Time vs Speed
We run an exercise called Time vs Speed on the cone course. One instructor runs the same course twice, same route, same start and end point.
The first run is the Hollywood drive. Lights and siren on, traction control off, the back end fishtailing through every corner. Heavy on the ABS. Understeer into the parking garage. Braking late enough that the brakes start to smoke, and the students standing off to the side can smell it. Lots of engine noise, lots of tire noise, the whole thing looks like it was shot for a movie. If you put a heart rate monitor on that driver, it's climbing. Breathing hard, heart pumping, the whole physiological package that comes with driving right at the edge.
The second run is the same course, lights and siren still on, but the driver is smooth. Not slow. Precise. No smoke, no drama, nothing for the students to smell or hear beyond the siren itself. From the outside, it looks like a completely different pace.
We ask the students which run was faster.
About 80% say the Hollywood drive.
Then we show them the stopwatch. Same time, or more often than not, the smooth drive is quicker.
The reason is simple once you see it. The Hollywood driver is at the edge of control the entire way. No margin left for anything unplanned. The smooth driver has room. Room to adjust, room to react, room to be wrong about something small without it becoming something big.
That part of the exercise is about driving. But there's a second lesson in it that has nothing to do with the students, and everything to do with us.
A few months back I asked an instructor how they liked the job. "I love it," they said. I asked what they loved about it. No hesitation: "I love driving fast."
I won't pretend I wasn't a little disappointed. But I understood it, because I used to be that guy.
Early in my career, I worked alongside someone who used to say, "I don't care if you like me or not, as long as you can drive like me." I tried that mindset on for a while. Never said the actual words to my students, but my training reflected it. By the time I got to OPC, I'd started moving away from it, realizing I didn't need to tell students to drive differently, I could sell them on the concept and let them arrive at it themselves.
I was still picking up shifts back at the Skid Control School when I had availability, and one day the manager there pulled me aside and said he'd noticed a change in my training. More assured in my delivery. More relaxed.
I didn't have a name for it then. I do now.
Quiet confidence.
I knew I could go faster, I knew I could push the car harder than most of the drivers I was training, but showing them wasn't the job. That shift didn't happen overnight, and looking back, I'm not sure I could have skipped straight to it. Some of it just takes years behind the wheel with students in the seat next to you.
The job is giving a student the tools for a 25 to 30 year career behind the wheel. Not a good lap. A good career.
That's why I never give students my own time on a course. It's not about whether I can beat them. It's about whether their time falls into the acceptable range for what they're being trained to do. The second a student is chasing my number instead of their standard, I've made the exercise about me.
The instructor who's still trying to be the fastest one on the course is running their own Hollywood drive. Loud, impressive, and no faster than the instructor who's smooth, controlled, and actually focused on the student in the seat next to them.
Nobody clocks the smooth one. But it's the smooth one who arrives at their destination.
PS: Where are you on that path right now? Still chasing the fast lap, or somewhere past it? Let me know, I really do want to hear from you.
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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
