EVOC Insider #031:Suspended Wisdom

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Easydrift's five-day emergency vehicle operation instructor course simulates high-speed response in a safe and controlled environment. Designed specifically for first responders, it helps operators learn their vehicle's limitations, their own limitations, and every aspect of car control while on a Code 3. We guarantee you will become a better instructor and, for fun, a better driver. 

"After 18 years in law enforcement, you think this is just another driving class… no big deal. Boy was I wrong. This class teaches the technical aspects of extreme driving at a safe speed due to the DTS rings. This is a fantastic product and an even better driving curriculum. Thanks Easydrift Technology for the amazing product and exhilarating class."

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EVOC Insider #031: Suspended Wisdom

The clue was "Tweety's worst nightmare."

The student drove the subdivision at patrol speed, scanning and talking through what they saw. Two other cruisers were patrolling the same streets, and the student had to spot them. The clue was a deliberate internal distractor. Somewhere on the street was a house that matched it, and finding it while still driving well was the real test.

They rolled right past a wooden sculpture of Sylvester the cat on the front lawn.

They looked right at it. But they'd never heard of Tweety, and they'd never heard of Sylvester. The clue meant nothing.

The Email

A fellow instructor sent me a short note recently. There was no story in it, just a question.

Do the words we use as instructors still mean what they used to?

Then came a list: look, brake, accelerate, mirrors, smooth, smooth is fast, easy, go, stop.

There was one line that made me laugh, then made me think. Tell a recruit not to jerk the wheel or stomp on the brake, and you might lose them. To them, a jerk is someone on a reality show. A stomp is a dance move.

Underneath it all was the real question. When you ask a new recruit/cadet to do something, do they know what you want? Or do they need the why?

It sent me back through a few clues of my own that didn't land.

One of These Things

We ran an exercise where students had to find a parking lot at a hall, the kind of community or church hall tucked into a residential street. The driveway looked like every other driveway around it. The only giveaway was one small sign pointing between two houses.

Students drove past it all the time.

To help, I'd borrow from the old Sesame Street song: One of these things is not like the other - one of these things doesn’t belong.  The sign was that one thing. Find it and you've found the lot.

My partner at the time pointed out that not everyone grew up with Sesame Street. Some students had no idea what I was talking about.

She was right. I was explaining the exercise with a reference that needed its own explanation. (BTW, I still believe that’s what policing is all about – what doesn’t belong?)

Tweety and the Owl

The patrol exercise had another clue: "suspended wisdom." Somewhere on the street, a plastic owl hung from a rope.

Every story I read growing up had a wise old owl, so suspended wisdom felt clever.

My organization is very culturally diverse, with many backgrounds and many first languages. What I hadn't realized is that in some cultures, the owl isn't wise at all. It's a symbol of foolishness or even sickness and death. For those students, the clue wasn't just missing a reference. It pointed them the wrong way.

Tweety and Sylvester were a generation gap. The owl was something else. It wasn't about age. It was about who was in the car.

Our Own Language

There's one more gap, and it's the one we create without noticing.

Policing has its own language: ten-codes, call types, radio shorthand. And don't get me started on acronyms. We use them so often they stop sounding like jargon to us.

A recruit a few weeks in hasn't learned that language yet. When we give a driving instruction wrapped in police terms, they're translating and driving at the same time. That's one more task competing for the same attention we're trying to train.

Use the term, then say what it means, until they don't need you to.

The Gap Is Ours to Close

Every one of those clues made perfect sense to me. That was the problem: I was the reference point.

Our families did it to us. "Back in my day" came with expressions and examples we were expected to understand. We're likely doing the same thing every time we reach for a word that worked for us twenty years ago.

I even switched to an iPhone at one point, partly because that's what my students were carrying. It's a small thing, but it's the same idea: meet them where they are.

A few things worth trying:

Watch for the blank look. If a clue or instruction gets silence, the problem may not be the student.

Describe the action, not the label. "Don't jerk the wheel" tells them what not to do. Showing and describing what a steady, controlled input looks and feels like tells them what to do.

Give the why. A word with a reason behind it sticks.

Have them say it back. Their version tells you what they actually heard.

Stop Means Stop

Some words you can update. One you can't.

When you need your driver to stop, say stop.

Don't say whoa, slow, or easy. Under stress, those blur together. "Whoa" can mean ease off. "Slow" means keep rolling, just less. "Slow" and "go" are close enough to mishear with a siren, radio traffic, and a racing heart rate in the mix.

Stop is one syllable with one meaning. Use it, and only use it when you mean it. Make it clear on day one: when I say stop, you stop, and we talk once the car isn't moving.

Your Turn

So, I'll pass that question along to you.

What word, phrase, or acronym have you had to retire, explain, or replace? What clue or saying landed with students years ago and gets blank looks now?

Hit reply. The best ones may show up in a future issue.

The clue only works if they know the story.

Instructor Takeaway:

If you never read another one of my newsletters, take this:

Commentary driving is the most important and foundational component of emergency vehicle operation.

Master it, and everything else improves — awareness, decision-making, and control under pressure.

It’s also one of the core skills required for surveillance work, where continuous scanning and anticipation are essential.

Where do you introduce commentary in your training — early, or after basic vehicle control is established?

Thanks to Easydrift for supporting EVOC Insider this month.

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Hugh Anderson EVOC Trainer | Author of Emergency Vehicle Operation Instruction: 5 Steps to Enhancing Your EVOC Training Grab the book on Amazon