In this episode, we're delighted to welcome on a friend of ours, Stuart Lockrie, who's the founder of Bright Coaching, and he's also the creator of the Professional Diploma in Coaching, Behavioural Change and Driver Psychology. So welcome Stuart.

Hello Tracy and Kev, how are you?

We're very well, thank you. Um, thank you for joining Before we launch into this episode, I thought I would do a little bit of jargon busting right at the beginning, because there are a few abbreviations that when we get into conversation, we tend to start using. And I'm conscious that most of our listeners are drivers, anxious drivers, and don't necessarily know some of this jargon. So here we go. If you hear us talking about ADIs, or PDIs, then we're actually talking about driving instructors or trainee driving instructors. Now, the other abbreviation that you will definitely hear us using in this conversation is GDE, which stands for Goals for Driver Education. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Yeah, it is. So, Stuart, I mean, how would you describe the GDE, I'm going to put matrix on the end, to someone that's gone, whoa, what's that mean?

Great, great question to start, Kev. Yeah, how would I describe, the GDE? So the goals for driver education, are basically a collection of, suggestions put forward by some academics about 20 years ago, for elements which should be included in the GDE. in a driver education syllabus. So if you think about things like, which the, the kind of general public are probably most aware of in driving, they'll probably think of, you know, knowledge of the highway code. They'll think of, you know, their ability to reverse park, bay park, turn on the road, all these kind of things. the goals for driver education kind of lays these things out with knowledge and skills at the bottom, bottom levels of the matrix. but then it goes on to expand on these requirements higher up in the matrix And it talks about things like, you know, the ability to self reflect. It talks about, knowledge and understanding of risk increasing factors. And it continues to go all the way up to discuss elements like, you know, your, your values as a person, your social circles, your style of driving and what motivates you to drive in a certain way. Does that sound okay?

In a nutshell, great, brilliant.

Okay. End of podcast. End of podcast. Yeah

the shortest podcast we've So if he was thinking of someone that's a driver already, rather than a learner driver, let's talk about someone that's passed their test. How does this relate to them and what, how could they use this? Thanks.

So if you, if you're an experienced driver already, the chances are that you think, You're a very good driver. And we know this. We know this because there's research out there that, you know, if it asks a certain number of people in a survey to rate themselves, whether they are below average or above average as a driver, 80 percent of people rate themselves as above average, which just does not work. It doesn't, that does not compute. so that kind of self confidence, self confidence. sometimes referred to as, you know, kind of superiority bias, a bias in your ability to, for example, get yourself out trouble. If something happens on the road ahead, I believe that you have extremely quick reaction times. That means that even if you are driving faster than the speed limit, your, your skill level as a driver, your, your age, perhaps means you have younger reactions. If you believe all this, then that's, that's, that's, that could be an issue. Potentially that could be an issue because bias, these kind of biases make us think we are better than we are and they lead us to take more risks. So guess the first way that you could think about the GDE matrix in terms of that way is to have a think about yourself and be really honest with yourself. So in the goals for driver education, there's a section that talks about self assessment. and that's about, you know, really reflecting on, for example, if you have a near miss. We used to call these the whoa moments, um, with our learner drivers. And everyone has had whoa moments at some point in their driving career. And it's, you know, slight tangent, but as a driving instructor, we used to explain these kind of things to learner drivers in terms of if you go, if you're driving on a country road and you go around a bend too fast and you have that, whoa, one of the major things that we'd be trying to teach is, okay, what happened there? Let's have a think about what I was doing going into that bend that caused me to have that whoa moment. And if a young driver has the skills to reflect on that effectively, then they'll be less likely to go into that bend too quickly. Again, they would, they would get better, they would read the road better the next time, they would slow down on the approach. Whereas if a young driver does not have those skills of reflection, then chances are they will keep going into bends too quickly. They will continue not to plan ahead and eventually, worst case scenario, they are more likely to crash. To think about that the other way, if a young driver goes round a bend too quickly, and ends up in a field, or worse, the chances are they, that's not the first time they've gone round a bend too quickly. It has happened previously. They've just not had those skills of self assessment. So what does that mean for an experienced driver? well, one of the issues with biases is that, in terms of driving, that these serious collisions are very rare. So every time you go for a drive and you're not involved in an accident, you're actually confirming your own bias. That you are a good driver and that you are, you do have superior skills, even if you're not reflecting on the, on, on the dodgy moments. so as an experienced driver, if you can build on these self reflection things on, just be aware, aware of the fact that, you're maybe not at the moment, the best judge of your own skill level. That even that in itself is just a huge, can be a huge help.

