Hi, this is my fourth article on the “see it”, “say it”, “suss it”& “sort it” system designed by Bob Morton.
In this article I am going to concentrate on the first part of “suss it”. This finds out what is causing a pupil to create a risk whilst driving or even better to find out why they have done something quite well.
It’s immensely important to find out the causes of driving behaviour. As if you don’t that behaviour to return if undesirable or if desirable you might want your pupil not to forget it.
To best thing is to never assume that you know the cause of a behaviour without factual evidence.
Over the years, I have through my experience that a pupil’s behaviour is determined by three main things.
These are:
1/ Physical motor skills
This means is your pupil physically capable of performing a task. Let’s take an example of steering left into a tight sharp corner. Your pupil crosses their hands and stops them from turning the steering wheel any further whilst going this they drive onto the other side of the road (we will cover consequences of this next week).
By correcting their physical motor skills by getting your pupil to use a different steering technique like pull push steering or by rotational steering (explained in Roadcraft) you can help the pupil to steer the wheel more effectively and quickly and hence, giving the pupil the chance to stay on their side of the road.
Another example of physical motor skills would be if your pupil keeps braking too hard when approaching junctions. Well, you pupil might not know about progressive and early brake application or realise the sensitivity of the brake pedal. They might know something isn’t correct, but not physically using the correct technique or how soft they need to apply the brake pedal.
2/ Cognitive thinking skills
This is when you pupil doesn’t know what to do or understand why they should be doing it. For example, you pupil isn’t going to check their blind spot before driving off. They might have seen mum, dad or friends not do this and assume they don’t have to do it either.
Another example is your pupil keeps staring to the right when emerging left at T-junctions. Your pupil will reason that the vehicles on the right are the only risk and you should be looking in that direction. They might not realise that there are risks on the left to deal with as well, mainly down to a lack of experience.
3/ Affective Thoughts
This can be summarised by moods, feelings, and attitudes.
Your pupil might follow other drivers too closely on dual carriageways and motorways. Their attitude might be if I leave enough space in front of me then other vehicles would steal it.
Or another could be that your pupil hates a particular roundabout as all their friends have failed on when asked to turn right on it.
Fear can also come it this. A pupil may be very good at the parallel park, but when other vehicles are waiting, they mess the manoeuvre up, I wonder if you have seen this before!
Ok, how do you determine the cause of a behaviour. Well, the first thing is watching your pupil when they are performing an action, this can provide you with a lot of evidence to what is causing the behaviour. (physical motor skills). You then need deeper questioning to find out what your pupil knows or doesn’t know or understands or doesn’t understand or thinking as well (Cognitive thinking skills). And finally, what they are mood they are in, tired or attitudes they have to a situation (Affective thoughts).
Incorrect thoughts or attitudes can be challenged or modified by using NLP or Cognitive Behavioural coaching or weighting up the consequences or benefits of their actions.