The route of all evil - or good (depending on how you plan it)
This section contains three 'MasterClass' articles covering Route Planning - The articles written by John Farlam were originally published at ADIMasterClass.co.uk
If I could change just one thing to improve driver training it would be the way that instructors plan and use lesson routes. Today I'm looking a little closer t route planning.
Some of today's information draws on ideas from the Gold Seminar about route planning. If you are a Gold Member you can listen to the Route Planning audio Seminar here to supplement this information.
Building confidence
The quickest way to build confidence and competence in any field of learning/training is to gain early and repeated success. Driver training is no different from anything else in this respect.
One of the best ways to create an opportunity for success is to take away the distractions and fears that often cause ‘learner overload'; this can often, if not always, be done by ensuring that the route is suitable for the subject in hand and the learner's ability.
A well-chosen, well planned route will often have a dramatic effect on the success or failure of the training session.
Some instructors base their routes on local driving test areas using the same roads as the DVSA examiners. After the basics of operating the car have been mastered and the learner is starting to cope with moderate traffic their lessons become random ‘general drives' without a tight focus on any specific subject...
When I deliver practical training for instructor and trainer development we sometimes play a game called ‘spot the lesson subject'.
My premise is that if you are behind a driving school car where the learner is receiving a well-planned lesson on an appropriate route, it should be possible to deduce the lesson subject simply by following behind for ten minutes. Sometimes the lesson subject soon becomes clear - but often we see learners who are seemingly out of their depth repeating outwardly visible errors over-and-over again.
Test routes and ‘general drives' have their place in training, but only in the final week or two leading up to the driving test. A 'general' route will do very little to help a learner master a specific subject.
Specific routes
In order to meet your training objectives, the routes you choose will need to contain specific hazards and challenges. For example, you can't do a ‘roundabouts' lesson if the route doesn't contain any roundabouts! So your first task is to develop a ‘set' of training routes that have the relevant features for specific learning topics and that offer sufficient repetition of those features. To a greater or lesser degree you will already be doing this, however, I'm suggesting that you consciously ‘formalise' a set of routes for key subjects.
Each specific subject will need at least two routes, ideally, three routes.
- Subject introduction route
- Development route
- ‘Advanced' route
At first glance this might seem to be the same thing as the traditional training concept of ‘nursery routes', ‘intermediate routes' and ‘test standard' routes, however, there are some key differences with my route planning approach.
Traditional thinking suggests that when someone starts learning to drive they will begin with quiet ‘nursery routes' and then progress through the ‘intermediate' through to the ‘test standard route' locations as they become more competent. There is nothing wrong with this approach, in as far as it goes, however, it can sometimes lead to problems if just taken at face value.
If we take ‘crossroads' as an example.
A specific crossroads lesson might come after a learner has mastered the controls and covered left and right turns approaching an emerging. While some of the approaches and emerges might be at crossroads during this initial phase of learning (due to the constraints that the area places on route planning) the crossroads aspect of the junctions would not be the key lesson focus.
For many learners (if they get one at all) a specific crossroads lesson will come after they have been introduced to moderate traffic (perhaps an average of between four and seven hours training). Because they have been introduced to moderate traffic there is a good chance that the first ‘crossroads focussed' lesson will be done on moderately busy roads (following the ‘nursery – intermediate – test standard' route thinking). However, I'm suggesting that each lesson subject should have its own ‘nursery' route, even if the learner has already mastered moderate or even busy traffic.
If we now ‘dual-carriageways' as our next example.
Dual-carriageways can be extremely dangerous, far more so than motorways, especially if they have high speed limits. This is because they can have traffic emerging from t-junctions, cyclists, pedestrians, traffic-lights, roundabouts and many other hazards not found on motorways.
Given the nature of dual-carriageways you would not introduce them until a learner was fairly proficient at dealing with traffic – the learner is likely to have reached the ‘test-standard route' level before the dual-carriageway lesson and learning to deal with busier junctions, pedestrian crossings and other ‘complex' hazards.
But… The fact that a learner is dealing with busy traffic does not mean that they are ready for a busy dual-carriageway.
Yes, they might cope reasonably well but I refer back to my statement in the third paragraph of this article: “The quickest way to build confidence and competence in any field is to gain early and repeated success.”
If you want to ‘guarantee' success on the dual-carriageway (or with any other subject) it needs its own dedicated ‘nursery' or ‘subject introduction' route. By starting with an ‘easy' dual-carriageway you reduce distraction, allowing the learner to focus on the core subject, increasing the chance of success and confidence.
With the dual-carriageway example it won't always be easy to find a quiet dual-carriageway! By their very nature dual-carriage ways tend to be busy roads. However, you can tackle the lesson at a quiet time – perhaps a Sunday morning (if you work Sundays) or quiet evening. When it's not possible to find a ‘quiet time' or ‘easy road' you could use a ‘learner as teacher' approach where you drive but the learner makes the decisions.
Plenty of opportunity for practise
Having looked at a few basic principles above, I now want to you to think more specifically about how to plan good routes. To help you to do this next week I will show some video examples. But I want to start with a simple exercise in counting...
The two-minute video below shows a simple crossroad route that might be suitable for a first dedicated crossroads lesson with a learner who has previously dealt with light to moderate traffic (next week I'll show an ‘advanced' crossroad route).
One of my criteria for a lesson route is that it should offer plenty of opportunity for practise of the subject being taught. With this in mind I want you, in as much as you are able given the limitations of a forward facing video camera, to count the number of crossroads on the route.
No need to e-mail me!
Next week I'll add a voiceover demonstrating just how many crossroads there are… And give a little more info about short routes can be extremely effective and how to get the most training value from them. I'll also tell you a story about a driving lesson disaster on the very route shown in the video and how the learner I was working with very nearly killed a cat!
Count the crossroads
Next: Article 2 - Providing opportunities to practise...