The map is for you, and the questions are for them

I once read the four horizons to a learner as if I were presenting them. The Machine, then The Road, then The Journey, then The Driver, and the three readings running across all four. The learner nodded where a listener nods. By The Road their eyes were on the footpath, and by The Driver they were somewhere else entirely.

When I finished I asked if it made sense. The learner said it did, in the voice of someone agreeing with a stranger at a bus stop. So I dropped the map and asked what they would do the first time a mate asked them for a lift home. They turned their head and looked at me, and for the first time that lesson they were listening.

I had done what a map invites. I had explained it, and they had agreed with it, and nothing about how they would drive with a mate in the back had moved. One question moved it. It was not a clever one. It was one they could not answer with a nod.

The map stays with you and the questions go in the car

The four horizons are a map for the trainer. They show you where to aim, and they show you what is missing when a learner handles the car well and still drives badly once nobody is watching. They are laid out near to far in the Four Horizons, and they are never read out, handed over or tested. The map also keeps you honest, because when weeks of lessons have all been about one horizon, it is the map that shows you what has gone missing. What the learner needs is the questions, asked in the car and in their own words. That is addressing the horizons, not teaching them, and this chapter is the working end of it.

A learner who is told where they sit on a map can only agree or disagree. A learner who is asked a question has to go and look. Each horizon gets three questions, one for each way of reading it: what the learner can do, what raises the risk, and how honestly they see themselves. Twelve in all, written the way a learner would put them to themselves, because the questions people ask themselves are the ones they answer honestly. Keep them in your head. A page of questions in a learner’s hand is a worksheet, and a worksheet gets filled in to please whoever set it.

The Machine questions ask a learner to size up their own hands and feet

The Machine is the horizon nearest the car. Keep it plain and keep it short. These three make a learner say what they can do with the controls, what goes wrong when they are rough with them, and how far they trust their own read of it. If they answer quickly, ask how they know.

• Capability: Which controls do I work without thinking, and which still take all my attention?
• Exposure: What happens to the car, and to anyone in it, when I am rough with the pedals or the wheel?
• Self-Knowledge: Where are my hands and feet weakest, and how would I tell if my own read of that is wrong?

The Road questions make a learner say what they would not see coming

The Road is where the risk is whatever the learner did not expect. When a severe storm warning is issued, the Queensland Government advises a driver on the road not to try to beat the storm home, but to stop clear of trees, powerlines and creeks and park in a sheltered carpark if they can. Ask it as a what-if, and stay on the answer until it is specific.

• Capability: What do I need to see, and how early, to drive in traffic without being surprised?
• Exposure: What changes for me at dusk, at night or in a storm, and what would I actually do?
• Self-Knowledge: How do I drive around other people when I am tired, hurried or annoyed, and who would tell me?

The Journey questions decide whether the drive happens at all

On The Journey a trip is settled before the key turns. A learner, P1 or P2 driver must have a blood alcohol concentration of zero, whatever their age. In the outback it can be a long way between petrol stations, so refuelling belongs in the plan. Ask about a real trip the learner has coming up, never an imaginary one.

• Capability: What do I need to settle before the key turns: when I go, which way, and who comes with me?
• Exposure: What would put me at risk on this trip, a drink, a phone, a tired body or a carload of mates?
• Self-Knowledge: How honest am I when I plan a trip, and what do I tell myself to get out of a plan I should keep?

The Driver questions are the ones a learner answers slowest

The Driver is a far horizon, and it cannot be hurried. Between 11 pm and 5 am, a P1 driver under 25 can carry only one passenger under 21 who is not an immediate family member. Anyone can recite that. The questions are for the moment the rule is not enough. A learner may give the safe answer when you first ask, and a truer one when you ask again.

• Capability: Who am I, what am I good at, and what do I want from driving?
• Exposure: What in my own temperament raises my risk once nobody is watching?
• Self-Knowledge: How do I manage myself when I am annoyed, excited or keen to impress, and how will I cope on my own?

Ask two questions, not twelve, and let the answers be the lesson

Twelve questions are a map, not a lesson. Pick the horizon the learner has been circling, ask one or two, and stop. Pull up somewhere you are allowed to stop, and let the silence do some of the work. Whatever they say is the lesson. You do not correct it, grade it or fill the gap. Use their words when you ask the next question, never yours. If they say they do not know, stay with it and ask what they would need to see to know. Then ask what they would do differently and carry that into the next drive.

Write nothing down in front of them. Afterwards, note which question you asked, what they said in their own words, and what they chose to do next. That note is the only handout this chapter allows, and it is yours. How to hold the conversation open from there is the work of structuring a coaching conversation.

The map was for me. The lift home was for them.