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Serious changes needed for driver training industry

To protect the safety and financial security of all drivers, Drivers Advocate puts the blame for the high motor vehicle collision rate squarely on the government, and not on the individual drivers, because it is the government that sets the requirements for license, yet also generates revenue from the taxation on the sale of gasoline by the drivers who have licenses, there is a conflict of interest.

The high collision rate can be directly attributed to dysfunction of, including and especially regulation of the driver training industry.

Advocations

Given that the general voting public is poorly informed with regard to the issues of motor vehicle collisions and driver education, the government therefore has no vested interest in making it more difficult for anyone to acquire a drivers license. More drivers licenses equals more drivers which equals more cars, gasoline sales, more economic mobility and more tax revenue. But the result is a high rate of collisions, damage, injury and death, and higher insurance rates.

Drivers Advocate wants three primary changes to driver education:

1. A redesignation of driver training and education industry regulation from the Department of Transportation to the Department of Education

2. An advanced, standardized and developed curriculum, one based on collision statistics emphasises all issues correlating to the specific collision statistics, an extensive and complete program on reading and understanding actual traffic law, and incorporating the following; training for students to drive accordingly as opposed simply providing information to them; classroom training provided only through high schools and their respective boards; in-car training provided by privately driving instructors in accordance to explicit lesson plans provided by the Ministry of Education, (e.g. "level achievement" builiding from basic stopping, accelerating, turns and lane changes to advanced procedures such as merging, one-ways, freeways, circles, etc.)

3. Examination by a third party of student driver's abilities following student's completion of the programs to ensure that instructors are not also testing their own students.

Currently, students are not tested. This of course, means there is little control over the quality of education they receive. To pass the program, a student only needs to attend, drive a car and re-take the same 25 question multiple-choice written test that they have already passed for the learner's license.

The education that students receive is poorly designed, and is focussed on basic operation of a motor vehicle for license, rather than being focussed on the particular issues that cause motor vehicle collisions - after all, motor vehicle collisions are caused by drivers who already have licenses.

Furthermore, the department of transportation has not designed and does not regulate the driver training and education industry because while the people in the department understand traffic, they have no background in driver education and training or any other educational and training practice.

About Drivers Advocate

There is one single cause of accidents, and that is lack of understanding. The result of this lack of knowledge is people making driving choices that cause accidents, choices based on incorrect perceptions, attitudes and information.

You may think you know what you're doing, but you may not in fact have all the facts and figures, and as a result you might actually be an accident waiting to happen despite what you believe about yourself. Many years experience doesn't make a good driver if every day you do the same sort of things that cause accidents, but until now you've been lucky. And all it takes is one at-fault accident and your insurance rates will go up dramatically, taking your hard-earned income out of your pocket and putting it in the hands of the insurance industry.

Many drivers do not and cannot understand, after they have caused an accident, how they are at fault, because they didn't understand in the first place. But no one can change the past; the only way to protect your insurance rates is to have all the training and education possible.

The five core values

Drivers Advocate believes in 5 core values:

• Customer service
• Employee satisfaction
• Professional management
• Quality product
• Corporate altruism

The latter, "corporate altruism," means that any successful business operates not just to make a profit, but also as a service to humanity. For example, a grocer does not exist simply to make a profit, but to provide food to people. A school exists both to profit and to educate.

Businesses who do not take this core value into account do not last long. And while these values apply to driving schools, the same must also apply to governments and their departments. Lack of attention and address to these problems siting lack of resources are counter to success.

How to teach and train drivers; quality instructors

Drivers Advocate will advise on changes to the driver education system and regulation thereof by drawing from the experiences of driving instructors and other professional educators, in the redevelopment of driver education in conjunction with government departments of education and members of the auto insurance providers industry.

Many student drivers are not mature enough to drive or even ready to take lessons. Some students cannot bear two hours of driving per lesson. When an instructor has reached a level of tolerance where the instructor cannot provide any more instruction for a student, those lessons must be discontinued until the student has matured enough to continue, either with the same or another instructor.

Unfortunately, as the industry is regulated currently, if the instructor reaches a point where the lesson must be discontinued, the student complains to a parent, who then complains to the driver education program manager, who, being a small business person who only wants to please the customer, 're-evaluates' the student's abilities and changes the failing grade to a passing grade, thus pleasing the customer and taking any authority the instructor might have to correct the problems the student may have..

Instructors quickly learn to refrain from any attempt to correct their mistakes for fear of complaints from the customer. In fact, instructors are advised by their employers to refrain from any attempts to teach, and to simply allow students to practice what they already know, providing the students with nothing praise and affirmation.

