Category - Training

This is an old article, but it is still correct overall.

.I noticed someone asked a question on one of the forums about this. The range of replies was quite astounding, with everyone having their own “must-do-it-this-way” method, and poo-pooing everyone else’s “no-it-has-to-be-done-like-this” procedure.

Let’s take a look at the issue, starting in the most sensible place possible – the DT1 SOP that the examiners follow. It says (in various places throughout):

13 Move off:

Safely: failure to take effective observation before moving off, including the correct use of signals.

Under control: inability to move off smoothly, straight ahead, at an angle, or on a gradient.

This is fairly clear. You need to carry out effective safety checks before you move off.

1.30 MOVING OFF

The examiner should observe whether the candidate first sees to the front, then to the rear, that the way is clear for pulling out, gives the appropriate signal if necessary, and moves away smoothly and safely. Wherever possible, ability to move off on a reasonably steep uphill gradient should be tested. A candidate starting on a gradient should be capable of paying attention to other traffic as well as moving their vehicle away without rollback and/or excessive engine revolutions. If stopping on a hill is not possible an additional ‘normal’ stop need not be sought. However, the test must always include moving off at an angle from behind a stationary vehicle.

Also very clear. The examiner is expecting the candidate to check front and rear to make sure it’s safe to go. He expects them to signal if necessary.

3.32 MOVING OFF

The prime consideration when moving off is that the candidate does so safely, showing an awareness of the presence of other traffic and pedestrians.

The test should include a demonstration of the candidate’s ability to move off uphill, downhill and at an angle from a position reasonably close behind a stationary vehicle.

Gradients for testing the candidate’s ability to move off uphill or downhill should be between 8% (1 in 12) and 11% (1 in 9). Gradients steeper than 12% (1 in 8) should not be used in any circumstances.

Again, very clear. The prime consideration is that the candidate shows awareness of other road users and moves off safely. The examiner isn’t expecting to see a choreographed head-nodding routine, a “seven point check”, or any other silly procedure that someone has imagined up to try to make the whole business as automated as possible.

Assessment Criteria – (example = safely)

Driving Fault

Incorrect timing of the blind spot check when moving off with no risk to other road users. For e.g. Checking the blind spot after the vehicle has moved off.

Serious Fault

Moving off into the path of traffic or failing to take observation at all.

Dangerous Fault

Any situation brought about by the above lack of observation, that resulted in actual danger to the examiner, candidate, the general public or property.

This one gives the best indication of what should be happening (and why it often goes wrong). What is “incorrect timing”?

Well, I often pick up partly trained pupils who are terrible for this. I’ll say to them “drive on when you’re ready” and quick as a flash they fling the indicator on – when they aren’t even in gear and haven’t begun to think what might be going on behind.

But taking that one stage further, I also see a lot of pupils who will do one of the following:

• look all around before they have the bite, then find it and move off
• look all around, see something, wait, then move off without looking again
• look all around, not see something that’s definitely coming, and move off anyway
• look all around, see something coming, and move off anyway

This isn’t an exhaustive list. Pupils can find an infinite number of ways of doing things wrong. But the four I’ve listed are common.

The first one results in a delay between looking and moving – so something could have appeared behind during that period of delay in actually moving away.

The second one is similar. The pupil does the right thing for whatever they see coming, but then don’t check again for what might have appeared behind that while they were waiting.

The third one usually happens because they think they can move faster than they actually do, or because they misjudge the speed of the approaching vehicle. So they cause it to have to slow down or even brake hard.

The last one happens when they’re just doing the nodding-dog routine. They’re looking – sometimes not even that, as they just move their heads – but not seeing. I remember pulling one pupil to the side of the road to chew him out over his checks at a junction one time, but I couldn’t keep a straight face because his “observations” involved waving his head around with half-closed eyes as he looked at the gearstick! Better yet was the fact that he said “I know what you’re going to say”. And he did. He knew he’d done it.

