I was walking through the local Asda supermarket the other day, and I noticed a shop assistant nursing a very wet and damaged box containing glass drinks bottles between his hands. The box was so flimsy it was difficult to say whether he would be able to make it all the way to the warehouse. The interesting thing was that his fear of dropping the bottles was making him carry the bottles differently and this very process was making the task even more precarious.

It reminded me of an experience I had not so long ago.

During the nicer months I like to get out with my caravan. Before I got the caravan, I had never camped before, let alone used a caravan. I had done some towing before, but my towing experience was limited, and I had never towed a caravan.

The first long trip out on holiday, not really knowing what expect. Noises and feelings all heightened my anxiety for the first trip out. About 2 hours into a 5 hour journey I heard a horrible scraping sound and felt a bit more drag on the car. I didn’t know what it was, and unfortunately I was not in a place where I could stop to investigate. A quarter of a mile later with my heart in my mouth I found somewhere safe to pull in. I discovered that the jockey wheel ( the little wheel at the front of the caravan, normally up when towing) had dropped to the floor. With a sense of relief and anxiety I put it back in position and fastened the bolt. Relief because I had found the problem, anxiety because I was worried it could happen again. So in an effort to reduce my anxiety I tightened the bolt hard. Problem solved?

A number of trips later, no more problems with a jockey wheel, this was down to me ensuring that it was really tight of course?

One day I was getting the caravan into position to leave a camp site, and as usual expertly tightened the jockey wheel, it was then I heard a ‘snap’ the jockey wheel fell off and the front of the caravan hit the floor.

I wont go into the details of how it was all fixed , because it took a while and covid also got in the way. But rest assured the caravan is fit and healthy and providing trouble free holidays.

The question I was left with was, had I caused the problem due to anxiety about it happening again or would it have failed anyway. Being honest with myself I am pretty certain that the day the jockey wheel dropped set an anxiety in me, in motion, to course a more catastrophic outcome.

So because I took action to prevent something happening I actually caused it. I suppose thats not a fair statement, it should read because I became overly anxious about a situation I over reacted to it. There by causing the problem.

I see this regularly in nervous drivers, because they are worried about a situation, they actually make it happen.

An example would be ( and this happens a lot) A nervous driver driving down a road sees a car appear in a side road to their left. Their anxiety kicks in and tells them that the car is going to pull out on them. So they slow down. Because the driver of the car sees them slow down, they think the other car is waiting for them, so pulls out. The nervous drivers anxiety is fired even further, because they knew that would happen. Negatively re-enforced by the situation. But they created it.

We all know, as drivers, that sometimes people do pull out in front of you, but it’s not a common situation. The nervous driver however makes it one because of their actions. Over reacting like I did with my caravan.

The fix for this is to make sure the nervous driver feels in control of the situation. So when they see a possible threat , like this, they cover their foot brake, this way they are ready to act if they need to. The car will also lose a little bit of natural speed to make the task of stopping easier, but more importantly, the car in the side road will not notice the reduced speed and so will not pull out.

Our emotions shape our actions, our goal is to recognise these emotions and create an appropriate response to the perceived threat. We do not want the thought to create the situation or even escalate it.

I am not sure whether the assistant in Asda made his way safely to the warehouse without incident. But I do not tighten my jockey wheel so much these days.

Theory Test time for the International Nurses

For anyone who is not aware of the UK theory test, for driving, the test is made up of two parts the multiple choice theory questions and a hazard perception test.

In the hazard perception test a candidate has to watch 15 video clips which will have ’emerging hazards’ to spot. Fourteen of the clips have one hazard to spot and one clip has two hazards to spot. Out of a possible 75 marks the candidate must get 44 to pass.

On the multiple choice the candidate must score at least 43 marks out of a possible 50. Both tests have to be passed at the same time.

I can honestly say that during the 18 years that I have been a driving instructor I have not worked so hard or had so much fun at the same time.

Working with the International nurses is a challenge and a pleasure, all of them, without exception, is eager to learn and not one of them finds the process easy. So it is always a reward for me helping them understand new subjects, concepts or practice.

Picture having never been to the UK, having never seen anyone driving on roads like we have in the UK. Now add in the problem of not having English as you native or ‘common use’ language.

Then add in an additional thought that you are required to get through this test asap, because your job requires it. We also cannot book a practical test until the theory is completed.

Pressure.

To try to help with their understanding, I set up some online theory sessions, and with the help of my theory app, ‘Theory Test Pro’ and ‘Microsoft Teams’ we worked through to gain an understanding of how the hazard perception test works and gain a greater understanding of the multiple choice content.

I will be honest and admit I got a couple of questions wrong myself. Not because of the question necessarily but because of how the question was worded. So this adds another dimension to how much of a task it was for the nurses faced with the test.

I am pleased to say six out of the nine nurses passed.

All of them passed their hazard perception and of the three that didn’t manage to get through, they were only short by, 1,2 and 3 marks respectively.

I am extremely proud of all of them.

If we can get similar results for the practical tests it will be a fantastic achievement. Theory test resits have been booked and practical tests booked for the successful six. Due to the hideous waiting times for practical tests this will not be until late January and early February, but that just gives us a little bit more time to make it nine out of nine!

To meet the governments challenge of providing 50,000 nurses by 2024 it is essential that international nurses are recruited to help achieving this goal.

For nursing in the community , not only do the nurses have to be capable of giving excellent care but it is also essential that they can drive.

Almost 2 years ago, I was approached by the Solent NHS trust, I was a known driving instructor to them, and they asked if I could scope a new initiative they were working on.

