http://WWW.bsafedrivinglessons.com.au/

B SAFE Driving Lessons, Ferny Hills (2026)

02/09/2026

The Individual Comes First

I learnt something about myself this week.

I started a personal training course and, after beginning the pre-course work, I made the decision to stop.

It cost me my $500 deposit.

Initially, I was angry with the company. Then I became even more angry with myself.

Another thing started and not finished.

But after sitting with it for a while, I realised the course itself wasn’t really the problem. The video material was actually very good.

It was how I felt within their system.

The message being delivered through the training didn’t seem to match the personal interactions I was having with the company.

I didn’t feel like an individual.

I felt like something being pushed through little holes that I simply didn’t fit through.

And that gave me some clarity about B Safe.

The individual comes first.

Every learner who gets into my car is different.

They arrive with different experiences, personalities, levels of confidence, fears, abilities and ways of learning.

The road rules don’t change for them.

The standard of safety doesn’t change.

But the way we help them get there can.

One learner may need me to slow things down.

Another might need me to challenge them a little more.

One may need an explanation.

Another may need to experience something before the explanation makes sense.

Sometimes the plan I had at the beginning of the lesson may not be the right plan ten minutes later.

That’s okay.

The lesson doesn’t come first.

The learner does.

This is also something I want parents and supervisors to understand.

Learning to drive isn’t about pushing a young person through a predetermined series of boxes because that’s where we think they should be.

We need to notice the person sitting behind the steering wheel.

Where are they now?

What are they understanding?

What are they struggling with?

What are they ready for?

And what do they need from us next?

There still needs to be structure. There still needs to be progression. And there absolutely needs to be a standard.

But the person should never disappear inside the system designed to teach them.

Perhaps that’s the $500 lesson I needed this week.

In B Safe, I don’t want to build learners who fit my program.

I want to build a program capable of meeting the learner where they are and helping them become the safest driver they can be.

01/09/2026

Would You Hire Your P-Plater?

If you were hiring someone to drive for you, would you simply ask:

"How many years of driving experience do you have?"

And then give the job to the person with the most years behind the wheel?

Maybe. Maybe not.

I think I would want to know more.

Can I trust you with my vehicle?

Can I trust you with my customers?

Can you stay calm when the road becomes difficult?

Can you make a good decision when something unexpected happens?

Will you treat every journey as a responsibility, not simply a job?

Because experience matters — but experience alone doesn't necessarily make someone a good driver.

You can repeat the same habits for twenty years.

You can drive the same ten kilometres to work every day for a decade and never once be tested by anything harder than a school-zone speed sign.

Years on the road don't automatically mean years of growth. Sometimes they just mean years of the same habits, repeated without question.

Attitude matters.

Responsibility matters.

Discipline matters.

Awareness matters.

The willingness to keep learning matters.

Which brings me to learner drivers.

We spend a lot of time counting hours.

100 hours.

The required night hours.

Lessons completed.

Test booked.

Licence achieved.

It's an easy system to measure. Hours are simple. They fit neatly into a logbook. But a logbook can't tell you how someone thinks when the traffic lights are down and three cars are all trying to work out whose turn it is.

So perhaps there is another question worth asking:

Would you hire your new P-plater to drive you around all day?

Not just down the familiar road to the shops.

Through peak-hour traffic.

In the rain.

On an unfamiliar road.

When they're running late.

When another driver makes a mistake.

When something happens that wasn't part of the plan.

Would you trust their judgement?

Would you trust their attitude?

Would you trust the decisions they make when nobody is sitting beside them telling them what to do?

That's the real test. Not the ten minutes with an examiner in the passenger seat, but the thousand ordinary moments after — the ones where the only person checking their decisions is them.

Because that is eventually what we are preparing them for.

The licence matters.

The hours matter.

The experience matters.

But the person we are developing behind the wheel matters even more.

B Safe Marker:
We are not simply teaching someone how to operate a car. We are developing a driver we can trust to share the road responsibly with everyone else.

01/09/2026

The Duck, the Roundabout and Me 🦆

On my way to my first lesson this morning, I needed to turn right at a roundabout.

As I approached, I indicated right and, as I passed the exit before mine, changed to my left indicator to show I was leaving the roundabout.

Throughout the manoeuvre, I kept checking what was happening around me. A car had entered the roundabout behind me and was taking the same exit.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something moving quickly.