So it’s very simple. when you move off, you’ve got to make sure it is safe to do so. The precise detail of how doesn’t matter as long as the safety aspect is adequately covered – and that means checking in front and behind to make sure nothing is coming.

What about signalling, though? As I have already mentioned I see a lot of pupils who just fling on the indicator to move away before they’ve looked or even got the car in gear!

This one is not as black and white as many instructors would like to believe (or try to make it). Of course, there are situations where you definitely should signal – and if you don’t then you will definitely fail your test. A good example is when pulling over and there is a car following you at a normal (or closer) distance behind. It would be dangerous to just stop without warning, so failure to signal in good time is almost certainly going to be marked as a serious fault. It’s harder to think of a definite situation where not signalling to move away would be regarded quite so severely by the examiner, but perhaps if you’re on a relatively narrow road and there is oncoming traffic (or pedestrians) quite close, moving away without a signal would be asking for trouble.

A lot of the time, though, whether or not you should signal – particularly when moving off – is a matter of opinion. For example, sometimes I will have noticed that a car parked not far in front of us has someone in it, but the pupil hasn’t. In that case, I would signal, but the pupil might not. I point this out to them as something they should look for – that the other car might want to move away, and that they need to know that we’re planning to go.

Examiners tend not to regard signalling/not signalling in these situations as a major problem, so learners who always signal to pull over or move away often won’t be faulted for the signal itself. I suspect that this is why many ADIs appear to teach their pupils to signal regardless. However, signalling blindly often degenerates into just that – proper and safe observation starts to suffer.

The usual guidance about when to signal is that if someone might realistically benefit from you doing it, then you should. And if you genuinely aren’t certain that anyone will, then signal anyway – and by that, I mean situations like “Hold on! Is there someone in that car?” and not “well, someone might turn up”.

At what point of the moving off procedure should you signal? As a general rule, it should be the last thing you do before actually moving. You look, assess, and decide – then signal and do it in one clean action! You do not want any delay between signal and moving away because something might turn up during that delay.

Usually, you shouldn’t use your indicators to request that people wait for you. One might stop, but that doesn’t mean the rest will, so it is dangerous under normal circumstances. There’s nothing worse than driving along on a free-moving road only to notice the clown in front has stopped dead to let someone out (and that is only marginally better than someone pulling out and forcing you to slow down). It stands to reason that doing it too often is going to increase the chances of someone tail-ending someone else if they aren’t paying attention.

If traffic is very heavy and slow-moving then you might use your indicators to request that someone lets you out.

So, you signal when you have decided to move out. You must not leave a long pause between looking and moving or signalling and moving.

All I have given above is a general procedure. It could be applied in a number of ways – even including stupid “seven-point checks” if you’re one of those who insists on this sort of thing. But as long as you check properly all around you – depending on the circumstances at the time – indicate if necessary, and move off immediately, then the actual process doesn’t matter.

I failed my test for “moving off/stopping – safely”. What did I do wrong?

It could have been one of a number of things, including:

• not checking your mirrors
• not checking your blindspot
• not checking properly (just moving your head, or not moving it far enough)
• missing something that was there
• misjudging something’s speed and causing it to slow down or veer
• moving off while you were checking
• moving off before you’d checked
• stopping without indicating when someone was behind

How do I find out what I did wrong?

Ask the examiner! And that goes for ADIs, too. There’s no point speculating or listening to people who will always blame the DSA for every fail.

What will happen if I don’t check properly?

It depends. If you miss a single shoulder/blindspot check and no one is coming, it will probably just be marked as a driver fault. If someone is coming though, it could easily be marked as a serious or dangerous fault depending on the actual situation.

In my experience, if you keep missing those checks in that same situation then it could easily mount up into a serious problem – and so be marked as a serious fault. Quite simply, missing one check (with nothing there) is a driver fault, but missing them most of the time is a serious fault.

An examiner once told me:

I work the on the “five strikes” principle unless something else makes it serious first.

