In some cases, drivers would jump into their car without a second thought, risking their driving licenses, putting their life at risk and endangering other motorists and pedestrians. Before jumping behind the wheel consider, is your ego boost or neighbour’s dilemma worth the possibility of losing your driving license, or worst – your life?

Well, let’s first look at what the legal drinking limit is for driving. According to “Think!”; The legal maximum amount of alcohol for a driver to have is;

“35 microgrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath
80 milligrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of blood
107 microgrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of urine”

Although these facts are in place, they are just empty figures with no real indication of what the limit is. Typical thoughts include “I’m well-built, I can handle a drink” or “I ate a large dinner that should have soaked all my alcohol up”. Well, there’s no sure-fire way of calculating how alcohol will affect your body, as there’s so many different variables it depends on. But you begin to wonder whether that forgetful, locked out neighbour will ever forgive you for failing to assist? Before answering this question you have to consider whose mistake would potentially be more costly: your neighbour’s key misplacement or being stopped by the police for drink driving – no contest there.

If the Police breathalyse you and decide you are over the limit, this could result in you being charged with a drink driving offence. This not only gives you a criminal record, but could lead to you having to pay a hefty fine, or receiving a driving ban. In the worst cases, a fatal accident could lead to a prison sentence. You would definitely need to be in contact with some good motoring offence solicitors then. Also, If you have a drink driving conviction according to Think!, it could result in “career loss, strain on personal relationships and higher insurance costs”.

So instead of risking your and other’s safety, and the possibility of a criminal record amongst other consequences; DO NOT drink prior to, or whilst, driving. Not only could it affect you, it could affect those around you. Your friends and family (hot dates and ailing neighbours included) would not be impressed with you endangering your life. So if you do have an alcoholic drink and something crops up; utilise your legs (burn some of those calories from that beverage!), call a taxi, or hop on a means of public transport.

Core Competencies

Core competencies are the most important areas in your Part 3 test. During the test, the Supervising Examiner (SE) will take on a role of a learner driver. As a candidate, you will be examined on your skills of identifying, analysing and rectifying the pupil’s faults.

Identifying

One of the most helpful things about identifying faults is to prioritise them. You should be able to distinguish between minor and major faults. Another good thing is to observe your pupil more than the road. You can practice in identifying faults with your instructor or, as a passenger, in other cars.

Analysing

Well, you’ve identified the fault! Your learner driver has just cut the corner. So you would naturally say – “You cut the corner”. Unfortunately, this would demonstrate you as a poor teacher. Instead, you need to analyse WHY your pupil did something wrong. The best way to detect the reason behind the fault is to use question and answer (Q&A) technique.

Correcting

Once you’ve established the fault with your pupil and he/she understood the reason, you should move to correcting the fault. There are three basic methods of doing this – Q&A, explanation and demonstration. A method you choose largely depends on a situation and the character that SE is assuming. For example, SE can play the role of nonresponding learner. In this case, Q&A would probably be a bad idea. On the other hand, if SE seems outgoing, Q&A will be the best solution.

Instructional techniques

Supervising Examiner will also assess you on how you plan and give instruction. Instructional techniques include an ability to grade the level of instruction, planning the lesson, communicating with the pupil, giving feedback and encouragement.

Finally, let’s look at some of the most common failures of trainee ADIs when passing Part 3 test.

• Tiresome briefing. Keep your pre-lesson briefing as short and concise as possible.
• Unrealistic expectations. Your instruction must fit the level of a pupil. Expecting more than your pupil can actually do would demonstrate your inability to teach.
• Weak performance in core competencies. Any weakness in identifying, analysing or correcting driving faults.
• Over-instruction. Try to answer your pupil’s questions as short as possible. Stick to concise and logical pattern during entire training session. Giving over-detailed explanations will surely confuse your pupil.
• Discouragement. Discouraging your pupil is like a cardinal sin. As an ADI, you are expected to radiate positive approach and drive you pupil to improve his or her performance.

Good luck at your Part Three Test!

For over 14 years now, Surepass driving school has been providing driving instructor training courses across the country. The company is on the Official Register of Driving Instructor Trainers, which ensures DSA learning standards are maintained. That’s one of the reasons the driving school enjoys one of the best pass rates in the UK – 90%, a whopping 67% better performance than the national average.

What can be more reliable than other people’s experiences? So as you search for driving instructor courses, check for internet forum discussions about Surepass.

Surepass adopted a variety of driving instructor training courses to better suit instructors’ needs and means. Below are short descriptions of choices available.