And that's something I hear you talk about all the time, Kev, that sort of, um, just because something hasn't happened, doesn't make you an amazing driver. That's exactly, you know, you mentioned the bend at speed or potentially people haven't crashed. You know, I've not had a crash. So I'm a good driver. I say. You've just been lucky. There's, potentially, there's, there's not been someone coming around the road, the other side of the road, when you went over that white line. You didn't look over your shoulders when you were reversing, and there wasn't anyone there. There wasn't a pedestrian there. So you've just been lucky that there wasn't a pedestrian there. And I think it's like that, isn't it, where you have to look at yourself, and I think this is, I'm going slightly off, but I think it's related to the GDE. Most people will pass a driving test to be able to drive on the road. But what that doesn't mean is that you then stop thinking, you know, this is, this is what I've believed that the GDE does for us is we need to continue to think, you know, like you hopefully have done in your lessons and you've been learning to drive. If you continue to think. About what the might happen or, you know, what could affect others, then that is building on your experience.

Absolutely. And I'm glad you brought up the driving test there. so if we think back to what we were talking about a few minutes ago about these lower levels of the GD matrix. so again, just to kind of recap that the lower levels are what we sometimes refer to in our industry as the kind of minimum standards required to pass a driving test. So, you know, are you able to change gear smoothly? Are you able to drive smoothly? Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, move off and stop, turn left and right. Middle signal maneuver, reverse into a, a parking bay at the supermarket. are you able to identify road signs? are you able to interact with traffic? These are the things that you need to go and demonstrate on a driving test to get your driving license and what the GDE does. It really kinda lays out that that is the minimum standard. So when you pass a driving test, you know, yay, well done. Congratulations. We understand that it's stressful. We understand that it can be challenging for many, many people. the majority of the population, who go through this, you know, it's tricky, it's not an easy thing, not to mention, you know, the work that you guys do with, you know, people who are particularly nervous or anxious, which just, you know, compounds the situation. many, many times over, that's that aside, once you pass, eventually do pass your driving test, you should think about that, in a way that all you've done is prove to a driving examiner that you are capable of driving for 35 minutes on a particular day round the route that you have probably practiced many, many times. And if we start to think about it that way, and if we can start to kind of get that message out to the general public that that is all you have done, then we can start to think about, what you're talking about, Kev, in terms of, you know, wider experience. So what the driving test does not do is say that you are capable of driving six hours from Glasgow to Newcastle city centre, which I remember was one of the first drives I did when I passed my driving test and it was absolutely horrible. I was, I was just like so stressed. and there are so many things in the goals for driver education that. You're not required to learn for your driving test, to learn about, so for example, you know, driving with young passengers in the car, driving, when you are tired, driving for work. So we, we, we, just slight tangent for a second, we, as an industry, we quite often sell, the idea of a driving license as, you know, this, this freedom, social mobility and, you know, driving with your friends and all that kind of stuff. But a huge proportion of the population will end up driving for work at one point. And just the pressures of driving for work, whether you're a white van driver working for Amazon, with the pressures that that entails, so many deliveries to do in a certain amount of time, or whether you're a salesman for, you know, I don't know, a big, you know, I trained a guy recently, a big, really high end salesman working for a pharmaceutical company. who was covering, you know, hundreds of miles a week, hundreds and hundreds of miles a week, driving up and down the country. Inverness to Norfolk was, was one of his journeys in a week, these kind of things. Um, and we don't train learner drivers about the additional challenges that these, things can present. Indeed, it's a constant challenge in our industry to make sure that driving instructors have this knowledge. that's something that I'm very involved with as, as you guys are. so yeah, it's, there are levels beyond, you know, I hesitate to use the word levels. There are, there are, there are more things to learn once you pass your driving test, more things to pay attention to. And the more interest that you, you pay to these things, and the more that you kind of push yourself to kind of learn, the better driver you will become. It's not just about racking up the hours and avoiding accidents.

So we've, we've touched on it briefly already levels, and we know the lower levels are like skills based. but then it goes into the self. So, you know, you have to look at yourself and you have to look at the journey. And I find these two levels are the most fascinating part of teaching someone to drive. It's my, this most interesting bit for me. But if, if I'm someone that's, potentially nervous or anxious about driving, they're going to be driving on these long journeys. What can we do driving instructors to help people in their lessons then, or even for people that are going to be listening to this that drive on their own, what can we do that's going to help them?

So we can help them to plan. And we can help them to think about themselves. so something is a way that I often describe, the GDE is if we think about, you know, safe driving for life is something that many people will be familiar with because that's the kind of government's mandate. message through the DVSA. DVSA, run your driving tests. safe driving for life. Once you've passed that safe driving for life, do you know that, skills and, you know, road signs and planning, then what you want to think about is safe thinking for life. And safe thinking for life involves thinking about yourself. and your own, your own kind of ability as a driver, your own knowledge about what, factors are going to increase your risk. For example, if, if you have passed your driving test, now you are going to be embarking on long journeys, for example, for work. So, you need to think about, your own limitations as a human being. Because we all have these, um, and this is more difficult. The younger you are, the more challenging this is because when you're young, you're invincible and you can do absolutely anything. you know, I could do anything when I was younger. absolutely anything. yeah, I, I'm not going to tell you any stories. but you know, uh, have a, it's about having a real kind of self awareness about, about your, your body and your brain and how these things work. So if you have, I don't know, if you've only had four hours of sleep, for whatever reason. You've been out the night before or you know, you're a new parent, or maybe you've just, you know, if you, if you're nervous or anxious about the journey the next day, if you've only had four hours of sleep, that is seriously going to affect your ability to focus and concentrate on a long drive the next day. So if you have a five hour journey driving from, so five hours for me is Glasgow to Birmingham. If I'm driving Glasgow to Birmingham and I've had four hours sleep, well, first of all, I'm not going because I'm going to be in a really bad mood and I'm just going to cancel my whole trip, but I'm older now. but if you need to do it, if it's a job interview, for example, you're going to visit friends and family. you need to factor in, that you are going to require more breaks than usual. You're going to need more breaks to, you know, hydrate. You're going to need to, just rest your brain. and possibly even factor in a longer lunch break. During that journey, as opposed to what most people do, which is a quick 10 minute kind of rest stop. you also want to think about what the weather is going to be like on your journey. You know, have a look at the weather forecast and don't just look at the weather forecast for Glasgow. If you're driving Glasgow to Birmingham, because the weather is going to be different as we go into different zones. Usually it will get warmer if you're going Glasgow to Birmingham. Have a think about who is going to be in your car with you. So if you are, if you've offered to give a lift to someone who is, you know, really outgoing and if it's your best friend and you got on really well, if they're going to be really outgoing and have the music blasting while you are driving and trying to focus, on the back of four hours of sleep and it's pouring with rain at the same time. This is all coming together to be a really kind of potentially stressful drive. And this, all this stuff is goals for driver education higher levels. It's got nothing to do with your ability to drive at the speed limit. It's got nothing to do with your ability to overtake the skills that were tested on your driving test. It's got nothing to do with your ability to notice the change in speed limit from 70 to 60 to 50 and back up to 70. This is personal limitations as a physical human being. You can only do so much, and there are so many factors that affect what you do, which, and maybe we can come on to this, which lead to people making mistakes. And this, this is something that is missing from driver training and driver testing, and, people's, impressions of themselves as drivers, that we are human beings and we will make mistakes, whether accidental or deliberate, because we're particularly stressed out for whatever reason.,

