Getting a Grip on the Realities of Driving
The SkidCar System Philosophy and Approach to Driver Training
The concept of confronting reality is often a very difficult process for the human mind. While very few public safety professionals will dwell on the dangers they face on a day to day basis, resolution of these realities is critical to the survival process for these people. When the need for immediate responses to situations that are fraught with danger arise, the mental approach to solving this crisis is widely recognized to be the most critical component of safe resolutions. Experience, insight, and training become the foundation for successful outcomes in high-stress and dangerous encounters.
Admit it now – how many of you thought we were talking about driving and how many think of driving as dangerous and high-stress? How many of you have the tools or technology to deliver this type of instruction? The SkidCar System is a cost-effective and proven method of meeting these concerns in a safe and controlled environment where the risk of personal injury and property damage is eliminated.
From our very first driver training we have been conditioned to drive defensively. Those who have taken opportunities to improve their driving in various schools have learned additional new skills to control vehicles in adverse situations. The physical processes of steering, braking, and cornering and techniques to perform these skills in stressful environments have been successfully presented in many training schools for years. Despite these schools and training courses, it is apparent the driver training industry has done as much harm to drivers in these courses as we have provided them with survival skills. SkidCar System recognizes that driving skills perish and emphasize that skills alone do not remove the dangers of driving.
We have gained experience in the last twenty-five years with driver training programs in the United States and Canada as well as many European countries. The two things that are consistent in all of these programs are simple. First of all, skills diminish with time. Secondly, successful programs have been able to present their training with heavy emphasis on the critical nature of decision making. Agencies utilizing the SkidCar System have a training product that has proven effective in the retention of concepts and reinforces both the positive and negative outcomes of driving decisions, because the emphasis in training is to develop the insight and experience base of the student. SkidCar System training makes the complex and technical aspects of driving simple. Drivers learn their personal limits and what happens when those limits are exceeded.
These two points taken together emphasize that simply participating in a class is not enough. The knowledge and confidence of those exercises may remain in the brain, but the muscles needed to perform the skill are not honed as they were when the training was initially received. Agencies utilizing the SkidCar System have a training product that has proven effective in the retention of concepts and reinforces both the positive and negative outcomes of driving decisions, because the emphasis in training is to develop the insight and experience base of the student.
The concept of driver accountability is the focal point for drivers who participate in SkidCar System training. Accountability is a rather cumbersome word with multiple meanings and implications. Our definition and belief is simple and grounded in the fact that a driver must understand his responsibility to himself and others. Accountability is a mental process that starts with the driver’s ability to maintain control over himself and his vehicle. While this can digress into a complex process, it really doesn’t need to. Getting a grip on this is a matter of showing drivers the correlation and relationships of their driving decisions and the impact of that decision on the stability and performance of a vehicle.
We have found it is just as important to know why you cannot do something as it is important to learn how to do something in the first place.
When a driving instructor tells a group of students it is important to make smooth and fluid inputs to the steering of a vehicle when changing directions, many students accept this information on the faith they have in the class or the instructor. This type of faith is important and must not be overlooked, however if the instructor follows this information with the negative impact – what a harsh or rough input of steering might cause – the lesson reaches everyone. The lesson goes beyond the technique and skill of smooth steering to a more cerebral assessment in the mind of the student that smooth steering will equate to their safety. This deeper understanding leads to a driver gaining accountability and striving to avoid poor technique. Students in SkidCar System courses receive instant validation for the purpose of this technique in a safe and controlled environment, where mistakes do not mean personal injury and property damage.
We have developed curriculum for use with the SkidCar System based upon the concept of this deeper learning and upon the idea of accountability. Our program goal is simply stated and fits with this philosophy of driving. “A superior driver is one who makes superior decisions to avoid circumstances that require superior skill.” In simple terms, a driver who is thinking in terms of his accountability to the vehicle platform and its stability, the safety of himself and others, and the reduction of risk will think and make decisions which will continually reduce the chances of finding himself in trouble and having to pass a “skill test” on the road.
