterday.
Speaker A:A bit more on the positive and highlighting the good work people do and highlighting the good driving we do because we've mentioned social media a bit today, how quick people to post the bad clips that they see, but we never see people sharing, oh, this was an awesome bit of driving.
Speaker A:So, Liz, do you think that summer that we can do to not just us individually, but maybe people listening and start that culture revolution by showcasing more of the positivity?
Speaker E:Yeah, I think so.
Speaker E:Because that comes back to helping with what we've all talked about is creating the right norms.
Speaker E:And you know, I think your point, Ollie, about all the things you can pick up over time and then think is normal and actually your friends and your family do similar sorts of things and they feel quite minor.
Speaker E:But actually we know that they can make a big difference.
Speaker E:So, yeah, I think having that positive approach helps to make people realize that there isn't just the negativity out there, that there are some other ways of being and that it can build on itself.
Speaker E:We talked about as well, didn't we, Terry, that it's not always the attractive news story, is it?
Speaker E:You don't get good news, do you?
Speaker E:You always get bad news about what's happened because that draws the public attention, even though it's a very small issue.
Speaker E:And actually there's lots of great news going on and there's plenty of websites out there that try to collate all of the good news in the world.
Speaker E:And it's quite a nice thing to read every now and again when you, when you're feeling a bit down about what the world looks like.
Speaker E:Because there's been a huge number of improvements in loads of different areas, but we're just not told about them very often.
Speaker E:So, yeah, I think it's important.
Speaker E:Definitely.
Speaker C:We live in a rushing around culture.
Speaker C:Rush, rush, rush.
Speaker C:I think Ollie mentioned it earlier with, for the example of the school mum, I walk, by the way.
Speaker C:So I'm not, I'm not going to be in that realm.
Speaker C:Just put it out There.
Speaker C:But we rush everywhere.
Speaker C:On my safe and considerate driving courses that we take through Ukraine, 90% of them have been rushing somewhere.
Speaker C:If we can change that and we become a bit more of a chills out culture, a bit more relaxed, maybe that's a start.
Speaker C:I don't know how that's another magic wand.
Speaker C:But if employers.
Speaker C:There we go.
Speaker C:So if employers put less pressure onto their people are working for them to be places at specific times and just allowed the traffic to do what the traffic does and allow the drivers to take the time that they need, maybe that's a little start.
Speaker E:Well maybe it's house prices Kate.
Speaker E:If the house prices weren't too expensive then not everybody would have to work full time and they wouldn't be rushing on the school run to work.
Speaker C:How big is this magic wand we are needing?
Speaker E:Yeah, so it gets very big very quickly, doesn't it?
Speaker A:The summers keep going.
Speaker A:I'll say I will have to start taking siestas which will help as well, calm everyone down.
Speaker B:Ollie so just like you say, we, we talked a bit about negativity thinking about positivity and Liz makes a really good point around.
Speaker B:I think it was Liz or might have been.
Speaker B:Might have been.
Speaker B:Kate made a point about actually celebrating positivity.
Speaker B:So two things there.
Speaker B:One is an organization that I've been doing some work with this year.
Speaker B:I'm not going to name them but anyway a large company, a fleet of 11,000 vehicles, they're huge and they would talk, they wanted some advice on a road safety strategy for the organization and the individual.
Speaker B:I was talking to one at a director level individual.
Speaker B:Basically they're saying that they want to introduce a safe driving scheme for the organization and at the end of the year one driver, the safest driver in the organization and they'll be monitored throughout the year through telematics within the company vehicles was basically going to be given an extra week's annual leave and a two and a half thousand pound holiday voucher for being the best driver in this organization across across a 12 month period which I thought was, was absolutely inspired, absolutely inspired and a way to encourage culture of safer driving across an entire organization by something really meaningful that somebody can, something really tangible that somebody can go.
Speaker B:If I drive really well and I constantly.
Speaker B:My driving score is constantly where it needs to be gold or 100% or whatever it has to be.
Speaker B:So I have to.
Speaker B:And this particular telematic system is monitoring seat belt use, it's monitoring cameras, monitoring speed, it's monitoring, it monitors everything.
Speaker B:Basically it's one of the most, the most comprehensive telematic systems I've ever seen.
Speaker B:It's unbelievable.
Speaker B:But actually that's a way of celebrating good behavior.
Speaker B:Now off the back of that and it got me thinking, was thinking that the police go out and they issued tickets.
Speaker B:You get three points, you know, three points in your license for speed or whatever.
Speaker B:You know, points for different offenses.
Speaker B:How about it turns on its head and actually the police start giving up positive points.
Speaker B:So if you've done some really good driving, if your driving is deemed to be really good the police stop you and say here, here are three positive points thanks to your insurance company.
Speaker B:Get a.
Speaker B:Get a reduction in your insurance because we reckon that you're, you are a lower risk than somebody else on the robot.
Speaker B:Yes, very subjective I know but actually collect, collect your points and the better driver you are the more, the better driver you are the better driver.
Speaker B:The pen apps.
Speaker B:The better you are to give the example the better example you are to other radios and there are some great drop drivers out there.
Speaker B:There's loads of great drivers.
Speaker B:They just get ignored because actually it's only the bad drivers that ever get picked out and penalized.
Speaker B:It's only there any of the ones we hear of.
Speaker B:Imagine a news.
Speaker B:You imagine a headline in the paper driver gets free insurance for a year because they're such a great driver rather than driver gets a 10 year bang.
Speaker B:Such a crap driver.
Speaker B:So yeah, so how about switching it completely on its head and saying let's reward good driving behaviors.
Speaker A:Positive points from the police.
Speaker A:I this is how grumpy I can be.
Speaker A:I would probably be annoyed they'd pull me over to give me positive points.
Speaker A:Let me drive.
Speaker A:I want to get there right.
Speaker A:No, I'll tell you what, I've loved this.
Speaker A:I've loved waving your magic wandabout today Tom.
Speaker A:Do you want to take a minute Tom to tell people where they can find you and what you have to offer?
Speaker D:I deliver a whole host of instructor training and development.
Speaker D:You can find me at thead di NJC or at Bright Coaching or alongside my driving school drive up training.
Speaker B:Dr. Mox.
Speaker E:Yeah, anybody can find me at ecmresearchsolutions.co.uk.
Speaker E:So my main role really is road safety research, intervention design and evaluation making sure that we use the research that we have out there and use it in the real world in ways that can be helpful.
Speaker E:Probably the best place to find me is on LinkedIn where I post about various different things.
Speaker E:So yeah, thanks Terry.
Speaker C:You can find me at mylenerdriver.co.uk.
Speaker C:We're on Facebook and on the website.
Speaker C:I'm readily available on Facebook.
Speaker C:I'm trying to embrace social media a bit more these days.
Speaker A:That good, positive quality social media, please.
Speaker A:Not like some of the nonsense getting now, but only Taylor.
Speaker A:Last, but by no means where can.
Speaker B:People find you@thehonestruth.co.uk so just www.theonyxtruth.co.uk a chain designed specifically for driving instructors.
Speaker B:Part 3.
Speaker A:And if you've enjoyed this podcast, then check out the sister podcast, the One Minute Driving Short Tips and of course the Intruder podcast.
Speaker A:But have a great month.
