Reality Of A Driving Lesson

Reality Of A Driving Lesson is the second stage of a four part process beginning last week with  Goal setting.

This four part cycle has proven to raise a learner drivers consciousness and awareness when making decisions.  Furthermore it helps them to analyse their decisions and as a result take greater responsibility for their actions.

Let’s have a look at our reality of this subject

Reality Of A Driving Lesson

Everyone’s reality is different.  As you read this article your picture of what this is about will no doubt be different to mine.  

As individuals we all see things from our own subjective point of view and as a result each and every client will view things slightly differently.

We build our own reality on our beliefs, which can affect the way we see everything around us.   

A learner drivers reality of a traffic situation can be affected by their own beliefs. 

Our beliefs can cloud the way we see the world.  The true nature or a situation maybe in reality worse or better than it is perceived.  

Can an instructor help a learner driver to see a situation from a different perspective?

First –

Can an Instructor See Things from a Different Perspective

We may all be guilty of this from time to time (I know I am).  A situation arises out on a lesson worth talking about.  We then reel off a massive load of bumf from the highway code without even looking through the learner drivers eyes. 

How did they view what had happened?

How many times has a learner driver come up with something great you’ve never heard before!

Making A Start

Here at Pass Me Faster we were all a bit apprehensive at first regarding how we were going to step out of our own reality into someone else’s. 

We teach people to drive, we’re not psychologists!

This being said we actually found that all we had to do was to just think about doing it.

Many of our instructors suddenly realised just thinking through the reality process gave them a bit of a focused buff and polish on techniques they had been doing for years. 

Positives for Reality Of A Driving Lesson

A better understanding of how a student perceived the reality of a situation soon had us all spotting the route causes to problems a lot faster.  

But wait there was more – 

We also found it added a bit more colour to our Driving lessons.  Things became more personnel to the learner sat next to us and we became more immersed in their world. 

It helped to change a driving lesson into a Driving Journey!

Helping The Learner Driver with Reality On A Driving Lesson

All of our students will attach different meanings to every situation, conversation or event that happens when out on their driving lesson.  For this reason its vital that the instructor should help the learner driver see events through different perspectives or viewpoints.

Their personnel belief system may be influenced by –

• Culture or Faith
• Past Experiences
• Genetic influences
• Upbringing
• Circumstances on the day

These influences will all be filtered through a learner drivers core beliefs which are mainly –

• What I think about myself
• My thoughts about others
• How I view the world

Questions to Help Challenge the Students Beliefs

Its important to realise that your student should find learning new things pleasant however they may not like being told they are wrong.  As an instructor ask yourself this question –

Can you balance on the tightrope of guiding them to reflect over an event through another persons viewpoint without receiving resistance from their own belief system?

Here’ some questions we like to use to help start a discussion without causing too much friction.

• I’m interested in what you said there.  Can you please tell me more about why you think that and how you reached that conclusion.
• If you were the driver of the other car how would you have done things differently.
• Why is that?
• I always like to hear another persons view point because, its amazing what you can learn from seeing things through someone else’s eyes.  How do you think the other motorist saw that situation.
• Is there anything you think I’m missing from my view of what happened?

Having a Go at Reality Of A Driving Lesson

Considering different reality’s of a situation is certainly a great way to draw a learner driver into a driving lesson.  Is it possible we can turn that hundred yard glazed eyed stare into an engaging all angled debate.   

It goes without saying that the final destination is a deep understanding of the rules of Highway Code Britain and Driving the Essential Skills but-

The Journey there is just as important!

Here at Pass Me Faster we are always trying to improve the quality of our driving lessons and would love to hear if you have any great questions to help with the journey.

Check out our next step in the coaching process – Options Stage