Do you buy lottery tickets?  I do.  Our chances of winning big are really quite slim and yet every month we still buy those tickets in hope of getting lucky.  As they say; if you don’t play, you can’t win!  The more tickets that you buy… The greater your chances, so some of us buy plenty! Driving risk is in many ways like buying lottery tickets, only it’s kind of an anti-lottery… You see, the probability of disaster because you take a chance is also slim, but you might just hit the jackpot that one time and end up in a serious crash.  And some of us are heavy players i ..read more

We used to play a video game called Space Invaders, where you had to destroy little spaceships as they appeared on the screen.  While it pales in comparison to today’s games, it was pretty hi tech for its time.  Space invaders can be a problem when we are driving too. While space may be the final frontier, it’s also one of the most important elements of safe driving.  The third of Thinking Driver’s Five Fundamentals is Keep Your Options Open.  Keeping your options open means to keep as much space around you as you can when you drive.  Space in front, to the sides and t ..read more

Can you predict the future? I’m not clairvoyant, but I can see into the future and so can you! The second Thinking Driver Fundamentals is ANTICIPATE HAZARDS.  A thinking driver first uses their eyes to look ahead to find out what’s going on up front and then analyzes that information to Anticipate Hazards.  Seeing the potential hazard is not enough though.  You need to anticipate what might affect you and then do something about it.  When you anticipate hazards, you are taking a proactive approach to driving instead of a reactive one where you simply wait until something at ..read more

Invisible. Sometimes I feel like the invisible man: mostly when I ride the motorcycle. I’ve been riding motorcycles since I was 13 years old and my start in this business was teaching others to ride. If there is one thing that riding a bike teaches you, it’s that you are on your own out there. We teach new riders to ride as though no one sees you. Drivers seem to look right through motorcyclists and often steer right into one. The most common motorcycle crash involving another vehicle is the intersection crash where the vehicle driver turns left in front of the motorcyclist who is going straig ..read more

In the world of driving instruction, where some folks have been doing it for decades, my four years might seem like a short time. But these years have been full of learning, facing challenges, and the joy of helping others on their journey. This is a personal story of how I become a driving instructor in BC. At first, I didn’t understand why some stayed in this job for so long, but now, as I look back on my own experience, I understand why being a driving instructor in beautiful British Columbia is special. It’s a career that lets you meet new people, work outdoors, and feel proud about teachi ..read more

I remember the days leading up to my own road test like they were yesterday. The anticipation, the jitters, and a whirlwind of questions racing through my mind – “Am I shoulder-checking enough? Should I practice parallel parking one more time? If I cracked a joke would that make the examiner like me, or would that just be weird? And what about offering them gum? Will that earn me some friendly points?” It’s incredible how these seemingly trivial concerns can take over your thoughts as the big day approaches. Now, years later, with countless kilometers under my belt and a wealth of experience t ..read more

When I was young, we had a rotary telephone on the kitchen counter (for those of you under 40, you may have seen one of these babies in a museum!). When someone wanted to get in touch, they called and the phone rang. If no one was home, the caller eventually gave up because there was nothing called an answering machine then. Those came later with those tiny little cassette tapes. If no one was home to answer the phone, you were disappointed, but simply called back. In the intervening years (you can guess how many), we have seen the aforementioned answering machine which morphed into voice mail ..read more

When I was 7 years old, we came home one day from the grocery store and unloaded everything into the house while the car sat in the driveway.  I stayed in the house with Mom and my sister while dad put the car away.  It was a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Sport Sedan.  Back then it was just a nice car; a couple more decades would pass until it became a classic. So Dad backed the car into the garage and in the process tore off the back door that I had left open in my rush to get in the house.  Clearly my fault – at least according to Dad. Now in 1965, what do you think happened to ..read more

Every year hundreds of carriers lose freight, experience roll-overs or are fined as a result of inadequate or non-complying load securement. An insecure load can result in LOSS OF LIFE, loss of load, damage to freight being carried, damage to the vehicle carrying the load, render a vehicle unstable or be a contributing factor to a collision or crash. In the very least, you can be fined and placed “out-of-service” should you be stopped and the securement method you are using does not meet the minimum securement standards. Ensure that you are in FULL COMPLIANCE with the North American Cargo Secu ..read more

The Thinking Driver School Bus Instructor Program is an eight to ten day intensive training program designed to prepare your in-house instructors to deliver Thinking Driver Classroom theory as well as Practical in-vehicle coaching sessions and driver evaluations on a school bus. This course focuses on the development of competence at training and evaluating drivers. Participants review the Five Fundamentals of Defensive Driving and basic traffic law, laying the foundation for good safe driving. The Five Fundamentals: Think and Look Ahead Anticipate Hazards Keep Your Options Open Manage the Ri ..read more