I think one of the things that strikes me is when we are talking to nervous or anxious drivers, often what they say is that they pass their test. And they sort of expected suddenly their feelings to change, that the passing the test, being given their license, would be like a magic wand. And that they would suddenly miraculously feel different and then they were upset when they didn't. And then the other thing that they say to us is that very often they didn't feel that their driving lessons prepared them. They didn't feel that their driving lessons set them up. to be able to go and drive on their own afterwards. And what I'm wondering is whether those nervous and anxious drivers, actually what they are is being that bit more self aware. They are more self aware of what was missing from their driver education in their lessons. So you might have some people who take that minimum standard, pass their test, and go, Yay! I'm an amazing driver! And off they go, without thinking. without doing that self assessment without doing those higher levels. maybe our anxious and nervous drivers are a bit more aware that there's something missing, but they don't know what, because you don't know what you don't know.

Yeah, I think that raises a good point. I think if you are, if you do kind of suffer from nerves and anxiety, you probably are a very kind of, introspective. Is that the right word? You probably think about your own feelings more than other parts of the population. and maybe, I hope this isn't a stretch, maybe that's a good thing in terms of being able to take the next step and being more aware of your limitations and being more aware of your biases. So maybe, I've got a friend who's dyslexic and he quite often says, you know, dyslexia is my superpower. So maybe your nervousness and your anxiety you can use to your advantage when it comes to things like goals for driver education. because you're already thinking about yourself, you're already in it, not in a kind of self centered way. You're thinking about, um, you're, you're thinking about your limitations. You're thinking about, um, potentially what else do you need? to feel comfortable in the car. And that is it. That is what the goals for driver education is. That is, these things have been set up to, this model has been laid out in such a way that it shows you some of the stuff that you should be thinking about. after you've learned the skills of self assessment. if I can just go back to what you said about, people passing their test and feeling like they've not been prepared for a life of driving and putting words into your mouth there. We do have a challenge in the industry in terms of the knowledge level of driving instructors. So I, we all, all three of us on this, on this podcast, we work with driving instructors. We know driving instructors. we're not blaming driving instructors, but there is an issue with, what we are trained in. And for a long, long time, we have been trained. In the lower levels, we've been, we've been trained how to teach people about road signs, different road types. we've been trained how to, teach people skills as we've spoken about already. And it's not part of a driving instructors basic training to know about the GDE. It's not something that driving instructors are required to know. And the research is 20 years old, but it's still not made its way into basic training for driving instructors. So if you are a learner driver and you are, with a driving instructor, don't be giving him or her a hard time because they don't know about the GDE. But it might be worth pointing out to them that you know, you know about the GDE and that you're interested in it. and that could maybe help your driving instructor, that could open up areas for your driving instructor to help them.

I'd love that. I've just got this vision of the learner turning to a driving instructor and says, look, I've looked at the GDE,

Yeah

we build that into, and just that face of that driving instructor just going, oh my God.

I would love

that be great, wouldn't it?

That'd be amazing. uh, hi, I'm looking for driving license. Could you tell me your pass rate, please? Yeah. Yeah. Pass rate. Oh, 80%. Oh, that's, that's pretty good. Yeah. And, uh, what's your thoughts on level four of the GDE matrix?

And this is not having a go at driving instructors, by the way. This is

all.

this is, this is about, I think, everybody learning all the time, because we are constantly learning and we are constantly thinking and progressing and things change. Roads change. Cars change. You know, there's more cars on the road now than there was 20 years ago. So, and I think this is part of that. Being aware, being self aware, being self critical, looking at roads and, you know, looking at you and are you a fit person to drive today? You know, those sort of things, isn't it? Definitely. So you mentioned earlier about mistakes and you said, about coming back to this idea of making mistakes. Can we go back to that?

