Driving task deserves better training
By: Gary Magwood
Date: 2001-05-01
Gary Magwood is a driving educator and freelance writer.
In our quest to reduce vehicle crashes and collisions, we have not left many stones unturned. Research has been ongoing into every facet of the driving process since the dawn of the automotive era.
As the result of research that indicated cars and trucks were "dangerous" we spent untold kazillions of dollars to develop so-called safety features for our vehicles. Our vehicles have become paradigms of "safety." Cars are being produced today that sport up to six air bags, massive side beam protection, crumple zones, breakaway steering columns, and many other unseen engineering innovations.
Now add computer technology. Microchips control directional stability, braking, traction, and a myriad of under the hood functions. Inside the vehicle they facilitate improved night vision, control heating and ventilation, and operate navigational aids and much more. I suggest we have pretty well covered off the technological solutions to reducing crashes and collisions. Yet we still crash and collide with monotonous regularity.
Research continues unabated. Now it's into rollovers: rating vehicles with stars to indicate their propensity for falling over when, and I quote from the literature, "a vehicle runs off the road into a ditch, curb, or soft soil." The vehicle runs off the road! Damn things with all those microchips have developed minds of their own! Where was that stability control technology when it was needed? Better yet, where was the driver?
Research also indicated highways were hazardous to our health so more kazillions were spent to expand and upgrade our highways, to improve signage, to develop special crash barriers for medians and construction zones, to enhance lighting, and this list goes on.
Research has been used to justify intense enforcement for exceeding arbitrary speed limits, to crack down on aggressive driving, to eliminate impaired driving in all its forms, and many other problems identified by studies as contributing to crashes and collisions. Now the concern is cell phones.
Risk lovers
Risk taking has been identified as contributing to the perceived dangers of driving. A recent release of the 2nd edition of Target Risk by Dr. Gerald Wilde refocuses on the topic as it relates to our behaviour behind the wheel. Dr. Wilde looks at how we "use up" all the so called "safety advances" by engaging in more aggressive (read riskier) driving in such cars to keep our level of risk the same as it was prior to the advancements.
I'm not a scientist. I do know that we as a species are risk takers. Regardless of our childhood experience, education, current occupation, and perceived daring, we generally love to let it all hang out sometimes. We enjoy the rush. Check out current sports and activities such as x-treme games where athletes perform unbelievable stunts on skateboards, bicycles, motorcycles, and roller blades. How about down-hill skiing and its more outlandish variations of heli-skiing and jumping, scuba diving, hang gliding, bungee jumping, motorcycle, automobile and go-kart racing, rallying, gymnastics, recreational flying, sport jumping, surfing, sail boarding, free basing, and probably several I've missed.
We have embraced playing volatile stock markets. We'll gamble with our entire financial well being. It's obviously a rush or we wouldn't do it. My guess is the majority of players will get back in when the dust settles.
Despite the perceived dangers of the aforementioned risks, the activity in which we are most at risk daily is driving. Statistically, our chances of suffering fatal or non-fatal injuries from driving far outweigh all the others combined.
When it comes to driving, we think the inherent risks behind the wheel have been minimised by technology. It's interesting to look at photos of car crashes in the 1920s and 30s and compare them to those taken recently. The damage inflicted by the hydro pole or tree is still smack in the middle of the hood! The driver in the early years probably drove into the object at a much slower speed than their modern equivalent but they both drove into the obstruction for the same reason. They were staring at it with their foot buried on the brake pedal!
The reason: the techniques and methods for obtaining a driver's license have not changed much over those years. Acquiring a license requires minimal skill training even though the driving environment has evolved dramatically. Parallel parking still causes more anxiety than any other aspect of the procedure!
Education and training woes
Research into the effectiveness of driver education and training has a spotty history. I know of several studies that "prove" driver education and training is useless. Some studies even indicate drivers with high school driver's-ed are involved in more incidents than their untrained counterparts. Some researchers went as far as blaming so-called advanced driver training for an increase in the number and severity of crashes and collisions.
So, where does that leave us? If education and training for drivers is relatively ineffective then let's look at education and training in other aspects of our lives.
School is seen as the primary function for the first 20 or so years of our lives. We are admonished to stay in school if we want to participate in the new economy. Degrees from community colleges and universities are coveted and are perceived to be necessary to succeed financially.
Most of us continue the process throughout our lives. We take courses at night school. We seek, pay for, and accept coaching (another word for training) for our recreational pastimes. We attend seminars and lectures to optimise our jobs and careers. It would seem that learning is a lifelong process.
If we decide to become a pilot, doctor, dentist, engineer, accountant, firefighter, police officer, marketing whiz, architect, researcher, advertising executive, or whatever, education and training play a pivotal role. We can't just decide to become whatever and sign up for a brief familiarisation course followed by a multiple choice test and learn by getting "experience."
Would you relax and fasten your seat belt if you thought the pilot of the aircraft was as well trained as you are to drive a vehicle?! We trust our physicians, dentists, accountants, engineers, and other professionals because they have proof of having spent several years studying and training for their chosen occupation.
Maybe doctors could just take a first aid course and then get experience by hanging around hospitals. I dare you to drive over a bridge designed by someone who "always wanted to be an engineer." Maybe dad or mom was an engineer who passed on their knowledge when the prodigy was 16 or so and then all they needed was a little experience!
We put a lot of faith in education and training. With appropriate training we're very capable of learning to perform complex tasks and amazing physical feats. If it works in every other facet of our lives, why not for driving?
Driving must be the exception. A few tips from dad or mom followed by a very basic familiarisation course and the feared "test" are accepted as sufficient to learn one of the most complex and risky tasks in our lives. Anything more than that is seen as a restriction of our right to drive!
Along comes high school driver ed. The teaching task is allotted to the geography teacher or the coach who has no credibility with the students as a driving expert. Dull dreary teaching aids supplemented by gory, ketchup-stained videos and "safety" lectures are augmented by a few trips around the block, and, oh yeah, the parallel parking exercises. The methodology has not changed significantly in the past 50 years.
Raising the bar
The acquisition of a driver's license is the major right of passage for virtually every teenager. A license says "adult." Having trained over 18,000 individuals I know that all ages (16 to 86) respond to a challenging and dramatic curriculum delivered with energy and enthusiasm. Vital skills can be taught in a relatively short period of time. If we make a significant effort to obtain a license we are more likely to respect and protect it.
When researchers probe and analyse driver education and training it would appear they only take into account the end results (whether students crash or not). I suggest they delve more deeply into who is doing the teaching, how is it being taught, and what is being taught. Then track the results.
Surely, if we give the driving task the credit its due, the issue of whether education and training works or not would be answered.
Ken Claffey:
I have been to Gary Magwood's course and have also listened to him speak at
a conference....[But his course] should not be taught to new drivers that
have verylittle experience behind the wheel....
Gary Magwood:
Teaching over 15,000 young drivers on skid pads across this country, demonstrated
to me they really have not learned very much in the process of getting their
license. This is not the fault of the educator or trainer in most cases....
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