As a result, I tell my pupils that if they’re lucky they’ll get away with doing something that is classed as a driver fault a couple of times. But beyond that they’re into very risky territory indeed.

I checked all round but the examiner said I didn’t.

The usual reason this happens is that you didn’t look properly – a quick flick of the head is not the same thing as actually looking to see what is coming. It is a very common problem with learners.

You must check in your blindspot – which is further round than just glancing to the offside.

But I know someone who got six driver faults under one category on their test.

You should be aiming for NO faults, not trying to calculate how many you can get away with. I know several examiners who will convert certain repeating driver faults into a serious one beyond a certain point, so it doesn’t matter that there are apparently some who won’t. It is the worst case that is most relevant, and the worst case is that a repeating fault could mount up into a serious one.

But examiners aren’t allowed to do that, are they?

Yes they are. Your main concern should be making sure you’re able to drive to the required standard so that you can easily pass the test (or, if you’re an ADI, teaching the same).

DT1 says:

There can however be occasions when one specific driving fault could by constant repetition, be regarded as serious and therefore a significant risk; for example when a candidate habitually fails to take mirror observation when appropriate.

It’s crystal clear, but if you still want to complain about it – or take issue with the precise meaning of the words “constant”, “repetition”, or “habitually” – take it up with the DSA through your local test centre manager. As much as it is clear that people want to believe otherwise, the fault is not with the examiners but with the test candidates genuinely not checking properly (possibly because they aren’t being taught properly).

It’s far better not to commit the fault (or to teach it) in the first place. Trying to weasel out of it after the event is pointless.

That’s nonsense, of course, But it seems to be the favoured excuse of some learners when their mates are winding them up.

I was reading a forum where there are a lot of learners and people with immature attitudes hanging about, and someone was asking for opinions about whether they should change instructor. They write:

Had about 10-12 lessons and haven’t done all that much! Just mirror, signal, manoeuvre. Driving on main roads. Drove in 1,2,3,4 gear. Done mini roundabouts, hills, clutch control, but that’s about it.

Two of my friends started with the same instructor at the same time and they’ve done loads more, including parallel parking, turning around corners etc.

Every week they ask me what I’ve done and I always say nothing, which is starting to annoy me. I know I must be rubbish, but wondered if I should swap driving instructor because I don’t learn properly with this guy or something?

Oh and he’s always late, to me and my friends. But later with me. Been on time once. Latest was 40 minutes late.

The only part of that which is bad – assuming it’s true and not just an afterthought to imply blame – is the turning up late part. That’s just not on, especially if you’re paying for the lost time.

But 10-12 lessons, especially if they’re only one hour sessions, is not a lot. For many new drivers having covered all of that in the first paragraph in only 12 hours isn’t really that bad. My only comment is that I’d also have such a learner doing the manoeuvres by this stage.

As usual, some of the replies demonstrate an intelligence and level of immaturity which defies belief, but which is all too common in young people today:

I would definitely go with a different instructor if your doing less than your friends and he is turning up much later to your lessons, sounds like he thinks he can do whatever he likes, and it will only get worse.

This implies that everyone learns at the same rate. They don’t.

This one manages to plumb the depths of stupidity to new lows:

YES! You should totally change. I stuck with my instructor which was really dumb, it took me failing my test 4 times before I decided he had to go.

Also I was a really nervy driver, yet I drove at 60mph in 5th gear on an A road in my first lesson; sounds like he’s completely milking you, AND he’s late?! Bad, bad, bad!

Odd that it took four test failures to realise this, and even odder (not mention totally in contradiction to) what the same poster writes in reply to someone questioning the same thing:

Hey, I have nerves! I drove 250 miles with my Uncle totally fine three days before my last test. And I always come out with less than 8 minors, but I always make at least one serious mistake because I overthink everything.

So, this person can drive, but failing the test was their instructor’s fault? And they openly admit to being scared to even be in a car? And it’s funny how they are criticising their instructor for pushing them, when they’re accusing someone else’s instructor of “milking” them for allegedly not doing the same!

And as for “overthinking”… that is the bane of my life when I get pupils who do that, because it does hold them back. Often, the only way of dealing with it is driving time and experience-building – neither of which can be acquired overnight!

There are fast learners and slow learners in the world. If you’re one of the slow ones, you can’t really blame your instructor.

I was on a lesson with a pupil today who has her test coming up in a month or so. She’s a good driver, but the way her head works is her biggest obstacle. Roundabouts bring the problem right to the fore, but it isn’t just those – it can happen at junctions, crossings, anywhere.

She knows exactly what to do, but when she comes to negotiate them (sometimes) her mind just seems to freeze. Once something has gone wrong, until we can stop and effectively reset the counter then a whole cascade of other things can also go wrong. Today she came off a roundabout, immediately missed a pedestrian about to step on to a crossing, missed the next roundabout, and then missed the cars coming towards her on it (after I’d intervened). Obviously this is no good if she is going to be driving on her own at some stage, and I’m dealing with it.

But that’s not the point of this story.

After we pulled over to “reset the counter”, she told me that her dad had once told her that she was capable of seeing a path with people walking on it, but only she would be stupid enough to ignore the glaring evidence and go a different way. (I know her, and this was her dad talking to her in a fatherly way about her problem, which manifests itself in all parts of her life).

Her dad ended his lesson with this brilliant one-liner:

There’s the path. Take it.

There’s a lot of truth in those five words in the right circumstances. I plan to use them a lot!

You see, a lot of learners make the same mistake and try to conjure up complex answers to simple questions or decisions, so the choice between left or right becomes confused with other options which only they can see.

I’ve lost count of the number of pupils over the years who have tried to go, say, “straight ahead” when there is no “straight ahead”. Or who don’t move out on roundabouts for their exits because they “thought it was the next one”. And my favourite reason for not taking “the next turn on the left” (complete with me pointing and referring to the sign), that they thought I “meant another one further on”.

Driving is much simpler than that – especially on driving lessons and the driving test.

I’ve had a few hits over the last few days on the search term “adi how to attract pupil” (sic) and “lack of work for adis” (or similar phrases). I also noticed a topic on a forum where a newly qualified ADI was asking how to get pupils – after 3 months of being an ADI they had none whatsoever!

The whole situation is really quite simple to summarise. As an ADI you are offering a service, and there are people out there who are prepared to pay for that service. None of those people knows you exist – and even if they do, there are hundreds or thousands of other ADIs also trying to sign them up.

People will not wander the streets trying to find you. You’ve got to find them. So the first thing you have to do is let everyone know you’re there, and that means advertising. This can be anything from a handwritten scrap of paper stuck in the window of the local newsagents to full-blown colour ads in local or national papers and magazines. You can deliver flyers door-to-door, hang out near schools and universities (that could get you arrested, so be careful), or any number of other things. One driving school in my area even pays for huge billboard advertisements in at least three locations. Obviously, the cost of advertising ranges from a few pennies a week up to thousands of pounds.

Oh, and you don’t just have to do it once. You have to keep on reminding people you’re there somehow, so advertising can never really stop.

Now it gets controversial. If your advertising campaigns are successfully informing people of your existence, you’ve still got to give them something that stands out from everyone else’s offers. It’s like a fish nibbling at the bait on your hook – whether you catch it or not depends on the bait.

In an ideal world – one not populated by idiots – all instructors would be charging similar prices, so prospective pupils would really only be looking for the best instructors (or the ones that said they were the best, anyway). Unfortunately, the real world contains a lot of morons with no business sense (many of whom aren’t proven as good instructors yet, and many of whom are proven to be average instructors at best), and they’ve started a trend whereby the bait involves stupidly low lesson prices and sometimes even stupider offers. Many of these cheapo instructors will be charging as little as half of what they could be, and the problem is worse in the more deprived areas.

