Interesting story in the Saarbrücker Zeitung, reporting that new drivers will have to have a feedback session with a driving instructor three months after gaining their licences.
The story reports:
The Transport Ministry is drawing up the plans following the example of Austria where the sessions serve to remind beginning drivers of what they are supposed to do and to rid them of any bad habits they might be developing.
Austria? That made my ears prick up, for some reason. They were quite involved in the original GDE Matrix report. So was Germany, for that matter.
“Austria has achieved good success with the post-test evaluation teaching concept,” Gero Storjohann, Christian Democratic Union transport expert told the paper.
And evaluation of this sort is typical of what the GDE Matrix/coaching thing lives for.
The problem as I see it is that the Germans appear to be assuming that Austria’s 30% lower death rate among young drivers is purely down to this assessment. That, of course, is complete nonsense.
I wonder if this is how the EU is going to slip coaching into the driver training systems of the various member states?