After passing the course the students then go on to cause accidents, due to overconfidence (from the passing grade) and incompetence (from lack of education.) Drivers Advocate wants to eliminate this type of problem.

Mandatory driver education and training

Driver education should be mandatory. Of course, the government knows that this would not be popular and political party might actually lose votes if they tried to pass such legislation. But there are plenty of examples of unpopular requirements; speed limits for example.

The programs should be designed and regulated by the departments of education in conjunction with the auto insurance industry, rather than the departments of transportation and the free-market driving school industry.

The insurance providers should be crucially and substantially involved in the driver education programs that qualify drivers for insurance discounts;

Students should be tested by third-party government examiners for the certificate of program completion, rather than the instructors who evaluate the same students they teach;

Drivers should be re-tested (written test only) at every renewal of a drivers license; and that instructors are trained better and more substantially remunerated, and are organized either by union of official association; that the classroom portion of a driver education program is provided by the public and separate school boards, in conjunction with in-car portions of the programs being provided by private driving schools only. (more)

Driver licensing

Drivers are tested, basically, only once in their lives. Until they die or are too old to drive, they are never re-tested. At the very least, drivers could be required to rewrite the written portion of the exam every time they renew their licenses.

The insurance industry lobby

The only people who can motivate government to make these changes happen is the insurance industry and like-minded groups of people who are concerned with the cost especially in terms of injury and death. Because it is the insurers and their clients who ultimately pay for the results of incompetent driver training programs and the resultant incompetent drivers, and because of all of the interested parties the insurers are best situated to organize and lobby government for the necessary changes, the onus is upon the insurers to organize to motivate government to make the necessary changes, and for the insurance industry to take responsibility for the quality and standards of driver education programming. (more)

Since the insurance providers and their clients have the most at stake in this case, the most suitable course of action would be for insurance providers as an industry to lobby government to change the system of driver education so that it is the insurance industry that is in control of driver education in terms of design and delivery; i.e. who passes and who must repeat the courses, what exactly is taught and how, and to discontinue the practice of allowing private driving schools to certify the knowledge, skills and attitudes of drivers, transferring that responsibility to the insurance industry.

The insurance providers should lobby the government immediately to propose legislation for a completely new approach to driver training, designed from scratch and not from the foundation of the current driver training system, so that the insurance providers alone design and deliver the driver education certification program, and thus control the standard by which students receive a passing grade and the subsequent discount on their insurance premiums.

Department of education vs. transportation

While the department of transportation may have all the facts and figures, there is a need to convey this knowledge to drivers which the d.o.t. is unable to provide. The department of education is perfectly situated to learn the issues of traffic and convey that understanding to drivers in ways the d.o.t. cannot.  (more)

Members of the department of transportation are not specifically trained nor do they specialize in matters of education, as their primary function is to oversee regulations pertaining to the use of motor vehicles in industries such as trucking and bussing, as well as motor vehicle operation in the general public.

Members of the department of transportation are not expertly familiar with traffic law; if motor vehicle collisions are invariably caused by violation of traffic law (except for a small number of collisions caused by mechanical defect, etc.) then driving instructors must be experts in traffic law in order to teach it effectively. Members of the department of transportation, in order to regulate the knowledge and effectiveness of the instructors must also be experts in traffic law and current methods and techniques in education and training in order to determine if instructors are qualified to teach from expert qualification.

Teaching methods

The current driving school method was designed originally to teach people how to drive the car, that is to operate the motor vehicle � stop, go, turn left and right. It was designed for people who had no experience driving a car. The overwhelming majority of today�s student drivers already know how to drive a car in the sense of motor vehicle operation, and with today�s cars being automatic transmission, power steering and power brakes, basic operation of a car is very simple and easy. The accidents that happen every hour of  day are not caused by people who don�t know how to operate a vehicle, the accidents are  caused by people with drivers licenses who have experience driving. The driver education programs must reflect that. (more)

Instructors are unable to provide proper driver education because there is no support for instructors, whether from government, employers, clients or each other.