At that moment, I didn’t know exactly what it was. I just recognised that something didn’t look right and that it might not stop in time.

So I braked and stopped.

Thankfully, the driver behind me was also paying attention and stopped safely.

And the unexpected hazard?

A duck.

It was actually quite amazing how quickly the duck managed to stop when it needed to. But the encounter left me thinking about something I talk about regularly with learner drivers.

You don’t always need to know exactly what the hazard is before you respond to it.

Sometimes you simply notice movement. Something feels different. Something enters your peripheral vision. Something doesn’t quite fit with what you expected to happen.

Good hazard perception is about noticing those small clues early enough to give yourself time to make a calm decision.

There was another lesson in the moment too.

I wasn’t driving in isolation.

My decision affected the car behind me. Their awareness affected me. And both of our decisions affected the safety of a rather unexpected road user.

That is what driving really is.

We are constantly observing, communicating and responding to one another.

The Fundamental

Notice before you know.

You don’t have to completely identify a hazard before preparing to respond. Notice the change, create time and space, and be ready to act.

Because sometimes the difference between a small surprise and a serious incident is simply noticing early enough.

And sometimes your hazard perception lesson comes from a duck. 🦆

01/09/2026

I focus and work with pride today.

My car is in having a grease and oil change, so it feels like a good day for a little personal inner service as well.

Sitting here on the veranda, I have some time to reflect—to delve into my thoughts and look for a little more clarity and balance. It is an opportunity to tune up my mind, much like the mechanics are hopefully doing to my car.

And perhaps learning to drive isn’t all that different.

We don’t become better drivers simply by accumulating kilometres or hours behind the wheel. Every so often, we need to stop and reflect.

What am I doing well?

What habits might have crept in?

What needs a little adjustment?

What could I do differently next time?

A learner driver doesn’t need to wait until something goes wrong before making an improvement. Just like servicing a car, learning is partly about noticing the small things early and making adjustments before they become bigger problems.

It is also about taking pride in how we do things.

Not pride in being perfect, but pride in paying attention. Pride in doing something properly even when nobody is watching. Pride in making the safer decision rather than the easier one.

That applies to driving, but it also applies to life.

Today, I have set my intentions for growth and gratitude. When I look back this afternoon, I don’t need to have completed everything. I simply want to feel proud of what I actually completed and, perhaps more importantly, proud of how I went about it.

As I sit with my thoughts, I feel a sense of renewal.

The world continues to move around me, but in this moment I am centred, aligned and prepared to navigate today’s little journey with a renewed sense of purpose.

The Fundamental

Progress doesn’t always come from doing more.

Sometimes it comes from stopping, reflecting, making a small adjustment and then moving forward with greater awareness.

That is true when learning to drive.

And it is probably true for most of life’s journeys as well.

31/08/2026

A few years ago I started listening to Darren Hardy each morning. I moved from being a listener to an engager — instead of just listening, I started commenting on his daily message. Through that process, a lot of light bulbs turned on. A lot of ideas developed.

In it all one name kept coming up: Jim Rohn. I dove into his work, and it still guides me every day.

"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan."
— Jim Rohn

That quote is probably the cornerstone of Jim's work, from where I sit.

I looked at my own life and realised I was a drifter — floating along, going wherever the winds of change took me. So I started to take control. I started to plan. I started to grow. I started to influence my own direction.

That growth mindset is what I bring into every driving lesson.

Many of my students arrive without a driving plan. Their supervisors have just let them drive and figure it out as they go.

I believe we learn best by doing ‘The Thing’ — but we also need to be aware of ‘how’ we're doing ‘The Thing’.

Are we doing it right?

Or are we quietly learning it wrong?

Learning to drive needs a plan. A structure. Teaching.

THE MARKER: A drifting driver becomes a directionless driver. Give them a plan, and you give them control.

---

30/08/2026

ARE WE TEACHING TO PASS — OR LEARNING TO DRIVE FOR LIFE?

I came across this graph comparing road deaths per 100,000 people in different countries.

At first glance, it is tempting to look at Australia sitting at 4.7, compare us with countries such as the UK at 2.5, and conclude that their approach to learning to drive must simply be better than ours.

But statistics need context.

Road deaths per 100,000 people is not the same as road deaths per driver, per registered vehicle, or per kilometre travelled.