Group Instructor Training Course

If you are the kind of person who likes to study in a group then this course is ideal. The pack includes a 14 day trial offer (which means you can cancel your course for any reason), Part 1 home study pack, 2 days Part 2 training, Part 3 study material and 6 days Part 3 training.

2 days Part 2 training involves 2 x 7 hours in car training over one month period. 6 days Part 3 training includes 4 x 7 hours in car training and 2 x 6 hours classroom training sessions. You can use all your hours the week before your Part 3 test or distribute it over a month.

Group Instructor Training Course costs £800.

One To One Instructor Training Courses

Basically, one to one instructor training courses are geared towards people who prefer tailored tuition and look for extra benefits. Surepass provides three types of individual training courses – silver, gold and platinum. You will receive a standard training course plus benefits such as cash back and a guaranteed pass.

Cash back is an option available to fully qualified driving instructors who take out a franchise with Surepass. The cash back is returned in the form of a credit to the driving instructors franchise account. Cash back starts from £100, £500 and £1000 options available under Silver, Gold and Platinum choices respectively.

One of the extra benefits of the Platinum course is the guaranteed pass. It allows you to receive the Silver course as many times as you need, if you have failed to qualify as a driving instructor within 2 years of passing the first exam.

What will your costs be?

Silver – £1490
Gold – £1990
Platinum – £2490

Consider these fees as you go shopping for your driving instructor training courses.

For more information visit the Surepass website
Learn about what instructors who actually trained with Surepass have to say. http://www.drivertrainingtoday.co.uk/

No Room to Swing a Cat

If you still think that you’ve made it when you stuck that green badge in your windscreen, it is time to start really worrying. The market is packed and it would take a good deal of business skills to rip it open and shove in. Despite advertising fellows telling you that a million of people learn to drive every year, there is still no room for a newly qualified ADI. Advertising does not necessarily misrepresent, but what these chaps don’t want you to know about is how many of your competitors are out there. And there are legions of them. It is estimated there are only 19 pupils per each driving instructor on the market. It goes without saying that luring in just one of those is not easy.

Think Like a Salesperson

To survive in this environment, you first have to think how good your business skills are. Being a driving instructor in most cases means self-employment. And self-employment is in many ways like running your own business. Look at your driving school. Are they sitting around waiting for would-be driving instructors to be pouring into their offices? Hardly so. They go out there and advertise like hell! Or look at a thriving baker’s shop. Their cakes must be the yummiest in the neighborhood, right? To make your “cakes” the best, you will need to take care of the following things.

Get yourself noticed. It all starts with advertising your services smartly. An advertising technique is largely depends on the audience you target. Basically, you customers are going to be young so make sure your advertising is both entertaining and informative. The best choice is to set up a website. It should be catchy. Boring website means you are a bore. Nothing can scary a young pupil away best than a boring teacher!

Be a Good Salesperson. Reaching your audience is not enough. You should be able to convert your audience into your customers. And this magic metamorphosis can be done by phone. Answer the calls effectively. That means you need a good answerphone message when you are not available. But as you pick up the phone, that’s when your salesperson skills come into play. If you don’t have any, start learning right away. If you can’t sell, you will have nobody to teach. Professional Excellence. Eventually, your best advertising is your teaching attitude and your personal pass rates. Your successful pupils may be your reliable references and they can become your word of mouth advertising. They tell a friend, their friend tells a friend and soon you will be teaching those 19 pupils. So it doesn’t matter how good you are as a driving instructor, if you don’t have any business sense, you’ll probably be struggling.

In most cases, some exercise is better than none at all. The driving instructor needs to incorporate some physical activity during the day. You can reduce your stress by walking to the door where your learner driver lives instead of waiting in the car for your pupil to appear. You could also go for at least a 30 minute walk while your pupil is on their driving test: or parking your driving school car a few doors away from your pupils house and walking that extra 20 yards.

Practice relaxation techniques

While you’re teaching pupils, take a few deep breaths. With your arms bent at the elbow, tightly squeeze your hands into fists (taking care to ensure that your learner driver doesn’t think you’re scared!), curl your hands up so that your arm muscles become tense. Remeber to keep breathing and hold this position for 5 seconds. Slowly release the tension and notice how it feels.

Try straightening out your legs and point your toes so that your calf and thigh muscles are tensed. Hold this for 5 seconds and slowly release. Notice how your legs feel as the tension is released.

As a final step, take a few minutes to become aware of your breathing. Focus your attention on your breath as it goes in and out. Breathe deeply and naturally. Do this exercise naturally until you feel relaxed.

How well can your learner driver see?

The driver of a motor vehicle is the most important component. The driver decides which way to turn, when to use the accelerator and when to use the brakes. Learner drivers need to see and react to changing conditions very quickly.

