Success!

[Cholewa]

I have to say, we pulled it off!

Thanks to everyone who showed up to help, without you we could not have run through 21 kids today.

With that being said, there is no way we can run through 30 with the same number of people. We finished up today close to 5pm. I think some of that time could have been delayed a bit by running the last 2 exercises not parallel to each other (so we wouldn't have to worry about when we could send cars, as that pretty much just made it 1 lane of exercise) but other than that, I can't really think of where we went wrong.

Typically in the past, we would try to burn through the first few exercises and have 2 cars on course at a time, but we also had 4 guys out there picking up cones each time. And even running 3 cloverleafs (which was so awesome) we still didn't break for lunch until 12:30! As we saw, the hour for lunch was a bit generous, but still.


So, if anyone has any ideas on how to speed up some of the process (I think actually making the stop in a box lanes V off instead of being parallel will help considerably) and streamline it all, that would be great!

Fantastic job today everyone.

[TouringBubble]

The one thing I found is that the course on the hill was always longer in the slalom exercises. Having them the same length could have cut another 30 min or so off the day. I agree on the "V" shape. I asked for that kind of setup, but was not out on course during setup so that's on me.

[rodhx]

The "V" was hard to pull off because of the prominent dip near the crest of the lot. That, and it is easier to run a straight line of cones using the parking spot lines as guides

regarding the longer course on the high side for the slalom & offset gates...I did not want those courses to use that much of the lot but did not come up to see what was happening until it was set up. The lower lot was a 5 cone slalom out and back so we need to mirror that on the upper side for the next two clinics.

Thanks to the workers! We can't do it without you. It appears 21 students is about max given the current setup and number of workers. I already have that many enrolled for Oct 8 & 22, so I do not intend to expand those classes.

As I mentioned at Regions, I have enough on the waiting list to fill another class. What are your thoughts about doing one on Nov 12 if I can get a location?

[Cholewa]

We really can't do the braking stuff side by side if we want any sort of throughput. We might as well have only done 1 stop in a box on that.

We've got plenty of lot, I think we need to care less about how far away things are, and more about how to get this thing done. The kids were already driving back to the classroom (which, parking over there was a mess, we need to figure out how to make that a bit more flowy as well, waiting to back out of the spot and getting to the exercise took a good 5-10 minutes) and out to the exercise, so placement of the start doesn't really matter.

[rodhx]

Yeah, space ain't an issue. There is another third of the lot on top of the hill that we never even saw.

We could use the same area for student parking but have them park in 3 or 4 rows so they will simply pull straight out. The only negative I see with that is someone late to their car will hold up an entire line.

[Cholewa]

If anything, I would say run the lower lane that we ran, and run the next one on top of the lot near where the middle cloverleaf was.

[nicktcr]

For the braking, why can't we have the lanes "parallel", but the direction of travel is opposite. Basically, one kid takes off one direction, and the other takes off in the opposite, so the end of the lanes where they turn around are at opposite ends of the parking lot. We'd start them sort of in the middle...grid may have to move a little for this, but that's not necessarily a big deal, right? We could grid at the very top of the hill or something.

[rodhx]

Nick, we started to set them up like you suggest. Each student would go down and then back the other course, getting two runs in quick succession. But then they would have an extended wait in grid, so we decided to run it like we did. The best answer is likely to move the second course to the top of the hill, avoiding the dip and the danger of students turning toward the other course.

[Cholewa]

We also wanted to have some uphill slope on the exercise just to help a little bit. I didn't time any of it, but we did definitely lose a lot of time having to run one car at a time, which really defeated the purpose of doing two setups.

[rodhx]

We did not lose time relative to having only one course as we were able to send the next car as soon as the one on the other course was safely turned back toward grid. It just wasn't as fast as two independent course would have been so we didn't gain much.

It was much easier to handle the split grids than one course would have been.

We'll get more separation next time.

[Cholewa]

I did notice there was a slack off in feedback with the grid style system. I saw Matt stopping cars as they came back in to give them feedback, and Elaine and I were trying to keep up with our group on the top side (which was decidedly hard since I was in the car most of the time with the one driver), but I don't want us to lose that immediate consult, as that's pretty darn important with what we were doing.


I think in the future, an experienced person at each start is a must, as well as the experienced people on the back end, with the newer people either helping direct traffic, or shagging cones. I guess I never really thought about how much clearing up of exercises or advice I used to give as the start guy, but after being outside of that loop for once I either felt less helpful, or noticed less interaction going on at start.


As our worker base grows a bit, I would like to gradually shuffle the more experienced new people into listening to the feedback, so they can begin helping with the feedback as we let other people run after downed cones.


And my last thing for the evening, I'd like to have a small worker meeting before the cloverleaf to make sure that whoever is out in the middle knows that they can and should stop the drivers in the middle of the exercise to point out that they are not looking, are not letting off the throttle, etc. etc.

[TouringBubble]

First, about the braking exercise and Nick's suggestion ...

