Driving Buddy:
Teaching A New Driver
By David Thomson
In this Traffic Psychology course we are required to pick two topics to do. One of which is the Driving Buddy. and appears to be very popular among my peers. I decided that I wanted to do an off-shoot of this. Something unique. Then an idea came into my mind that I could give the experience my wife and I had when I attempted to teach her how to drive.
A Driving Buddy is someone who critiques you driving techniques and helps teach you the proper, less obtrusive, way of navigating our roads. The idea behind this is that the driver will become more aware of how they are interacting with their environment and help change themselves. in psychology we call this self-awareness such that a person becomes more in tune to how their body thinks and reacts. I think this is a good idea but can be difficult to find someone who is willing as Rudy Dolfo found out. My report has a different angle because we are starting with someone who has no skills and trying to apply our learned techniques to create the driver of tomorrow.
The first time that she had attempted to drive with her family was at Sand Island Industrial Park. This is a location around metro Honolulu to receive huge shipping boats. Her dad had let them (she, her brother and her sister) take turns driving the car. He first explained what each part was and then put his foot on her brake pedal. She says, "At first I was really scared because I was next to my dad who makes you feel really nervous. It feels like when he scolds you that you might hit somebody else's car." He says, "You gotta make a wide turn! Your going to hit another car! You gotta watch out! You gotta look where you are going! You gotta pay attention, Don't daydream!" When her sister first drove she almost cried because her dad scolded her for speeding up. Her dad yelled at her and she didn't feel like she wanted to drive anymore. She says, "My dad believes that you should do it perfectly all of the time. You can not have mistakes. Even after my sister had been driving for two months dad said that he felt like it was her first time to drive. My sister cried when he said that and we felt stupid."
Initially, I had little to go by other than what she told me. That she was scared to drive. This obviously created a psychological aversion for the task. When I asked her why she said that she was always afraid of hitting other cars her response was that she didn't want to be responsible if something terrible happens.(sounds logical, inteligent) Her mother also wouldn't drive a car. So I decided to apply what I had learned from psychology and first begin her in a non-threatening environment. I took her to an industrial park where there were very few cars and wide streets. This eliminated objects for her to be scared of to hit. Since we were dating at the time I was able to give her a hug and ask her if she was ready. We did this outside of the car to help break her fearful association of getting behind the wheel. She appeared calm and happy to receive plenty of support which was the goal.
This experience appeared normal for anyone that drove the first time. She would often turn too late and oversteer. At stop signs she would often drive over the white line and disregard the safety methods I asked her to use when turning onto or crossing a street. She would often not look or just look one way. Maybe I was expecting too much.
At one end of a road I would have her perform a complicated turn around in which she would have to turn ninety degrees right and then two hundred seventy degrees left so that she would get a feel of how to use her hands on the wheel and understand how the car reacts once it begins to straighten out. At the same time I taught her how to turn her head to look where she was going. This was a bit of a challenge so I just had her do it once the first time but increased the number of times there after. At first she did not understand the space management needed to perform this maneuver and I believe that she had difficulty picturing the path necessary even though I would tell her right then left and explain the ultimate goal. If I did it for her she just marveled at how easily I did it but of course I created the course.
Each session would begin slowly and ease into things until she could start driving from her house and into everyday traffic. She would do particularly well except for checking blind spots in which she would turn the wheel at the same time while looking over her shoulder. The real problems started when we went on the freeway. She began to breath heavily and talk about how scared she was before we merged into Sunday afternoon traffic. The first time she quickly froze and refused to look over her shoulder so I had to do it for her. We quickly pulled over because she was in no shape to drive and I had to take over. She was devastated for awhile and we had to stick to the side streets until she regained her confidence.
When the day of the licensing test came, she was a bundle of nerves again. She hated her inspector. As she began to leave the parking lot she rolled over the white line. This was probably because the hedges block the vision to the left. She then entered traffic okay when she had to turn left on to this busy street. The problems with checking over her shoulder to change lanes immediately began to arise and the inspector became furious. Since then she has avoided the entire situation until she can find an easier location to get tested at.
After she passed her written test she told me that she wanted me to teach her because her father always scolds her if she makes a mistake and he is "...the only one who gets panicked all of the time"(?). She states, "The first time that I tried to drive with David, I was nervous. I remember that I couldn't turn my head. Every time I am in the driver's seat I feel like a stone. I don't want to move. I am afraid of hitting something. Every time that I turn my head to the right I turn the wheel too. I had a good time though. I liked the way he taught me because he doesn't scold me and he always tells me 'honey, you are doing fine. It's ok to make mistakes. your doing ok.' It's like he is giving me strength."
"The first time that I saw the lady (driving inspector), she is not even smiling. She reminds me of one of my teachers who is really strict back in the Philippines and I am really scared of those people!" The first trouble she had was following the instructions from the inspector. She was told not to start the car but she thought the turn signals would not work without the car running so she started the car. She got scolded for not listening. At the same time when they left the parking lot she again was so nervous that she didn't pay attention to her. She had already believed that they were going to drive to a specific area that everyone had told us that the test would take place. Any way, she had froze again because the lady was cold hearted like her father. She nearly had two accidents because she didn't look before changing lanes. She said, "That was a nightmare for me and I know that I let down David because he is going to feel like a failure for not teaching well enough. I was really embarrassed."
My report is retrospective and future class reporters would benefit the learning tree by starting with a new learning participant and listing the events that happened on a day-to-day report. New data could not be gathered for this report because we do not have a car as you night be able to tell from my home page. As far as my subject goes.....well, in psychology we might call this a case study. Something that falls outside the lines of "normal". DON'T GET ME WRONG!! I am not saying that my wife is abnormal!...(no, honey...I am not trying to tell everybody that you are abnormal.I, promise....No, I'm not..) I am just trying to say that we have abnormal circumstances plus a level of fear involved here. When the family lived in the Philippines they did not have a car so there was not the same experience of driving as our American culture idolizes it. The women of the family have a level of fear of hitting and breaking things (except when my wife hits me then it is ok)(?) The father does not have an intimate relationship with them to allow a positive learning environment. Is this true for all Filipino families? No. Of course not. That is why I believe this situation was unique.
I strongly suggest someone else try wht I did. It really is a challenge to your teaching skills because there are so many things that we are automatically aware of and is very difficult to explain it to someone who has never done it before. The number of hazards that are out there plus the mechanical skills necessary to deal with them is almost impossible. This relates to Dr. James's ideas on the automatic self. We operate a vehicle without thinking. Traffic moves like a machine and we are talking, drinking, eating, or daydreaming at any speed. How can we train a new driver not to fall victim to these things?