Failing grades vs. everybody passes for attendance

Most driving students are teenagers whose parents are paying for the program. Because the driving school does not provide the road-test for the actual license, the students have no real vested interest in the program other than their own ability to drive, which most already understand, and their own personal time spent in the classroom and in the training car. The primary motivating factor for parents is two-fold; a) to provide their child with the knowledge they need to drive safely and, b) to acquire a discount to their vehicle insurance rates for the completion of the course. (more)

If an instructor fails the student because the student fails to understand the rules, the procedures and the proper attitudes necessary for correct motor vehicle operation, the parent will usually complain as the parent has lost  both objectives � education of the child and the insurance discount. If, however, you eliminated the incentive of the insurance discount, most parents would not spend their hard-earned incomes on a driver education program for their children. Most parents would choose to teach their children themselves or let the children learn on their own with the children�s own vehicle�s and insurance rates. Thus the education of the child takes a back seat to the financial motive, and that�s where the quality of the education disappears.

To properly teach a student driver, they must learn to meet a high standard of knowledge, skill and proper attitude. If the student does not, they must be told, or their parents must be told, to return to the school, paying for further lessons, until the student does meet that standard. Thus the parent will be motivated to do whatever is necessary to help their own child to learn, with assistance from program materials brought home from the school, until the child has learned sufficiently with the help of sources other than the driving instructor, such as immediate family members such as parents. The instructor alone cannot teach the child, the guardians must also be involved.

Therefore instructors must have full support from government regulators, employers and parents to fail and dismiss any student from the program who is deemed to immature, either in knowledge, physical ability or perspective attitude in order to drive safely.

Examples of driver education problems

Basic driver education programs are designed to teach in a way that does not help the student to understand and solve the problems of driving. Generalizations are used, such as �identify and respond to hazards.� This sort of generalized advice does not reveal the cause of accidents. The term �hazard� is not specific enough to cause a student to understand what is required of them while driving. Specific accidents and their causes must be used to educate a driver. (more)

For  example, the most common accident is the rear ender, which is caused when a driver following another car fails to stop in time before colliding with the rear end of the car in front. This is caused primarily by following too close to the car in front, whether for slippery road conditions, distractions, or normal conditions. There are three primary causes for a driver to follow too close: a) the driver is unaware of a proper following distance as a result of a lack of proper training, education and examination, b) the driver is aware of proper following distance but chooses to ignore it due to impatience, conceit, aggression or laziness, and c) momentary lapse of concentration, distraction, etc. If 30% of all accidents are caused by improper following distance then it stands to reason that 30% of a driver education course curriculum be committed to teaching students to understand proper following distance. In today�s driver education program, following distance is given as much attention as how to parallel park, and very few accidents are caused by drivers who do not know how to parallel park correctly.

Another example is teaching students that a stop sign has eight sides, without teaching students how the number of sides on a stop sign is relevant to the cause of accidents. Students are told that a stop sign has eight sides, but the purpose of the sign being octagonal and how that relates to accidents at stop signs is not revealed. Moreover, students are taught that they must completely stop for a stop sign (without understanding that the rule to stop does not indicate that a driver must stop at the physical location of the stop sign) but they are not taught as to why a complete stop is necessary, especially when there is no other traffic to stop for. With stop sign violations being one of the leading causes of accidents at stop signs, it is essential that the concept of a stop sign be understood beyond the obvious. Accidents at stop signs are not caused by drivers who do not understand the word �stop� or the fact that the sign has eight sides, they are caused by drivers who do not understand the purpose and the function of a complete stop at a stop sign and its octagonal shape. This is what must be an essential part of a driver education program and the programs themselves must be redesigned in this way.

We need a constant input of ideas and information to instructors and designers of the training programs in order to constantly increase the success rate of the programs. Instructor input is invaluable in this regard.

Teaching driver education

The primary goal of driver education is ostensibly to reduce the rate of collisions. If there were no collisions, there would be no need for driver education. To that end, we must look at the collisions, determine the causes of those collisions and more importantly the factors leading to the cause, and then look at the problems of how best to both educate and train drivers to eliminate those factors. We must prorate the collisions based on both their severity and occurrence rate, so that a severe but uncommon collision is rated equally to one not as severe but highly common in occurrence, and then focus the program on educating drivers accordingly to those statistics.

Universal standards

For a universal traffic system to work, there must be a universal standard. Thus, driver education should be a federal concern. Although separate regional governments are responsible for rules of the roads within their own regions, driving rules are consistent throughout the world; a stop sign is a stop sign, right-of-way is right-of-way, a speed limit is a speed limit. The only significant difference between regions around the world in terms of driving rules is what side of the road drivers must drive on. It doesn�t matter what side drivers use, as long as they all use the same side. Throughout North America, the only significant difference in driving rules from region to region are speed limits, which do not vary significantly. If the rules are the same, the curriculum must also be the same.

