The new Road Safety Strategy has landed. The reaction has been loud, emotional, and often misdirected.

In this episode, Terry Cook doesn’t break down policy line by line or defend government decisions. Instead, he slows the conversation down and explores what this moment really represents for driving instructors.

This strategy isn’t just a set of proposals. It’s a cultural signal, a shift in how learning to drive, risk, responsibility, and readiness are being discussed publicly and politically for the first time in over a decade.

Terry examines why the UK hasn’t gone backwards on road safety, but has stood still while others improved. He challenges the idea that teaching to pass a test is enough, explores why defensiveness from instructors is understandable but limiting, and explains why this moment gives instructors permission to step into a clearer, more confident role.

Listeners don’t have to agree with everything in the strategy. But they do need to decide how they respond to it.

This episode is about opportunity, leadership, and choosing where to stand as the conversation around road safety moves forward.

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Terry Cook is joined by Chris Bensted, Tom Stenson, and Stewart Lochrie to look back on 2025.

Together they unpack the wins, the failures, and the frustrating feeling that change in the industry is happening… just not always where or how people want it.

Topics include failure to change, CPD beyond “ticking boxes”, Part 3 heartbreaks, collaboration across the industry, the rise (and misuse) of AI, neurodiversity, road safety, events, and why many instructors still stop developing the moment they qualify.

There’s reflection on what’s shifted in 2025, what’s improved, and why 2026 might finally be the year when things start to click.

Check out:

1. The DITC
2. Bright Coaching
3. Drive-Up

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If you're a driving instructor who wants to teach better, earn more, and stand out from the crowd, the Premium membership is where it happens. With exclusive content you won’t find anywhere else, from expert sessions to confidence coaching, business building, and beyond, this is the stuff no one else is giving you.

👉 Start your free 7-day trial now: Sign up here

Get the Workbook for selected Episode

When you join the email list, you’ll get a custom workbook to help you reflect, take action, and apply each episode’s message to your real-world lessons. Plus, weekly tips that actually make a difference.

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📲 Stay Connected via WhatsApp

Quick insight, links to key industry documents, and a prize giveaway on Mondays.

Join the channel: whatsapp-link.com

The Instructor Podcast uses a variety of social media channels, including a Facebook group. You can join the group or follow us on the following platforms:

1. Facebook
2. LinkedIn
3. Instagram
4. YouTube

In the fourth and final instalment of In Conversation with Lee Jowett, Terry and Lee focus squarely on the DVSA, and a proposal that has sparked debate, frustration, and deep concern across parts of the industry.

At the heart of this session is a simple but uncomfortable question:

How can we assess driving instructors against standards that the assessment itself makes impossible to demonstrate?

Lee explains in detail why KIT’s proposal calls for a return to full one-hour Standards Checks and Part 3s, not for convenience, but because the current format fundamentally undermines the very National Standards it claims to be based on.

This conversation explores:

1. How shortened assessments inevitably prioritise “car moving” over reflection, awareness, and coaching
2. The mismatch between DVSA guidance and DVSA assessment
3. Why testing always shapes training, whether we like it or not
4. How instructors are being trained away from the behaviours that actually reduce serious collisions

Lee is clear: this is not about him, KIT, or ownership of an idea. It’s about aligning assessment with evidence, guidance, and decades of research into what actually creates safer drivers.

There’s also a direct call to action, not blind agreement, but engagement:

1. Read and understand the proposal
2. Share it if you believe in it
3. Raise questions with organisations, associations, and MPs
4. Or, at the very least, push something that moves the industry forward

Check out KIT here.

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If you're a driving instructor who wants to teach better, earn more, and stand out from the crowd, the Premium membership is where it happens. With exclusive content you won’t find anywhere else, from expert sessions to confidence coaching, business building, and beyond, this is the stuff no one else is giving you.

👉 Start your free 7-day trial now: Sign up here

Get the Workbook for selected Episode

When you join the email list, you’ll get a custom workbook to help you reflect, take action, and apply each episode’s message to your real-world lessons. Plus, weekly tips that actually make a difference.

Sign up for The Instructor email

📲 Stay Connected via WhatsApp

Quick insight, links to key industry documents, and a prize giveaway on Mondays.

Join the channel: whatsapp-link.com

The Instructor Podcast uses a variety of social media channels, including a Facebook group. You can join the group or follow us on the following platforms: