{"id":13128,"date":"2013-07-01T21:52:32","date_gmt":"2013-07-01T20:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=13128"},"modified":"2013-07-01T21:52:32","modified_gmt":"2013-07-01T20:52:32","slug":"obtuse-driving-instructors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=13128","title":{"rendered":"Obtuse Driving Instructors"},"content":{"rendered":"

I like the word obtuse as it is applied to people \u2013 particularly in the phrase \u201cdeliberately obtuse\u201d. It\u2019s generally where someone purposely picks up the wrong meaning for something. Or perhaps they\u2019ll adopt a particular stance in a discussion which might not be commensurate (another good word) with their normal position on the matter (i.e. it\u2019s the exact opposite). However, it is more commonly referred to by the euphemisms \u201cdebate\u201d, \u201cdiscussion\u201d, \u201copinion\u201d, and \u201cplaying devil\u2019s advocate\u201d.\"Obtuse<\/p>\n

A good example leapt out at me the other day when a new ADI wrote that he found it strange a pupil should still be driven to and from a nursery location by their instructor, even after 6 lessons. What made it worse was that the journey time was \u00bd hour each way, and lesson duration was 1\u00bd hours at a time. He asked for \u201copinions\u201d (I said he was new!)<\/p>\n

The simple answer is that in a specific case like this, it is hard to say without knowing the pupil involved. However, taking up 60% of the pupil\u2019s paid time driving to and from a \u201cnursery\u201d location is highly questionable even on the first lesson, let alone on the first four.<\/p>\n

Of course, all pupils are different. I mentioned in a recent post how a new one of mine had had no experience at all in a car, and yet he had driven 15 miles or more on his first (2 hour) lesson, mostly without any physical intervention from me. In fact, I told him truthfully at the end that he was already looking like someone who\u2019d had between 10-15 hours of lessons. On that very first session I drove about a mile and a half to a quiet location (10 minutes away), but he drove back, and I don\u2019t expect to ever get behind the wheel for him again. I love it when I get people who learn this quickly, and I have to ignore the \u201cdeliberately obtuse\u201d people who argue that I\u2019m pushing pupils too hard, or taking risks. I know my job, and I have a high first time pass rate as a result. None of my ex-learners has ever been involved in a serious accident to my knowledge, so no one is going to tell me I should be sitting yapping in a car park, or flipping through dozens of pretty pictures.<\/p>\n

I pick up a fair number of pupils who have switched instructors because \u2013 in their own words \u2013 they \u201cdidn\u2019t feel like they were getting anywhere\u201d. A young girl a couple of weeks ago was a prime example of this. She\u2019d had 9 hours of lessons but had only ever driven round her village*. She\u2019d not dealt with a single roundabout, encountered any other vehicle travelling faster than 30mph, or even touched one of the manoeuvres. But less than 5 minutes in it was clear that she was more than capable and we drove from her village to an industrial area in Colwick to begin looking at the turn in the road and bay parking, after which we drove through Stoke Bardolph along the riverbank. She had no problems beyond those you\u2019d expect from someone trying something new. Another recently acquired pupil had done 19 hours, could drive reasonably well, and yet had not covered a single manoeuvre! We\u2019ve now booked his test \u2013 even though his last instructor had told him* that he needed \u201canother year of lessons\u201d.<\/p>\n

Of the many hundreds of people I\u2019ve taught, I can count on the fingers of one hand those who have required me to drive to a location for them more than once (twice is my maximum ever). However, I\u2019ve lost count of those who have easily managed to drive back home on the first lesson. I think sometimes the learner is far more capable of learning what they need to learn than the instructor in question is of either realising it or teaching it. That would explain why it seems I generally pick up people who learn quickly, whereas others out there always seem to have a surfeit of those who don\u2019t (i.e. they would if they were allowed to).<\/p>\n

Another thing is that most learner drivers know<\/strong> if they\u2019re being held back or not. That\u2019s why they jump ship and go elsewhere. They usually know<\/strong> if they can do something. Some ADIs appear incapable of realising this, and become \u201cdeliberately obtuse\u201d in order to defend their inability to recognise ability in others. In all honesty, far too many instructors still \u201cteach by numbers\u201d, and it makes me laugh when I hear from a pupil how they spent several lessons \u201clearning to reverse\u201d, when they still haven\u2019t covered any of the manoeuvres. What on earth did these lessons involve? I have visions of them sitting for an hour in the car, bored stiff and wondering what exactly it is they\u2019re paying for, because you can only \u201cpractise reversing\u201d for so long before it gets bloody boring. No wonder they go elsewhere.<\/p>\n

There are occasional exceptions. I can only remember one and he was an arrogant little sod. He\u2019d been shown how to drive by his brother, and after his first lesson the brother was arguing with me about when he could put in for his test. The thing is he was a terrible driver. He couldn\u2019t steer properly, drove too fast, didn\u2019t see anything in front of him, and didn\u2019t have a clue about any of the manoeuvres (this was when you had to do two of them on your test). On his second lesson I told him we\u2019d try all the manoeuvres without me saying anything and it was utter chaos. At the end I said \u201cdo you see what I mean about not being ready for your test yet?\u201d Do you know what his reply was?<\/p>\n

\n

I want to put in for it. I\u2019ll be so shit scared on the day I\u2019m bound to get it right!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I didn\u2019t teach him after that.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s summarise things here. Yes, some pupils may well be extremely slow to learn the absolute basics of car control, but they really are in a tiny, tiny minority of the normal population. Taking more than six 1\u00bd hour lessons and still being incapable of driving on main roads could<\/strong> happen, but the vast majority of times it shouldn\u2019t. But even so, using 60% of someone\u2019s paid time the way it was described originally is definitely out of order. Any sensible learner would look for a new instructor immediately after that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* I suppose I should add \u201callegedly\u201d to the starred examples. The \u201cdeliberately obtuse\u201d ones would argue that you can\u2019t believe anything a pupil tells you. Of course you can\u2019t. They\u2019re all liars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like the word obtuse as it is applied to people \u2013 particularly in the phrase \u201cdeliberately obtuse\u201d. It\u2019s generally where someone purposely picks up the wrong meaning for something. Or perhaps they\u2019ll adopt a particular stance in a discussion which might not be commensurate (another good word) with their normal position on the matter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80,82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adi-related","category-training"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}