Selwyn Driving School director Brad Mannering has spent the last few months converting an ambulance he purchased in Auckland into a mobile driving simulator.
Where there was once a stretcher, and medical equipment, has been replaced with a driving simulator that gives learners the experience of driving a real car on the road without the risk.
Mannering said he chose the ambulance for its practicality with a lot of in built storage, and also being in the ambulance instills the road safety element. He said in total the build cost him about $100,000.
The simulator setup has five screens surrounding the person immersing them in the virtual world. It also has small features to make it more realistic including indicator and headlight stalks and a key.
Mannering said while there are other people using simulators, he believes the idea of having a mobile simulator is a new idea to New Zealand. He said having the simulator be able to be mobile gives easier access to learners.
“The next step is to try and get into schools, have it based there so people can use it during study blocks to practice driving.
“A lot of students find with busy timetables at school they’re not getting that practice they need. So if this was a bit closer to them at school it would make it easier for them to use in practice.”
Mannering said the simulator gives learners an opportunity to try things they wouldn’t be able to try on a real road.
“When you look at teaching people to drive there are certain things you have let experience help people learn from. The safest way we thought was to do it in a virtual environment.
“Things like hazard awareness, a lot of it is talked about in defensive driving courses, driving instructors talk about all the time, but to enable that kinesthetic style of learning it’s easier to let the students experience it and obviously, we can’t do that in car, so the virtual environment was the only way to facilitate that style of learning,” Mannering said.
“For those really early lessons, a lot of people have a lot of anxiety around getting in the car.
“This is that reassurance that they need that they are not going to be in any sort of danger they can jump in the back of the ambulance, know they are in the virtual environment, that there are no real consequences.”
Mannering said the future for tools like this is bright as he looks to use the simulator in defensive driving courses.
“If we can facilitate some defensive driving and some risk awareness courses that are even backed by NZQA, that’s what I am working on at the moment is becoming an NZQA course provider so that’s the next step.”
He said the simulator can also teach people eco-driving focusing on things like fuel consumption, a skill he thinks businesses that use fleet cars will be interested in.