At SkidCar System, we have examined the relationships of theoretical and conceptual materials typically presented in a classroom with the application of these concepts in the environment of the track. We base our instruction on a formula of “grip”. Our formula assumes that grip is equal to traction, stability, and control. More importantly grip is equal to safety. When a driver makes a decision that will develop or maintain grip, the decision equates to a safer driving environment and the driver is exercising a high degree of accountability for everyone. Driving decisions made in situations where grip is diminished or lost relate directly to elevated risks and a reduction in safety to everyone. Our classroom and in-car instruction focus heavily on analyzing the relationship of the decision to the increase or reduction of grip. Training becomes a process of helping a driver understand that a decision intrinsically has more impact on safety than a skill.
Our experience with our program and with exposure to other driving professionals has shown us that a program must continually evolve. This evolution must occur as the overall philosophy of the program is compared to the actual product reaching students. For a program to retain its long-term success, effectiveness, and credibility, it must adapt. As public safety agencies developed training in the operation of emergency vehicles in the late seventies and early eighties, the existing models of instruction utilized techniques and concepts that were rooted in racing and in vehicle engineering. While these concepts are proven and are based upon the science of physics, they are also based upon environments which are dramatically separated from each other and from real-world driving.
Our experience has shown us that a program must continually evolve. For a program to retain its long-term success, effectiveness, and credibility, it must adapt. The life of an automotive engineer is often theoretical and actual application and testing occurs (necessarily) in a controlled environment under very exacting conditions. The racing world is also a controlled environment with the addition of other vehicles and the unpredictability of other drivers.
We at SkidCar System have found it critical to closely examine techniques and information that we present to drivers and make sure that the information is based on real-world situations. Our program has evolved over the years as we have gained experience and insight with students and with the SkidCar System.
One of the most simple and apparent examples of a theoretical or racing environment is simply the terminology used by those involved. Terms such as oversteer, understeer, lateral or linear acceleration, gyroscopic precession, and apex fill student manuals of new public safety professionals with explanations and definitions of the various conditions drivers’ experience. While we know that students can and do learn these words and the concepts they describe and history has shown this to be true. We have also learned that these terms often create a barrier between student and instructor. Instructors well-versed in the terminology and concepts will often be perceived as “talking down to”, “intimidating”, or “egotistical” in the minds of some. When students become intimidated or frustrated their ability to learn ceases.
We have removed some of the magic from driving, by carefully examining the words we use in a classroom and in a vehicle. We have adapted our program after recognizing this potential block to learning and instead examined what the practical manifestation of terminology was. We have found this to be a very useful and enlightening experience for ourselves as instructors. In many cases, it became clear that the words we used were just fine, however we have adapted in other areas.
For example: Rather than the typical and historical use of the term of understeer in the classroom or on the track, we looked at what happens when a vehicle is in this condition. The front tires quit to develop the necessary grip to brake or steer and begin to skid. Hence, we have a “front skid”. While this may initially appear to be an over-simplification, our experience with a wide array of students has been extremely positive. If we have a student begin to enter a turn with too much speed and the front of the car becomes unresponsive, we would historically have said, “You are understeering.” This simple and accurate assessment of the student performance is loaded with potential – potential for the student to correctly interpret what I said and fix the problem or potential for the student to think I meant more steering was needed and only add to his woes.
Drivers who participate in SkidCar System instruction have the opportunity to develop insight through training. SkidCar System is a comprehensive method of instruction that will enhance driving programs already in use and also is a strong base for agencies that are just developing driver training programs. Students and instructors will validate all of their prior driver training in just a few sessions in the SkidCar System. The realities learned in SkidCar System training are just as relevant as those learned through actual experience and it is much safer and less expensive to learn what it feels like to leave the roadway in the safe and controlled environment of the SkidCar System than it is to learn by leaving the roadway at excessive speeds in the real world.
Getting back to the title of this article, “Getting a Grip on the Realities of Driving”, we see this as a process that every program administrator, every lead instructor, every classroom and track instructor must implement. We know that accountability has far greater meaning than what we have simply stated. When a driver that we train is involved in a tragedy, the accountability extends far beyond the driver. Our philosophies and programs must be able to withstand the scrutiny of 20/20 hindsight and must be material which is clear to all.
We would welcome your thoughts and insight to these concepts. We can be reached at 503-227-6707 or through our website at www.skidcar.com