Curricula

Since all motor vehicle collisions minus the small percentage caused by uncontrollable mechanical failure are caused by one or more drivers violating a traffic regulation, the emphasis of teaching driver students to understand traffic regulation and rules of the road both in knowledge and perspective is paramount, i.e. traffic law. The first section of traffic law is definition, and it is essential that students understand the language before they are even given to understand the purpose and function of each law.

Perspective vs. knowledge

The part of education following specific knowledge is understanding the purpose and function of the specifics, as in perspective. Each and every traffic regulation has a justifiable and rational reason for existence, and no law is unnecessary or unreasonable; for example, speed laws which are acceptably transgressed if only by a reasonable amount. There is nothing magic about the posted speed limit in that breach of that limit by any other than an �excessive� amount would automatically lead to collision. Reasonability being the essence of law the students must be made to be aware of this principle and to recognize its extents and limits. Drivers often break laws because they don�t understand the law, not because they are unaware of the law.

Proper attitude

As all human behavior is a product of emotion whereas all emotion is a product of cognitive thought; the science of non-neurological cognitive psychology where it pertains to rationalization of action based on emotional response is also the basis of driver behavior; that is, understanding follows knowledge and behavior follows understanding.

For example, a persons speeds because of how they feel. What they feel is determined by what they think; therefore what a person thinks must be significantly influenced by education and experience.

Adjusting behavior

Psychology is defined as the study of mind and behavior; whereas the mind itself (thoughts, memories, imagination, etc.) cannot be observed per se, behavior is therefore the common pursuit of psychological understanding.

Training is defined as the production of desired behavior. The common way to train is to withhold the thing the trainee wants the most as a result of undesirable behavior and to provide it after desired behavior. To train young and new drivers to take the program and their actions seriously, instructors need to be able to cancel and postpone lessons without penalty to the instructor, and to transfer students the instructor cannot train who will do likewise, when a student shows inappropriate attitudes in their speech and behavior.

Pre-evaluation

Students must be evaluated for their skill and knowledge level before entering into a driver education program. Files should be made from the beginning, and should follow the student from instructor to instructor, from provider to provider, so that all instruction is based on previous instruction. Currently, if a student goes from one driving school to another, the file does not follow the student.

Evaluation vs. instruction

Once in the program, students must not be evaluated until they have learned and achieved certain standards of knowledge, skill and attitude.

Testing

Examination of a student driver�s knowledge, skills and attitudes should be performed by examiners who are completely separate from the educators, e.g. DMV examiners, examiners trained and appointed by insurance agents, etc.

Transfer of credits

Students should be able to transfer the amount of time in lessons they have acquired in one driver education program to another. This will ensure that program providers do not advance students when they are not qualified; students who are not happy with a failing grade and the discipline required to learn to drive safely may complain to an unethical trainer who then chooses to pass the unqualified student to appease the complainant.

Terminology

One of the universal standards must be in the use of language. Terminology must consistent and used consistently amongst educators. Some driver educators make the claim that the term �accident� is not appropriate, as most collisions are preventable, and are the result of decisions made intentionally by drivers. But this is not necessarily true. A driver may choose to take a certain risk because that driver lacks training in understanding perspectives and risk attitudes, as well as the specific risks and probabilities and consequences thereof. So the driver does in fact make these improper decisions �accidentally�. As such, a universal agreement among instructors and regulators must be found in the design of the driver education curriculum. What is being taught in one school must also be taught in every other school. If traffic laws are the same everywhere then traffic education must also be. You cannot allow the free market to determine the standard for safety education for if you do, some will not meet the average standard and be a higher risk for collision, injury and death. All driver education programs should be of the highest standard, for the sake of the safety of all drivers.

Instructor association

Because one person�s perspective and knowledge differs from any other by a certain degree it is also and because change is constant it is essential that educators communicate their understanding and experiences in order to determine the most effective educational standard. But because human nature is corrupted by a proportional amount of authoritative and administrative power the educational standard determined by the

driver training programs should be based on one curriculum template, designed by a consensus of educational professionals, instructors, insurers and the Ministry of Education, with any relevant assistance the Ministry of Transportation can provide.

Public education

There is also an onus upon the provincial government to not only reassign the driver training industry, but also to initiate a public education campaign with a regular and consistent newsletter and other media delivered in the mail to each and every license-holder with their renewal notices, reminding them and informing them of the rules, regulations and responsibilities of drivers operating private motor vehicles in traffic on public roads in order to carry on and continue the efforts of driver educators.

