Unfinished Conversation
At ALERT in Atlanta, I was at dinner with a table full of instructors when someone threw a question out to the group.
What does an EVO instructor's path actually look like?
We barely got started before the conversation got sidetracked, probably by the server taking our order, and we never got back to it.
It's been on my mind ever since.
My path was built two ways. Some of it I went looking for. The rest I learned the hard way.
Going Looking
A little background for newer readers.
I started out wanting to be a race-car driver. I was too big, too poor, and not crazy enough.
So, I became a driving instructor instead. I got licensed through the Province/State and taught new drivers, then moved on to training experienced drivers, mostly sales reps who spent their working lives behind the wheel, and new driving instructors. Along the way, I became a classroom instructor and took adult education courses. That's where I first studied how adults learn, not just how to drive.
In 1998, a guest gig at the Ontario Police College turned into a career. I joined Peel Regional Police in 2000 and have been an EVO instructor ever since.
Then I went looking for more.
I took the EVOC course in the early 2000s. I became a tactical driving instructor through the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy. I took PIT training. I audited the program at FLETC in Georgia. I became a Below 100 instructor. And I went to ALERT conferences year after year, sitting with instructors from agencies across North America.
Each one gave me something I couldn't get at home: a different way of seeing the problem, and people who had already solved pieces of it.
Some of the best lessons came from riding with other instructors.
On a track in Ohio that I'd never driven before, the instructor beside me said, "Okay, Canada, you just do what I tell you, and you're going to look like a star."
I did. I got plenty of compliments at lunch.
After lunch, I rode with a different instructor. He said, "You know what you're doing, so go ahead. I'll just sit here and say something if need be."
I was early on the brakes, late on the turn-in, and slow. The first instructor hadn't been teaching me. He'd been driving the car through me. When the decisions became mine, I didn't have his experience to draw on.
That afternoon left me with a question I still ask myself: is it important that my student does well with me in the car, or for the next 30 years?
The Hard Way
At the police college, I met my first recruit class. Some couldn't back into a parking spot at the coffee shop. Some couldn't see the stopping car far enough down the road. Some missed one-way signs.
I compared them to the sales reps I used to train, and they came up short. A lot of them got invited back for after-hours workshops. My fellow instructors gave me a nickname: the Hammer. It wasn't a compliment. It meant I was crushing their spirits.
The workshops did help. The extra one-on-one time made those recruits much better drivers. But I was measuring them against the wrong people, and I didn't know it yet.
Also at the college, I had a student who had come over from the United Kingdom, where he'd already been a police officer. He had missed the track introduction. I'd never been in a car with him. But he'd been a cop, so I figured we'd be fine.
I put him straight into a follow-me exercise, with multiple groups designed to cross paths on the track. He carried a little too much speed into a corner, drifted toward the centre line, saw oncoming cars, and reacted the way his habits told him to. He swerved left. The oncoming car was already moving right.
No paint was exchanged but it was close.
That wasn't his error. It was mine. I skipped the steps. I should have reviewed the earlier training, put someone else behind the wheel first, and let him build up to it. I assumed, and he paid for my assumption.
Then there was the worst first day of my training career.
At Peel, my regular partner got a last-minute opportunity to teach at the police college, so we had to rush in a replacement instructor. We had two days to get him ready for Monday's recruit class. He had more than 20 years on the job.
My plan for our first day was simple. Just move through the Recruit program at full speed. It went badly.
He felt like we were trying to catch him making mistakes so he'd look incompetent. There was an outburst of frustration. He went home early.
That night I could have blamed him. Plenty of people would have. Instead, I thought about how I'd run the day. I like going with the flow, seeing where the day takes us, and keeping things informal. That style of learning took him well outside his comfort zone. He didn't know what was coming, why, or when it would end.
The next morning, before he arrived, I laid out the entire day on the board: the goal, the scenarios, the outcomes, even the breaks and lunch.
He was a great student. The day went extremely well, and he went on to be a great partner.
Those two days taught me more about training trainers than almost anything else. My style wasn't the problem. Assuming everyone learns the same way was.
Who Taught You?
The Hammer. The officer I didn't scaffold. The partner who went home early.
None of those lessons came from a course. They came from getting it wrong, with a real person on the receiving end.
And I had a head start. I learned the teaching side long before I taught police. Most EVO instructors don't get that. They're good drivers who get handed a classroom to teach.
So, here's the question I keep coming back to. Who taught you how to teach driving?
Most of us were taught how to drive. Very few of us were taught how to teach it.
Staying Long Enough
I've been an EVO instructor for my entire career. That matters more than it sounds.
In most agencies, that doesn't happen. Instructors rotate out. Postings end. Someone gets promoted or tenured out right about the time they figure it out. The next person starts back at the beginning, and the lessons get learned again, on new students.
The Hammer, the UK officer, the first day with my partner: those were early chapters. If I'd been rotated out after a few years, that's where my story would have ended.
Learning, Knowing, Understanding
Years ago, I researched the four stages of competency and started using them in some of our classes. Along the way, I taught them to one of our instructors.
Not long ago, I sat at the back of a classroom and watched him teach that same material to a new cadre of instructors.
He nailed it.
Somewhere along the way he went from learning it, to knowing it, to understanding it. Learning gets you through the material. Knowing lets you repeat it. Understanding is what lets you teach it.
I didn't say a word. I just sat at the back and beamed.
We spend our careers watching for the light bulb moment, when something finally clicks for a student. That day, the light bulb moment was mine.
That moment is the part of the path nobody tells you about. You don't see it at the start, and you can't rush it. But when it comes, you realize the work was never just about the students in the car.
None of That Is a System
Look at how I got here. Courses I sought out. Conferences I chose to attend. Mistakes I made on real students.
That's how most of us get good. Some of us go looking. Some of us pay our own way. Almost all of us learn on the people in our cars.
None of that is a system.
An EVO instructor's development shouldn't depend on luck, on how long your agency lets you stay, or on who you happen to sit beside.
We need a formal path. Not a single course. A path that takes someone from new instructor, to experienced instructor, to the person sitting at the back of the room watching the next cadre teach.
So, let's finish that dinner conversation.
How should we develop law enforcement driver trainers? What courses, what experience, what steps along the way? And what would a real path have given you earlier in your career?
Hit reply. I'd like to hear your thoughts.
We spend our careers mapping the student's path.
It's time we mapped ours.
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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