Ford Driving Skills training for young drivers
Great initiative aimed at students in the UAE helps improve driving skills
By Shahzad Sheikh
Now this is a great idea. Ford Middle East has teamed up the UAE Ministry of Higher Education and the RTA to launch a new initiative dubbed ‘Ford Driving Skills for Life’ taking place at universities.
[UPDATE February 5, 2013 – We had a go! Scroll down to read our experience]
The idea is simple, take advanced driving instruction directly to young and newly licensed drivers in a fun and exciting manner. It’s free, runs from 9am to 5pm, you just need to be over 18 and a student, at any of the UAE universities.
Where and when
It’s been going on at Dubai International Academic City for the last two days and tomorrow is the last day it will be held there. If you can’t make it out there, however, fret not, because it moves to the American University of Sharjah on the 10th of February and will run there for five days.
Being a lazy student you might miss that too, but don’t worry, it will also happen in Abu Dhabi from 17th-21st February at an as yet undisclosed location, but probably a university again.
Part of an initiative first set up by Ford in 2003 in the States, what actually happens at the event? Well professional driving instructors focus on teaching safe driving skills in four key areas: hazard recognition, vehicle handling, space and speed management.
[UPDATE 5 Feb 2013] We have a go!
We attended the last day of the Dubai session this morning, to see how the programme was conducted for ourselves. I took my wife, Humaira, who has never done a course like this before along to see if she benefited from the course.
Distraction
The first session involves a very simple drive around a conned course, whilst the instructor tries his best to completely distract the driver by insisting on having a conversation where he’s pointing out completely irrelevant things.
Being a mother of two children who she drives to and from school every day, Humaira was having none of it, and politely ignored him. Both of us thought she’d done pretty well, until the instructor took us around the course a second time and pointed out stuff that she’d missed.
'Quick look over there!' 'Yeah right'
‘I was determined not to be distracted by him and focussed on following the cones around and not hitting any. But I was concentrating so hard on not being distracted, that actually I was distracted without realising it and missed things I should have noticed,’ admitted Humaira.
It’s a hugely important lesson that illustrates vividly why driving always requires your complete attention – and that’s just manoeuvring around slowly, imagine when you’re driving at regular UAE road speeds and things are happening so much faster.
Tired, drowsy or medicated
Next up are some very nifty goggles dubbed ‘Fatal Vision’ which are designed specifically to simulate impaired vision such as might occur if you suffering from extreme exhaustion, affected by medication which makes you drowsy, or under the influence of drinks or drugs – although we’re not supposed to say that of course, but heck, these are students so let’s cut to the chase here 😉
Shahzad's official entry to the Ministry of Funny Walks
The first part is simply to walk along a straight line – Humaira walked straight, but a foot and half to the left of the line. I had a go, but admittedly cheated by looking down, identifying my foot and aligning it with the painted line, still didn’t stop me nearly tripping over a cone though!
I couldn’t contemplate driving with them on at all. Humaira did though and found it extremely difficult. ‘It’s hard to know for certain where everything is, and whilst your brain thinks you’re going in one direction, the car’s actually going somewhere else!’ Humaira confirmed.
Catching a slide
Finally the really fun bit – well it would have been for me if I’d signed up to drive. But for Humaira, who has never skidded or gone sideways in a car before, it was daunting, and it was the one session about which she was both excited and very anxious at the same time.
Ford has done a great trick to catch the attention of students here by employing a stunning ‘Deep Impact Blue’ Mustang convertible V6 for this job. Now you might think a V6 is underpowered to go drifting – even though it puts out about 300bhp, and that’s plenty – and as it is most newbies tend to be too shy of the throttle to really get a car out of control. This is why most driving schools use specially equipped skid cars or slippery skid pans to demonstrate sliding.
The car park is not slippery and the hydraulic fame of a skid car takes up a lot of space. So they’ve got something even better here. EasyDrift tyres, which are not actually tyres, but sort of outer sleeves that fit onto the top of a tyre and provide next to no grip whatsoever. So with the merest throttle (about 2000rpm) it’s possible to get the back out completely.
The purpose here is to help a student deliberately get a car out of shape by applying too much throttle and then recovering the slide safely. It’s done at such a low gentle speed, that it’s like learning to powerslide in slow motion.
‘I was nervous about this but not only was it easy to do, I also learnt and experienced something new and it’s given me a little confidence boost knowing that I can catch a slide. And there’s one other thing,’ reported Humaira, ‘I’ve got admit, it was fun – and actually I’d love another go!’
Saving lives the fun way
And there’s the best thing about this no-pressure programme, it’s very relaxed and informal, all the instructors are extremely friendly and go out of their way to make sure everyone is enjoying the experience as well as benefiting from it.
If that’s not enough incentive, as well as being free, you get a free SD card with video of you trying the course, a ruler, a certificate and a discount voucher for a new Ford.
But this is not about selling cars (even though Humaira now wants a Mustang convertible!) and most importantly over three days here and during the next two sessions in Sharjah and Abu Dhabi around a thousand students will have gone through this programme and hopefully picked up some skills and knowledge that could save their lives – and that’s truer of our part of the world than most other places.
It’s dangerous out there
Research suggests that these skills could help prevent 60% of accident involving teenage drivers. Fortunately “The Ford Driving Skills for Life programme is designed to leave a lasting impression on young people and ultimately make them safer drivers,” said Larry Prein, managing director of Ford Middle East. What’s more it’s fun because the students get to drive cars like the Mustang!
“Inexperience is the leading cause of crashes in young drivers, and this programme delivers the key skill sets that will help increase their knowledge and confidence. An improvement in driving habits of teenagers will in turn bring about improvements in the road safety record of the UAE, and more importantly, it will help to save lives,” he added.
Statistics published by UAE’s Ministry of Interior showed that there were 450 fatalities and 5,543 injuries resulting from 4,566 traffic accidents on the country’s roads in the first three quarters of 2012.
According to the World Health Organisation report ‘Global Status Report on Road Safety,’ more than 37 people were killed on roads in the UAE for every 100,000 members of the population, a record that is the worst in the GCC. More than 8,000 people die on the roads in the GCC and another 60,000 are injured, many of them critically. The WHO estimates that by 2020, road traffic injuries will be the third leading cause of disability adjusted years of life lost in the Middle East.
Worldwide, an estimated 1.2 million people are killed in road crashes each year and as many as 50 million are injured. Over 50 per cent of the deaths are among the age group 15-44 years. Among children and young people aged 5-29 years, road injuries are the second leading cause of death worldwide. UNESCO projections indicate that these figures will increase by 65 per cent over the next 20 years if there is no commitment to prevention (According to the UNESCO report on road traffic in the Arab States of the Gulf).
“We are very happy to endorse this great campaign that Ford is pioneering in the UAE,” said Dr. Mohammed Ben Sulayem, president of the Automobile & Touring Club of the UAE, Vice-President of the FIA, and Chairman of the Arab Council of Touring and Automobile Clubs (ACTAC). “Driving Skills for Life is the perfect platform since the ATCUAE is developing a range of services to focus on young drivers, from education and training platforms, to road safety initiatives and to the development of young professional drivers within the UAE.”
With road users in the UAE almost seven times more likely to be killed that those in Britain for example, we’d love to see this programme extended to allow drivers of all ages and experience to take part too.
Nice one Ford Middle East!