My contact was Jill Young Head of Quality and Professions, she told me that the trust intended to recruit a number of nurses from other countries. The problem that they had was all of the nurses recruited would need to be able to drive for work at some point.

Nurses from different countries, different backgrounds , different experiences adding to varied UK licensing requirements for people coming from different countries seemed an interesting problem.

A number of meetings later , we had a plan.

Firstly all recruits would go through the same training.

A theory practice application would be made available to all recruits.

A 15 module module course was created, with provision to add additional lessons during or after the course to ensure that there would be enough practice. Each module would be 4 hours long.

Pupils would be taught in pairs, to give peer support, and a ready made chaperone.

On this day we also applied for the recruits licences.

We were a little worried bearing in mind you should normally reside in the country for 6 months before you apply for your licence, we found that provided the ladies could provide details of their employment and intension to stay beyond six months we overcame this hurdle too.

I didn’t see the ladies again for a few months, they were busy getting ready for their nursing exams.

When Elton John and Bernie Taupin wrote their famous song, they were talking about a relationship that had gone wrong and couldn’t find a way of apologising so that they could move on. Sorry being the hardest word to say.

In reality I feel its completely the opposite, where ‘Sorry’ is actually one of the easiest words for us to say, and in fact we use it so much we lose its meaning.

Don’t believe me?

Well, remember this article the next time someone bumps into you………what do you say, even though you have done nothing wrong?

I know we are just being polite but it shows you just how easy it is to use the word.

Sorry has a place and is a very powerful word when you are trying to apologise for something you have said or done wrong. It will go a long way to make the situation better and make the person you have upset feel so much better.

Ask any of my pupils and they will tell you the word I will not let them use in the car is sorry. In learning to drive I hate this word, one of the reasons being because it gets overused as we said, but what are they apologising for?

A pupil makes a mistake – let’s say they stall, and the first thing they do is say sorry. Why? They would say “Because I made a mistake” but did they upset me or offend me? No

So why are they saying sorry? There isn’t a pupil around that does not make mistakes of some type. Yes there are pupils that make repeated mistakes because they find it difficult or do not understand a concept. But to be honest I feel if you are a driving instructor who gets upset about these things, then you really need to evaluate if this profession is for you, and certainly shouldn’t be shouting at, or abusing a pupil. And yes sadly this happens far more than it should.

At the end of the day they are learning to drive, and will make mistakes. Mistakes are part of the learning process so that means they are apologising for learning, which makes no sense. But also by apologising it starts a cycle that makes them feel bad and can make the mistakes worse.

A study for the European Journal of Social Psychology found that people who refused to say sorry showed signs of “greater self esteem” had greater feelings of power or control and also integrity.

So if we put this into a learning environment, the act of apologising for learning, is self deprecating, affects ego, and creates yet another barrier to learning. So an unnecessary ‘sorry’ after a very short time turns into a ‘whats wrong with me ? I just can’t get this! ‘

Everyone learns in different ways and different paces. We have to all acknowledge this, trainers as well as pupils. Most trainers know this but all pupils do not accept it.

It’s funny, because many of my pupils have had children and I ask them “When you are teaching your son or daughter something, and they get it wrong do you instantly shout at them ? Tell them they are rubbish and say they will never get this.?”

No they don’t. They try to be patient with them and help them through. However when it comes to doing things themselves they do not offer the same patience to themselves as they would to their child.

I know I have come off topic slightly, and in another article I will look at this in more depth, but it shows you just how easy it is to create additional barriers to learning.

The word “Sorry” is one of those barriers. So choose any word you like if something does not go quite right but never apologise for making a mistake. You are learning. You need to understand how things can go wrong and what to do when they do. It is through making these mistakes and correcting them that the richest and most enduring learning is found.

So for learning to drive let’s make “SORRY THE HARDEST WORD TO SAY” Thank you Elton and Bernie.

Tony Winter-Bates July 2022

How we got here.

Do you remember when you first learnt to drive people would say to you ‘You only really start to learn how to drive when you have passed your test” ? Well to be honest there is quite a lot of truth in this, and the same applies to driving instructors.

Driving is a ‘skill for life’ and you don’t stop learning just because you do not have an instructor next you. All good driving instructors will tell you that they are not training you to pass your test , they are training you to drive. But we still follow a syllabus of some form. After you pass your test, unless you take some form of additional training you are left to your own devices. ‘The school of hard knocks’ or bumps and scrapes if we are talking about driving.

For this blog I am talking about my personal journey to get to this point.

When I look back at deciding to become a driving instructor my main thought centred around me not having the patience to help people. I think back to ‘The Driving School” a BBC reality series and the exploits of Maureen, one of their more colourful pupils and I really wasn’t certain I would be able to cope.

As I started my training I genuinely worried that not only would I not be able to maintain patience with pupils but also keeping control of the lesson and achieving learning outcomes.

What I found in particular, is the more I worked the more I found out about myself, not just the job, and guess what? I did have the patience and I actually enjoyed working with people that may find it difficult. Whether from ability or from emotional issues. As such I became particular interested in these areas and took additional courses to help me provide the best support I could to get people driving.

Over the years I have worked with many people from different backgrounds, nationalities. Some with disabilities or with anxiety issues. I have found that getting people on the road is rewarding, but getting someone on the road who has difficulty, for what ever reason, is the most rewarding of all.

I have done many jobs over the years but the 18 years I have spent teaching people how to drive and overcome their issues has been an excellent experience.

So bring on the ‘Maureens’ or anyone else who feels they may need a little more help or support.

My idea for the blogs was to share my thoughts and experiences with helping people to drive, whether learning to drive or already driving. I also have an exciting new project starting shortly which I will share.