Cooperative Driving – This course is an approved DDC course with the Ministry of Transportation. This course will be informative of driving principles that will provide the means of attaining the goal of not only fuel efficiency but also increasing road safety and reducing vehicle maintenance costs.
This four or six-hour workshop will allow a participant to explore how Cooperative Driving differs from other types of driving in subtle as well as in very obvious ways. It puts the driver in a position of analyzing how he or she is affecting others rather than just how others may affect him or her. You will learn how other road users impact on us – to how we impact others, which will allow for the fostering and development of more pro-social mindsets and an understanding of other road users’ perspectives.
In a very fundamental way, it changes the focus of the venture of driving and brings a level of humility and accountability to driving that is lacking in other approaches to the task. As well as focusing on the impact a driver makes within the system, it encourages honest and straightforward personal insight into the behaviours a driver exhibits. This course is designed to help participants learn the underlying attributes they face when driving.
This course will enhance and challenge traditional models of driver education and training by exploring alternate views of the driving task in more social contexts. The course endeavours to help drivers further understand the complexities that all drivers face and how insight will help each driver learn to be more reflexive in evaluating their own personal mindsets and perspectives.
This course will help facilitate the move of the emphasis away from defending a driver’s position and looking for mistakes of other road users to finding ways to cooperate and make the system more fluid and safe. Drivers on our roads today need to understand how the task of driving relates to the cognitive and the social demands of the task. It is imperative that drivers recognize the dynamics of the situations that they must deal with in our not-so-perfect road environment.
Topics:
- Decision Making in the Driving Task
- Speed Choice
- Stopping Positions vs. Decision Points
- Conflict Points
- Creating Margins of Safety
- Applying of Dynamic Time Management
- Applying Dynamic Space Management
- Reactive vs. Proactive Driving Choices
- Multiple Choice Decisions vs. Forced Choice
- Separation of Functions
- Headway vs. Following Distances
- Safe Reversing