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DESIGNING DRIVING EXERCISES

The purpose of  placing a student in a given exercise or scenario is to evoke a response from the driver/vehicle which introduces or reinforces specific skills or skill sets , and to afford an opportunity to coach the student on applying those skills and, of course, measure their baseline performance and quantify their improvement. None of this can be accomplished without understanding of vehicle dynamics. This understanding leads to questions that a professional driving instructor asks and can provide answers to:

 How far apart are the cones in the slalom?

What is the width of the barrier in the lane change?

What is the maximum capability of the vehicle, measured in G’s, in each exercise?

What is the maximum rate of de-acceleration of the vehicle?

At what speed does the student approach the vehicles maximum capability in each  exercise (or scenario) that you place them in?

Why are the answers to these questions so important? Because if the instructor does not know the maximum capability of the vehicle and what conditions and/or limitations an exercise will impose on that vehicle, it is impossible to measure the capability of the driver. And if the instructor cannot determine what the driver was capable of at the beginning of their training and then compare that to what the student is capable of at the conclusion of their training, there is no way to determine if the training was effective; in fact, there is no way to establish and meet objective goals for the training.  Perhaps more importantly, without measuring the student’s capability there is simply no way for them to fully recognize what they can, and cannot, do behind the wheel.

 Ultimately, you cannot separate vehicle dynamics from driver training; hence instructors MUST have a thorough understanding of vehicle dynamics and the ability to apply that knowledge to driver training.  Because once they have that understanding, they then have the ability to provide training that incorporates the three critical factors of survivability behind-the-wheel emergencies – the driver, the vehicle and the environment – into exercises that not only provide a mechanism for measuring the driver’s improvement, but also closely replicate the types of emergencies he or she is likely to face.

 For an example of just how advantageous this understanding  can be to the instructor, we  just need to look  back at a an Instructor-level Vehicle Dynamics and Exercise Design program TSVDI conducted for a Federal Agency. When we passed out the calculators (standard issue for the vehicle dynamics savvy instructor), one of the students was looking at the calculator like a monkey might look at a watch – confused. It wasn’t long before he came up to Tony and expressed his displeasure that he would have to learn math to pass the course. He, like many others we have trained, pointed out that during his high school days; (with some it even extends into their college days) math was the bane of his existence. In a roundabout way he made the point that he was concerned that he would not pass the course because of the math. Tony’s answer was the same for him as it has been for scores of others with the same concern – hang in for a few days, and give it your best shot, while we give our best shot to teaching you the math.

 Three days later, as we were on the track designing a training exercise to recreate a specific incident that involved their unique vehicles and the difference a new found knowledge of math and vehicle dynamics made was quite obvious. Tony had put together some guidelines for the students regarding the exercise design elements, and this same guy that had , just a couple of days before, been concerned about passing the course walks up to him  and says “I don’t agree with the way you suggested we design this exercise”. He then proceeded to walk Tony through nearly a full page of calculations he had worked out to express how he thought the exercise should be designed and thoroughly explained why he thought that. In just a few days this instructor had gone from being intimidated by the math required to design driving exercises to combining his knowledge of the laws of physics (and, god forbid, math)  with his operational knowledge of the agencies mission objectives, the unique vehicles they operated and the types of incidents they had faced in the past to develop an exemplary driving exercise; one in which the drivers capability to resolve the problem while maintaining control of the vehicle was able to be objectively measured and, more importantly, drivers would be able to recognize that they were fully capable of resolving successfully.

 At the end of the day, that is the real value provided by an instructor who understands vehicle dynamics and how they apply to drivers training.