How much people drive matters. The types of roads they drive on matter. Distances travelled matter. Population density, public transport, road design, vehicle safety, enforcement, speed environments and many other factors matter too.

Australia is a very different driving environment from the United Kingdom.

So I don’t think a graph like this proves that Mum and Dad shouldn’t teach their children — or that professional instructors are automatically the answer.

I think it raises a much more useful question:

What are we actually trying to achieve when somebody learns to drive?

In Queensland, a learner under 25 needs to accumulate 100 hours of supervised driving experience.

But 100 hours does not automatically equal 100 hours of learning.

And professional lessons don’t automatically create a safe driver either.

The two should complement each other.

A professional instructor can introduce skills, identify habits, explain the why, challenge the learner appropriately and work in environments that may not yet be suitable for practice with a parent.

Parents and supervisors then have something incredibly valuable that an instructor usually doesn’t have:

time.

Time to practise.
Time to repeat.
Time to experience different roads, weather, traffic and situations.
Time to have conversations.
Time for the learner to gradually take greater responsibility for the decisions being made.

Perhaps the question shouldn’t be whether Australia needs more compulsory professional lessons.

Perhaps we need to think more deeply about how those 100 hours are being used.

Are we accumulating hours?

Are we preparing someone to pass a test?

Or are we deliberately developing a person who can think, observe, anticipate, make decisions and understand how their actions affect everybody else sharing the road?

Because passing the driving test isn’t the destination.

It is the point where we allow a new driver to continue the journey without us sitting beside them.

The Fundamental:
Professional instruction and supervised practice are not competitors. At their best, they work together. The goal isn’t simply to produce a licence holder.

The goal is to develop a safe, thinking, interdependent driver for life.

30/08/2026

Statistics can be interpreted in many ways.
My dad was fond of saying,
“Figures don’t Lie,
But Lies can figure.”
The FIGURE attached has many ways of being viewed.
Here is my short take on the figures.

The UK figure includes a lot of people who don’t drive at all. That drags the per-100,000 number down and makes their roads look safer than the training alone would explain.

There are other factors too. Distance travelled per driver each year is a big one.

Australia is vast, with long distances and natural dangers the UK simply doesn’t have to deal with.

The Standard:
The real comparison isn’t UK vs Australia. It’s whether we’re expecting enough from every learner before we hand them a licence.

RoadSafety

28/08/2026

I focus and work with pride today.

My car is in having a grease and oil change, so it feels like a good day for a little personal inner service as well.

Sitting here on the veranda, I have some time to reflect—to delve into my thoughts and look for a little more clarity and balance. It is an opportunity to tune up my mind, much like the mechanics are hopefully doing to my car.

And perhaps learning to drive isn’t all that different.

We don’t become better drivers simply by accumulating kilometres or hours behind the wheel. Every so often, we need to stop and reflect.

What am I doing well?

What habits might have crept in?

What needs a little adjustment?

What could I do differently next time?

A learner driver doesn’t need to wait until something goes wrong before making an improvement. Just like servicing a car, learning is partly about noticing the small things early and making adjustments before they become bigger problems.

It is also about taking pride in how we do things.

Not pride in being perfect, but pride in paying attention. Pride in doing something properly even when nobody is watching. Pride in making the safer decision rather than the easier one.

That applies to driving, but it also applies to life.

Today, I have set my intentions for growth and gratitude. When I look back this afternoon, I don’t need to have completed everything. I simply want to feel proud of what I actually completed and perhaps more importantly, proud of how I went about it.

As I sit with my thoughts, I feel a sense of renewal.

The world continues to move around me, but in this moment I am centred, aligned and prepared to navigate today’s little journey with a renewed sense of purpose.

The CORE IDEA

Progress doesn’t always come from doing more.

Sometimes it comes from stopping, reflecting, making a small adjustment and then moving forward with greater awareness.

That is true when learning to drive.

And it is probably true for most of life’s journeys as well.

24/08/2026

Confidence and Initiative — More Than Feeling Confident

Yesterday I wrote about Kat.

Kat has only a handful of driving hours, yet there is something about the way she approaches learning that stands out.

She has initiative.

She wants to learn. She wants to have a go. And she seems to see learning to drive as something she can actively participate in rather than something that is simply being done to her.

It made me think about how often this idea surfaces in my other driving lessons.