In theory, as you gain more experience as an ADI (and more passes to your name), your reputation will grow and – if you believe some people – eager pupils will be queuing outside your house permanently waiting for the next available vacancy on your 2-year waiting list. By this time you’ll only be working one or two hours a week anyway, in between your other work of saving whole countries from natural disasters and your tireless efforts on behalf of the pandas and other endangered species.

In reality, your reputation will get you some new pupils… sometimes. But it absolutely will not get you new pupils all the time. Periodically you’ll have a good spell, where one pupil maybe creates a chain reaction which brings in a dozen more friends and family. But more often than not pupils are effectively dead ends – all their friends are already taking lessons or have passed, or they’re older and don’t know anyone who wants to learn. No matter what some people claim, that’s how it will be for the vast majority of ADIs, especially newer ones.

Remember that if you’re a half-decent ADI, virtually every pupil you teach will think you’re “the best” – and those being taught by others will think exactly the same about their instructor. That is about as far as the reputation card goes.

There is an exception to this, and it is based on racial and cultural issues. For example, many Asian communities are very insular, and if you’re an Asian instructor specialising in Asian pupils then your referrals are likely to be more numerous. A female Muslim instructor specialising in teaching Muslim females is also potentially on to a winner. And the same seems to be true (to a lesser extent) for Polish and other minority groups where language is a barrier. Polish-speaking instructors can easily clean up in areas with high Polish populations.

None of these examples mean that you could automatically do the same if you were Asian or Polish. If other people are already doing it, it isn’t a new idea and it might end up being overworked – but if no one has caught on to the idea in your area… well. These examples just illustrate the importance of finding a relatively unique selling point (USP) or tapping a relatively untapped market. Cheapo lesson prices are no longer “relatively” anything, and they’re certainly not unique.

Back to the subject of advertising, you can spend a lot of money on it and not get a penny in return. As I said, all the other ADIs are also doing it so you’re just another drop in the ocean. This seems to prompt many desperate instructors to drop their prices even further, or to make ever more ridiculous offers, but the irony is that it isn’t that people aren’t interested in the previous offers – they just can’t seen them through the glare of all the others! Cheapo offers have had their day – they’re not unique enough to make you stand out anymore!

A few years ago I tried various forms of advertising as an experiment. For £600 I had a small advert in Yellow Pages for 18 months. In all that time I had ONE enquiry, and I strongly suspect even that was from YP staff after I’d told them I wasn’t going to re-advertise because it hadn’t worked. I also spent £120 on an ad in a free local newspaper over 3 months (guaranteed circulation of over 10,000 every month). I had no enquiries whatsoever from that. I’ve tried various other methods which have not shown an acceptable return on investment (ROI), either. Of course, I accept that advertising can work (some forms have for me), and that others might have more success than I did with the examples I mentioned, but it can’t possibly work for everyone and especially not these days with so many ADIs all vying for work in the middle of a recession. Common sense tells you that.

Once you’re established – and if you don’t get a bad reputation along the way – the work is definitely there (it is for me). I’m effectively winning work away from all those newer instructors, and I often (and I mean very often) pick up pupils who have tried the cheaper option and found it wanting. That pushes things even further in my favour. Low prices might be the main thing that some learners look for, but an increasing number are quickly waking up to the realisation that they are being taken for a ride. That’s when I get hold of them.

Of course, if you’re happy not making a profit then you can specialise in teaching people who don’t have enough money to pay for proper lessons. There’s obviously a big market for such lessons, especially in these austere times, and if you can close your mind to the fact that if they pass they probably won’t be able to afford insurance and road tax either, but will possibly still drive, you may get a full diary out of it. But with lack of money also comes unreliability. I know from experience that if someone is struggling to afford lessons then they are highly likely to cancel lessons at short notice or not take them regularly. And of course, you’d need at least twice as many of these – so twice as much work on your part – to achieve the same income that an ADI charging normal prices would. You’ve got to be desperate or stupid to deliberately go down this route.

Before you start training to become an ADI – before you start trading, anyway – you need to do some serious calculating and work out just what it is you want to be. Do you want a new car or a banger? Will it be professionally sign-written or will it just have L plates on it and nothing else? Do you want to work full time or are you only going to cover nine to five weekdays (avoiding school runs and school holidays)? Are you aiming high or low? Is it going to be your main wage, of are you doing it for some pocket-money? Is it to show that you are independent or not stuck at home with the kids, so there will always be someone to support you with their huge main household wage?

And if you’re newly-qualified, the biggest question of all, and the one a huge number of people ignore or get wrong…

ARE YOU GOING SOLO OR WITH A FRANCHISE?

The vast majority of those thinking of becoming ADIs see one thing, and one thing only: an hourly income of £20-£25! They think “40 hours at £25 an hour?  That’s £1,000 a week???” and they long for the day when they pass Part 3 and start packing that kind of money into their pockets. It’s also worth pointing out that many, if not most, people become ADIs because they need a job, and aren’t just doing this for a bit of fun. They consider the franchise option and conclude (often as a result of biased and misleading advice from “experts” on the web) that if they go solo all that money will be theirs. This is utter rubbish!

The reality is often exactly what the person I mentioned above has found. Three months in, and no work whatsoever. By going solo and dreaming of packing away £1,000 a week, they may as well plan to win the lottery or strike gold in their suburban gardens as business models instead. They’re all just as attainable.

It costs money just to be an ADI, even with no work. It is likely to be costing £100 or more a week just for the car. Fuel is extra (I spend £250 a week on fuel sometimes). The aforementioned advertising could easily set you back several hundred pounds in the short-term. And on top of that, you’ve got the cost of all your training and business set up to factor in. If you remain non-working for long you are quickly going to go out of business unless the main wage earner in the house is bankrolling you behind the scenes, and most people won’t have that luxury. The simple fact is that trying to get up-and-running on your own, with no financial backup, and a one-chance-only shot at avoiding bankruptcy is an absolutely stupid way forward for most new ADIs. Unfortunately, greed easily overwhelms common sense, and that £1,000 a week remains the Holy Grail.

Much of the “expert advice” to go solo right from the start comes from people who themselves started on a franchise and only went independent sometime later after they’d established themselves. They seem completely unable to link facts and real outcomes without adding their own prejudices into the equation and end up providing dangerously misleading “advice”. In other cases, these “experts” began their ADI careers in a galaxy far, far away… in a time and place far removed from the 2011/2012 recession. If nothing else, there are gazillions more ADIs around now than there were when they started, that’s for sure. Their “advice” is bound to be flawed if it doesn’t take into account the current situation, and unless you understand that situation you can’t advise on it!

The usual argument goes that a franchiser charging £100-£200 a week for a car and a supply of pupils is a crime akin to murder or arson! The people who spout this nonsense would happily advise you to go bankrupt… sorry, I mean go solo and not have any pupils to teach… rather than pay a franchise company a penny. Their hatred is usually aimed at Red, the AA, or BSM, but this is rarely stated directly and anyone looking in is left with the “advice” that all franchises are bad and should be avoided.

But the logic is simple. Do you want to be solo, with the very real risk of no work, no prospect of work (or impossibly slow growth), and mounting bills for failed advertising and car leases? Or do you want some help to get started?

You’ll already paying at least £100 for the car if you go solo, so an extra £50-£100 for a deal with a car and pupils is not that much more. Even if the franchise only gets you a handful of pupils, that’s a hell of a lot better than no work at all. It is enough to pay some bills, and it sets you on the road to growing your business and reputation. You need your head examining if you think that staying solo and totally redundant is the better option, just because someone who doesn’t like franchises told you it was. And this is even more true if you’re one of the growing number of people who simply don’t have a clue about  any business matters, let alone those pertaining to being an ADI.

If you are struggling for work, consider a franchise.

Choose one which doesn’t have a minimum term contract, notice period, or stupid clause about not working within a 50 mile radius if you leave them.