Making Sense of the Goals for Driver Education · Part 2 of 14 · From GADGET to HERMES and RUE
Every framework has a history, and knowing it helps. It lets you explain the matrix to a learner or a colleague with confidence, and it lets you judge it properly: what it was designed to do, what it was not, and how much weight it can bear. This article traces the GDE matrix from its roots to the two reports this series leans on.
Before the matrix: a hierarchy of driving
In 1985 the Dutch psychologist John Michon described driving as a task that happens on three levels at the same time. At the strategic level the driver makes decisions about the trip: where, when and by which route. At the tactical level they deal with the traffic around them: overtaking, gap choice, speed. At the operational level they control the car: steering, braking, changing gear.
Michon’s model was about how driving works, not how it should be taught. But it planted an important idea: the decisions made higher up set the conditions for everything underneath. A driver who sets off late has already changed how they will behave at the next junction.
In the 1990s Esko Keskinen and colleagues in Finland built on this. They were trying to explain why young drivers crash so much more than older ones, and they kept finding that skill alone did not explain it. Young drivers often had quick reactions and good car control. What differed was their motives, their lifestyle and the choices they made about when and how to drive. So they added a level above the others: goals for life and skills for living.
GADGET (1998 to 1999)
The matrix took its recognisable shape within GADGET, a European Commission project whose full title was Guarding Automobile Drivers through Guidance Education and Technology. Coordinated from Austria, it looked at how five kinds of road safety measure influence driver behaviour: education, campaigns, enforcement, in-car technology and the road environment.
The driver education strand of GADGET produced the four-level, three-column grid. It was then set out for a wider audience by Hatakka, Keskinen, Gregersen, Glad and Hernetkoski in 2002. The title of that paper says a great deal about the idea behind it: “From control of the vehicle to personal self-control”.
The self-evaluation column
The part of the matrix that made people sit up was not the extra level. It was the third column. The researchers argued that at every level, a safe driver needs an accurate picture of their own ability, and that training which builds skill without building self-awareness can backfire.
The example often given comes from Scandinavia. Studies in the 1980s and 1990s found that skid training aimed purely at car control could leave some young drivers more confident than competent, and in some cases was linked to more crashes on slippery roads, not fewer. More skill had produced more risk, because the drivers’ judgement of that skill ran ahead of reality. That finding sits right at the heart of the matrix.
MERIT (2005): what instructors need to learn
If the matrix describes what learners need, the next question is obvious: are instructors equipped to deliver it? The EU MERIT project looked at minimum requirements for driving instructor training across Europe and used the GDE levels to structure its thinking. Its conclusion was that instructors need to be able to work at all four levels, not just the two that are easiest to teach and test.
HERMES (2007 to 2010): how to reach the higher levels
HERMES took the next step. Coordinated from Austria and involving ten countries including the UK, it asked how instructors could actually reach Levels 3 and 4 and the self-evaluation column in a real lesson. Its answer was coaching. It drew on the coaching tradition associated with Sir John Whitmore, whose GROW model many ADIs already use, and it produced a four-day coaching course for driving instructors, a set of coaching scenarios and a training film.
Its executive summary is blunt about the direction of travel: less reliance on short-term instructional methods which tend to help learners pass the test, and more focus on active learning that prepares learners for solo driving and keeps them learning after it.
CIECA RUE (2015): consolidating the consensus
The Road User Education project, run by CIECA with members from fourteen countries, brought all of this together. It aimed to agree what driver education should cover and how. It placed the GDE matrix at the link between education and responsible behaviour, described the client-centred approach as an important bridging function, and framed driver education as lifelong learning rather than something that ends at the test.
As I said in Part 1, RUE describes itself as an expert consultation rather than a scientific research project. That is a strength and a limit. It tells you what experienced people across Europe agree on. It does not prove that any particular method reduces crashes.
Where the UK fits
The UK has never built its test around the matrix, and you will not find the words “GDE matrix” in the DVSA’s assessment documents. But the direction of travel is the same. Since the Standards Check was introduced in 2014, ADIs have been assessed on how well they involve the pupil in their own learning, and the National Standard for Driver and Rider Training puts client-centred learning at its centre. In practice, a UK instructor working to those standards is already reaching towards the higher levels.
On your next lesson
Three small things to try this week.
- Explain it in one sentence. Try telling a learner: “Good driving isn’t just about controlling the car; it’s about the choices you make before and during every journey.” Watch how they respond.
- Ask what makes a good driver. Ask a learner the question and listen for which levels they mention. Most talk about Levels 1 and 2. Few mention themselves.
- Notice one telling moment. After a lesson, pick one moment where you told the learner something they could have worked out. How might you have coached it instead?
Go deeper
In the book: Coaching for Driver Development, Chapter 4 (Coaching vs Teaching vs Mentoring) and Chapter 5 (Why Coaching Works in Driver Training).
Live session: Module 2, Coaching vs Teaching: When and How. The session opens with a new slide on what the European research says, setting HERMES and RUE side by side, and then works through when to teach, when to coach and why coaching works.
I deliver the five Coaching for Driver Development modules live on Zoom, one module a week. You can book any module on its own or join the complete series. Contact me at grahamhooperadi@hotmail.com or visit grahamhooper.blog.
Previous: Part 1: The Gap Between a Pass and Safe Driving
Tomorrow: Part 3: Reading the Matrix
Read the full series
Sources
- Michon, J.A. (1985). A critical view of driver behavior models: what do we know, what should we do? In Evans, L. and Schwing, R.C. (eds), Human Behavior and Traffic Safety. New York: Plenum.
- Siegrist, S. (ed.) (1999). Driver training, testing and licensing: towards theory-based management of young drivers’ injury risk in road traffic. Results of EU project GADGET, Work Package 3. bfu-Report 40. Bern: bfu.
- Hatakka, M., Keskinen, E., Gregersen, N.P., Glad, A. and Hernetkoski, K. (2002). From control of the vehicle to personal self-control: broadening the perspectives to driver education. Transportation Research Part F, 5(3), 201–215.
- EU MERIT Project (2005). Minimum European Requirements for driving Instructor Training. Working papers and final report.
- EU HERMES Project (2010). High impact approach for Enhancing Road safety through More Effective communication Skills. Final report and executive summary.
- CIECA (2015). CIECA-RUE Road User Education Project: Final Report.
- Hooper, G.J. (2025). Coaching for Driver Development: A Complete Framework for the ADI Coach. GJH Consultancy.
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