Yeah, we're all human. We all make mistakes. Um, I think we all know that and we, we know it more as adults than as, than as young drivers or new drivers. so probably speaking. The research, many years of research, not just in driving, just in, in human being research into human beings, kind of distinguishes, it talks about human error, and it talks about errors where, let me get this right, errors, which are just, the intended outcome was not planned. and then it talks about violations. Which are, you know, deliberate breaking of the rules. So let's have an example of that. Um, you're approaching a roundabout and you have interpreted the map of the roundabout incorrectly, and you find yourself in the wrong lane and you signal left to come off at your exit. And you don't realize that there's traffic on the inside of you, on the left hand side of you. That's an error. You've made a mistake. you didn't intend that outcome. You didn't intend to be in the wrong lane. You didn't intend to, you know, annoy other drivers. it just happened. Now, we could talk about the causes. of that error, where you talking on your mobile phone at the time, or it doesn't even have to be that. You could be distracted by your mate in the passenger seat who's playing loud music. the causes of errors are a different kind of thing, but that's an error. You made a mistake. It wasn't, the outcome was not intended. And then your violations. And a violation is something that happens when, again, for a reason, and we can talk about the reasons, someone decides to do something incorrectly. So, very basically, someone decides to drive at 40 miles per hour in a 30 mile per hour road. and we gave an example of distraction for an error, um, a reason for a violation could be the Amazon driver who, has been given too many orders to deliver that day or he's been stuck in traffic and now he's just trying to finish his shift. So the Amazon driver, other delivery companies and online, stores are available, decides to drive at 40 miles an hour. because he's having a bad day, he's frustrated, he wants to go home to his wife and family and, you know, have his dinner and all these kind of things. But it's a violation because he knows what he's doing. He's deliberately driving at the incorrect speed. So errors and violations. So again, if we Think about that from a self, um, assessment point of view. if you are ever tempted to drive faster than the speed limit, have a think about why. Why are you being tempted to drive faster than 30 miles per hour? Is it because, you're running late? you didn't leave the house in time. is it because you are annoyed by the person who's driving at 20 miles an hour in front of you in a 30 zone? This whole self awareness thing is, is really, really important. I think you can have different reasons for a violation though. So you, you, you can have somebody who, and this does happen all the time. You can have somebody who, drives at 90 miles an hour in a 50 zone because they have a powerful car. So it should blatant. I'm going to drive at 90 miles an hour for, and if we look at the goals for driver education, we can look at why that is, you know, it's sensation seeking. some people get a real thrill out of driving fast. But you can also have violations, um, a violation is behavior. So level four of the, the goals for driver education is about behavior at the end of the day. Why do people do the things that they do? Um, is it sensation seeking. There we go. I can't say it Sensation seeking. So, so that, that, that's a reason for a violation. That's quite a blatant one. and, you know, that is something that would be looked upon, very negatively by the police, for example, and, and, and prosecutors. but you can also commit a violation for, you, you can behave in such a way that you're committing a violation for other reasons. For example, the Amazon driver, the delivery driver, and I guess what you could call that is mitigating factors. He's under pressure. and the pressure may be external. The pressure could be from his employer. The employer has given him far too many jobs to do in his workday. he would, I would hazard, I'm not, I'm not a lawyer, but I would hazard that he would be treated a little bit differently than the guy who's just gone out doing 90 in a 50 zone. I'm trying to think of other violations that you could get. oh, so speaking on a mobile phone. if your partner has gone into labor and they are trying to contact you on a mobile phone and you are rushing to get back because you're at work and you have to get home so you can get your partner to hospital, to maternity, you know, these are violations, but I know of one instance, um, I mean, I'm not saying to people that go out and do this because this is what will happen, but I know of an instance where someone's partner was going into labor and they were pulled over by the police. And they explained that this was happening and they got a police escort home and had, and the technology did not exist in their car. They could not connect their car to Bluetooth. It was maybe an older car or something like that. So these are violations, but violations happen for different reasons. Behavior is really complex. We all do things for different reasons.

So we've brought in levels again. We've got levels of violations. Yeah, minor, major, blatant. Obvious. Yeah, love that.

And I think for the general public this is, this is important as well, we, it's very difficult to be non judgmental, isn't it? So we get these stereotypes about white van drivers. Everyone gives white van drivers a hard time. But nobody considers what kind of pressures that white van driver is under. Nobody considers, you know, what, what's happening. So a question, as a driving instructor that I used to really enjoy asking my learners, because I can see my learners get annoyed by, a white van driver, for example, and they'd be like tutting and saying, what's all that about? and we would ask them, so, so what do you think is going on in that driver's life right now that could be causing him to act like that? And I think if, as a driver and an experienced driver or a new driver, I'm just opening your kind of mind up a little bit to the pressures that are going on in other people's lives is just really important because one day that could be you and other people could be saying the same things about you.

Yeah, definitely. And perspective taking is a subject that we find ourselves talking about quite a lot. And it's really helpful actually for nervous and anxious driver to take the perspective of others rather than making assumptions. and being stuck in the I and the me and then making assumptions about other people. It's really helpful to take that other perspective and think about what's going on for them. Brilliant. Stuart, any other thoughts on the GDE for people that have passed their tests? I mean, I think we've covered quite a lot of the Of what it is and how it reflects on what we do and, you know, the journey, the person, the skills, the passing the test. You know, I think it's, we've covered quite a lot in this short episode.

So, I mean, I think we should just mention at the end. Some of the most important things about the goals for driver education, when it talks about things like peer pressure and age group and culture, and this is really relevant to new younger drivers. So we know, for example, that 20% of young drivers will crash within the first year of driving. And some of the reasons for that happening are to do with behavior. As we've said, you know, um, you are four times more likely to be involved in an accident. A young driver is four times more likely to be involved in an accident if they have two peer age passengers. So just to translate that, if you, if you're 17 and you go and pass your driving test and you go and pick up your two mates, Just by doing that, you're increasing your chance of being involved in a serious accident four times. and if 12 month period where you've just passed your test, you've got a 20 percent chance of being involved in some kind of accident. In Scotland, that, you've got a 20 percent chance of being involved in an accident in the first six months. So if you're a parent of a new driver, if you are a new driver, if you are an experienced driver, I think it's really important that you have this knowledge. as you're going about your driving on the road, if you see a new driver, and they're doing something wrong, have a little bit of appreciation for the fact that their representation in statistics for serious accidents, is skewed terribly. Do you know what I, I can't remember the exact figures, but young drivers under the age of. 23 or something represent less than 10 percent of the driving population, but then involved in 70 percent of the fatal accidents, 70 to 80 percent of the fatal accidents. so this is, this is the goals for driver education, are important because it's about making people aware of these things. You know, why are young people being killed in our roads? it's because of lack of experience, it's because of behavioural issues, that we are beginning to understand now that in a way that we haven't for the past 20 it's not about labelling people as, you know, white van drivers, it's not about labelling people as older drivers, really good example again about not judging people. Um, I used to get really frustrated driving on national speed limit roads, where I would be stuck behind an older driver driving at 45 miles an hour. We now know that older drivers have physical, limitations that make driving more challenging for them. They have slower reactions, their eyesight may not be as good, it's probably for the welfare of everyone that they do drive a little bit slower. So that, I think just to bring in that road safety aspect at the end is quite important for your listeners. and an awareness that that these things are going on in the background all the time.

Yeah. Yeah. Couldn't agree more. Yep. Brilliant. So thank you very much, Stuart, for giving up your time for this. it's been a pleasure as always talking to you.

You're very welcome. Thanks so much for having me on. I love the work that you guys do with Confident Drivals. Wishing you every success with it going forward.