How much you see depends on how well you can see.

Legal requirements.

The learner driver must be able to read in good daylight, with glasses or contact lenses if necessary, a stationary number plate from a minimum distance of 20.5 metres (67 feet). From September 2001, a learner driver must be able to read a new style number plate from a distance of 20 metres (66 feet). Passing this test does not imply perfect vision.

Watching your speed

1. Driving too fast for road and traffic conditions and misjudging speed and distance are the two most common causes of crashes.
2. The learner driver should always drive at a speed that will allow the pupil to stop well within the distance they can see clear.
3. The pupil must also leave enough space between the driving school vehicle and the vehicle in front so that its possible to pull up safely if it slows down or stops suddenly.

When an error has occurred, the best way to restore confidence is to repeat the action without the learner driver repeating the error. To guarantee success, the driving instructor must take full responsibility – even if you are on the way to the driving test centre when the error occurs!. All the driving instructor has to do is “tell” the learner driver when the error is about to occur – which is usually long enough for the confidence to be restored.

Hazard Perception is the drivers ability to recognise a situation on the road which is either dangerous, or has the potential to develop into a dangerous situation in which some driver action will be required. Good hazard perception requires good visual scanning and anticipation, and a good understanding of how driving situations can develop.

Why the need for Hazard Perception

• Over confidence
  Young drivers rate their own performance as above average. They are more likely to equate “good” driving with the ability to master the controls of the car at higher speeds. However, vehicle control is only part of being a good, safe driver.
• Under-estimation of risk
  Young drivers take longer to develop the risk assessment skills required to safely interact with other road users. They detect and assess hazards more slowly, and they also under-estimate the risk of a hazard resulting in a crash and over-estimate their ability to deal with hazards.
• Age
  Young and novice drivers have a higher crash rate because they are inexperienced, their cognitive and perceptual skills are not fully developed and they take more risks. They also pick up bad habits quickly.
• Lack of driving experience
  Teenage drivers have less training and experience, which leads to more traffic violations.
• Poor attitudes
  The fact that violations, rather than errors or lapses, are associated with crashes suggests that they are caused by a poor attitude to road safety, rather than a lack of skill on the part of the drivers. While it is necessary to train drivers to a basic level skill, it is also necessary to persuade or constrain drivers not to violate. Therefore road safety efforts should be focussed on attitude change as well as initial skill training.

A fairly wide selection of planned routes containing various types of traffic
hazards and conditions will be required. Flexibility is an impotant consideration
when planning a route because it allows for changes to be made midway through a
driving lesson. This may become necessary to allow more time to be spent on an area
of driving which may be proving unexpectedly troublesome, and yet still allow the
driving lesson to be completed on time for your next appointment or driving test.
Try not to repeat the same route excessively, this can lead to reducesd interest
from the learner driver, and this can lead to boredom and slow progress. Repetition
can be useful when it is carried out deliberately for a specific purpose relevant to
the driving lesson. An example could be practising control skills on the approach to
uphill junctions.

Training routes and areas fall into three main categories:

1. Nursery routes
2. Intermediate
3. Advanced

Nursery routes – require various kinds of roads. try to avoid busy roads and
initially, in the very early stages, roads with parked vehicles. These routes should
not include pedestrian crossings, traffic lights or roundabouts.

Intermediate routes – These routes should, wherever possible, be planned to avoid
dual carriageways, multi-laned roads and one way streets. Junctions which do not
conform to basic rules should also be excluded. Right turns on to very busy main
roads, and any other particularly difficult situation, should not normally be
incorporated into these routes where they can be avoided.

Advanced routes – These routes will incorporate most of the intermediate routes.
They should be progressively extended to include many variations to the basic rules
as possible.

The nature of driving instruction requires that driving instructors work with
customers who may drive you up the wall (not literally!). regardless of whether your
customer is offhand, rude, frustrated, confused or irate, most minor problems do not
have to escalate into bad feelings.

The six steps in helping a customer are:

1. Let the pupil have their say
2. Avoid getting trapped with their negative feelings
3. Express empathy with the pupil
4. Begin to solve problems actively
5. Agree on solutions
6. Continue to check they are satisfied with progress so far.

When a learner driver is upset, they want two things: First, they want to let you
know how they feel, and then they want you to help them. It’s that simple. Some
driving instructors view learners becoming tense and frustrated as an indication of
the pupils inability to understand basic facts. However trying to resolve a
situation without listening to your pupils thoughts and feelings never works. Only
after the pupil has let you know their thoughts can they begin to hear what you have
to say.

Try it and see!