Running the cars in opposite directions adds another variable to the mix, and that's how close the grid can be to the course on either side. Remember the F-150? Imagine if there were a grid of cars just to the left or right, and not just a silver Mazda? We would need to give significant buffer for both grids as there would be cars hurling toward the kids waiting to run in the other lane.

Not saying it can't be done, but it still has the same considerations as the parallel lanes we ran, but with that extra issue to face.

As far as feedback, there were a few issues.

When I was working start, I tried to give direction and feedback before sending the cars, especially on the first run. Not sure how everyone else was doing it. I think that aspect is very important. Reinforcement of the key tasks and goals of the exercise is key to driver education.

When giving feedback, I think we really need 2 dedicated people for each course. Everyone had the same issue I think ... while giving feedback you miss the car that's on course. To give decent feedback takes 30 or 40 seconds on some exercises, which is a bit longer than most runs on a course last. I even had trouble keeping up with the cloverleaf, especially on the first runs. Even with 2 people giving feedback, Sara and I were having trouble keeping up with the braking exercise as it runs so quickly.

My suggestion would be ...

2 cone runners (each)
1 starter (each)
1 grid worker (each)
2 giving feedback (each)
1 safety watching traffic and workers/students

That means 11 workers for the bare minimum for 2 courses. With the 3 cloverleafs, you could switch it up to make the same 11 work ... wouldn't need grid and start, one cone runner, etc., so maybe 12 for that specific exercise (4 each course). But feedback is the backbone of the program and we need to be staffed to do that part properly.

Also, to help with course setup, we could easily define spacing for the different exercises and have all setup workers follow it. Chuck and I went back and forth and found a good setup for that lot ...

Slalom - 5 up and 4 back - spaced 7 (parking) spaces apart
Cloverleaf - 3 cones on each wall - lanes are just over 1 space wide. (We put our cones about 4" off the outside of the white lines of a space, but were told it was a little tight. Seemed okay in action, but I didn't test it.)
Offset Gates - 5 up and 4 back - spaced 6 spaces apart and offset approx. 1/2 space (lengthwise).

I don't have any definite measurements for the braking exercises, but I think we need to give a little more room on the back side of the stop box.

[EvoLady]

First of all I think the clinic was a huge success! Thank you to all the workers that gave up your football Saturday to come work with these kids. You can really see they all get so much out of it and are much more confident behind the wheel when they are done.

I really liked the grid areas. Yes you had to work at timing as far as watching and talking but in the end I think I got the hang of it. You just have to walk to the car that finishes, wait and watch the car that is going then talk to the car that just finished. If there are two people working feedback I think there needs to be more communication between those folks. We just need to help remind each other to watch by saying, hey I’ve got this one, or can you watch them. Just need more communication which we used to do when we had a line of cars.

I think having the cars pull into 2 lines (bumper to bumper like we do our grid at autox) when they go to class would speed things up. These are new drivers and I’m sure they were all nervous about backing out of parking spaces all day. Sure one person might hold the group up but hopefully they will realize that when they go in so they will be sure to get to their cars quickly.

As for the braking exercises I think we just need to use all that space we have. Have one on the top lot and one on the bottom just like we did for the morning stuff. Keep it simple.

Over all I think it went great especially for our first attempt. The site is beautiful, that classroom was super nice and we have lots of space to keep things safe.

If you have never come out to one of these clinics you are missing out on a great time. You leave with such a feeling of accomplishment knowing you have helped 20 kids and maybe a few parents become safe and confident drivers. This is an AWESOME program that our club has been doing for a long time, but we can’t keep doing it without help. So please try to volunteer when you can. Thanks!

[TouringBubble]

I could build diagrams like this to hand out to the setup crew.

[Cholewa]

Matt, I was thinking the same thing. In the old packets we would hand out to workers, it described each course and had a picture of it. If you want to make something like that for each exercise, that would be ballersauce.

One thing I do have to comment on, with the offset slalom exercise. I don't think it should be perfectly spaced. The big thing I harp on in the classroom for that exercise is looking ahead, if you aren't looking you're going to miss it, and having it be the same motion the entire course doesn't really drive that point home.
I feel like the spacing between each gate can vary (as we do want to keep these kids on their toes - they see that its further away and try to go even faster, and then when they aren't looking at the next gate that isn't as far away, they completely miss it, giving us the chance to say "I noticed you weren't looking ahead and you blew right through that one gate... what happened?") And I also think the offset doesn't have to be exact either. My one last gripe about the one that I ran in was that the gates were kind of small, which leads to more cones getting hit, and lower confidence of the students. I tell them to look for the inside cone of each one so hopefully they do that, but that means the outside cones can be a little bit further out to accommodate for the larger vehicles and longer vehicles.

Keeping new workers in less important (instruction wise) positions will be important as we progress, to help keep the exercises flowing and the critiques strong. After a few times being there, the new worker folk should get the hang of things and we can move them around more, but I think for now, new people need to shadow experienced people, or pick up cones.