Standards

Driving schools should all teach the same curriculum. Privately owned driving schools and instructors should compete to develop the curriculum. The curriculum chosen should be used in all schools. There is no reason why drivers should be improperly trained simply because they chose the school with the cheapest course rates, thus getting the poorest education. All drivers are equal on the road and should be trained equally. 

Instructor�s testimony

I was a driving instructor for six years. When I started teaching I knew nothing about driver education, or education in general, except that I had been to college myself. I was surprised to learn over the years how little I knew about driving when I began. Even though I had held a drivers license since the age of 16, and had in fact upgraded to commercial vehicle operation, I realized after teaching students about traffic how much I didn't know myself; the more I taught the more I learned. The fact that I had little background or training in teaching and education made me less qualified for higher salaries and more attractive to driving schools whose motive was profit via customer service. Driving schools are likely to hire unskilled people and train them for an instructor's license, which being provided by the state/provincial-level department of transportation rather than the department of education is easy to acquire because it focuses on driving rather than teaching. The instructor's driving test is pretty much the same as the regular driving test, only twice as long and includes talking about what you are doing and some role playing as instructor and student. But overall, there's little that the private driver training industry offers and so the government test is based on the standards already in place.

The exam to acquire an instructor�s license is quite simple; one part is showing the examiner your driving ability, similar to the basic license exam. Another part is to talk about your driving while you are driving, describing everything you see, think and do; examiners do not have a specific standard for this part, using their own personal judgment. The third part is to sit in the passenger seat while the examiner sits in the drivers seat, and provide instruction to the examiner while the examiner pretends to be a student. The third part of the exam is designed to evaluate an instructor�s ability to teach a student who has absolutely no prior experience in motor vehicle operation. Unfortunately, that sort of student represents a tiny minority of students; most students have experience driving and all motor vehicle collision on the public roadways are caused by drivers with drivers licenses and driving experience; thus driver education should be focused on teaching experienced drivers.

There is no testing of abilities in merging, left-turns onto one-ways, circles, freeways, uncontrolled cross intersections, etc. There are no standard curricula, either.

Over the years of working at driving schools as an instructor I started to realize that with the material I was given to use in educating the students, the students were not learning anything significant. Most realized that they were expected only to sit in the classroom and listen, and did not participate or learn in any meaningful way. Many realized that at the end of the classroom time they were to take a simple test, the same simple multiple-choice written test they took to get their learner�s license.

As I began to realize that students were not really learning what they needed to know and understand in order to be safe drivers, I took it upon myself to try different approaches to teaching and to redesign the curriculum to improve the effectiveness of the education. This effort was, however unnoticed and unaccredited by either my employers or government regulators, as there was little standard in the driver training industry. The established standard was a simple written course on basic motor vehicle operation and basic traffic regulation that was essentially to be read to the classroom verbatim. A classroom would usually entail an instructor with no educational experience standing at the head of the class reading a manual to the class while the students distracted and occupied themselves as best they could. In the end the students receive very little in the way of understanding, but would quietly and politely follow instructions and finish with a certificate, thinking they must have learned at least something to have acquired a certificate, and then go about their lives without questioning the validity of the driver education program not realizing they were an accident waiting to happen.

The most frustrating aspect of all this was not being able to disqualify a student who failed to understand or appreciate the issues of traffic safety. If a student was unable to understand, or was emotionally immature such as impatient, aggressive, irresponsible, there was no recourse to discipline the student. Traditionally, if a student is noncompliant the student is sent home with a notice to the parent/guardian. The parent/guardian then does whatever is deemed necessary to bring the student to compliance, and the student returns to the program. Instead, if the student was non-compliant the driving instructor was required to comply to the student, making the student responsible for the standard of the program.

Driving and driver education is unlike any other type of education. It is much like mathematics, where nothing is subjective and there is a definite right or wrong, unlike other subjects that are more subjective and open to interpretation. There is no personal interpretation of safe driving. But moreover, if a student fails to learn mathematics sufficiently, they are then restricted to occupations that require a working knowledge of mathematics. However, in the current driver education industry, students who do not understand traffic safety are graduated nevertheless, and are free to acquire a license and incentive to operate a motor vehicle in traffic on public roads. They are accidents waiting to happen.

As I realized that I could not fail or even delay a student from a passing grade until they learned to driver properly, I became more and more frustrated. There was nothing I could do to teach a student and train a student to drive and be responsible according to the traffic system.

Wherever you drive.

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LINKS:

National Government driving website