Some learners wait for me to tell them everything.

“Turn left here.”

“Change lanes now.”

“Slow down.”

“Check your mirror.”

They can become very good at following instructions, but following instructions isn’t the same as driving independently.

At some point, I have to start stepping away.

Instead of telling them to change lanes, I might ask:

“What do you think we need to do here?”

Eventually, I don’t even want to ask the question.

I want them to see it, think about it, make the decision and act.

That requires more than driving skill.

It requires confidence and initiative.

But there is an important difference between confidence and overconfidence.

Confidence isn’t I know what I’m doing.

Sometimes confidence is:

I’m not completely sure what to do, but I’m willing to think, make a decision and learn from what happens.

That’s the kind of confidence I want to develop.

Because one day the learner sitting beside me won’t have an instructor there.

There won’t be someone saying, “Slow down,” “Check your mirror,” or “What do you think you should do?”

They will have to notice.

They will have to decide.

They will have to act.

Kat reminded me that perhaps one of the most important things we can teach a learner isn’t simply how to drive.

It is how to begin taking ownership of their driving.

And sometimes, you can see the beginnings of that after only a handful of hours.

The Fundamental

Don’t just teach a learner what to do. Teach them to recognise when something needs to be done, make the decision, and take responsibility for doing it.

That is where confidence becomes initiative — and initiative begins to become independence.

23/08/2026

Five Lessons. Five Different Worlds.

My five lessons today seemed to be a reminder of what is wrong and right with the world.

Each learner showed me something different about confidence, mindset, responsibility, support and readiness.

Lesson 1: Kat — Confidence and initiative

Kat is a young lady with only a handful of hours logged, yet she sees learning as a means to an end. She carries the confidence of someone with far more experience.

I see Kat as a go-getter: the person who gets the group moving and shows what initiative can look like when it is backed by belief.

Lesson 2: Cat — Mindset and responsibility

Cat seemed beaten before she started today. Her mindset was somewhere else, and the distraction was clear before the lesson had properly begun.

There were reasons for how she was feeling, but those reasons also seemed to take the responsibility away from her.

Sometimes that is where learning has to start — recognising what we can control, what we can’t, and what responsibility we need to take for what happens next.

Lesson 3: Ella — Readiness and honesty

Ella’s mum said they just wanted to see if Ella was ready for the test.

With a look that would melt the polar ice field, Ella sat in her car waiting for me.

A few minutes later, I asked:

“What makes you think you are ready for the test?”

Ella answered:

“I don’t. That is Mum’s idea.”

And there it was.

An honest starting point.

From there, I could actually educate Ella and begin helping her get ready — rather than simply preparing her for a test somebody else thought she should be ready for.

Lesson 4: My Twist — Shared learning

My Twist had a test booked, and Mum had been spending time practising with him.

At the start of the lesson, Mum asked how to do a U-turn and described the argument she and her son had been having about who was right and who was wrong.

My Twist got the tick.

And Mum learned how to do a U-turn as well.

Sometimes the lesson is not only for the learner sitting in the driver’s seat.

Lesson 5: Thirty Hours — Ownership and environment

With 30 hours logged, this learner needed to start taking more responsibility for her own driving.

After the lesson, Mum was gardening in the front yard. I had not met her before, and as we parked, Mum seemed to duck down.

Not to be deterred, I walked over and started a conversation.

Mum explained that she doesn’t like driving and doesn’t feel confident in a car.

That conversation gave me another piece of the puzzle.

It didn’t explain everything about why, after a year of learning, Ms 30 Hours still felt all at sea behind the wheel. But it reminded me of something important.

Learners don’t develop in isolation.

The confidence, fears, habits and experiences of the people around them can all become part of their learning environment.

And that matters.

Five lessons. Five different worlds.

Today reminded me that I don’t really teach five driving lessons.

I teach five different people.

Each person arrives in the car with their own confidence, beliefs, family influences, experiences, expectations and mindset.

All of that comes with them when they sit in the driver’s seat.

The driving is sometimes the easy part.

Understanding the person sitting beside me is where the real teaching begins.

Across this week I will explore the different learnings and their In pack on each student.
:::

B SAFE Driving Lessons

02/09/2026

01/09/2026

01/09/2026

01/09/2026

31/08/2026

30/08/2026

30/08/2026

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23/08/2026

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