Technology is Here - Use it to Save Your Budget and Improve Training

The New Year has arrived and the challenges faced by everyone in the training industry are not getting any easier. Training technologies are moving ahead, but in some sectors “technologies” may just mean more equipment to purchase.

In our component, driver training has taken a huge hit where operating budgets are concerned. Driver training of all types is very expensive. New equipment, old curriculum, lack of understanding of new driver safety technologies that have been built into new vehicles of almost every type; all of this has been put on the back shelf to be dealt with later. Or even worse, not thought of at all until we are forced to by catastrophe!

Will someone be injured or lose his or her life due to ignorance or the lack of ability (funds) to affect improvement or change? Here are a few curriculum topics that need to be addressed and are only the tip of the iceberg:

How many agencies have written curriculum to address driving new vehicles equipped with Electronic Stability Control or Traction Control?

What about Pursuit Intervention Techniques (P.I.T.) against a vehicle with ESC, and what if both vehicles have ESC?

What policies have been thought of regarding when to push the ESC/ESP or related button to change the ESC program for different traction and control needs?

What do the Driver Instructor Staff tell their students or in-service personnel about these new technologies that are already in the field and will be in every new unit that goes into service as of this model year?

Should the local agencies ask for help from NHTSA to work with A.L.E.R.T. to develop current standards for training with these federally mandated safety systems?

These are just a few of the questions that the Emergency/Pubic Safety driver training industry is starting to be aware of.

Now, let’s fast forward to the emerging training landscape 2012…

Because of budgets, new technology, and OLD driver training curriculum, it is still possible to survive.

I can ask any of my contemporaries in the driver training technology business: “What is our biggest problem?” Categorically the answer is “improper use of the equipment.” Whether it be a driving simulator or our SKIDCAR™, the statement is the same. The training that we give gets diluted, the originally trained staff disappears, a newly assigned instructor comes into training and tries to understand and use new technology with an old curriculum. Curriculum that was designed with 30-year-old technology called ABS as new!

In many cases academies have invested in SKIDCAR™ and simulator technology but don’t integrate the two into a cohesive program. With best-case scenarios, these assets can be combined and customized to streamline the benefits and cut costs in training.

With thought, new technology used correctly can speed up the learning curve, cut hours from behind the wheel exercises, lessen the need for multimillion-dollar high-speed, high-risk faux race courses, and produce a safer modern driver that beyond all other tasks can operate in the environment where Public Safety comes first and foremost.

We would be most interested in and invite your comments.