[Event] Launch of ComfortDelGro Driving Centre's First-of-its-kind Driver Development Tool

In an effort to help Singaporeans become safer drivers and riders, ComfortDelGro Driving Centre, one of the key players in the transport industry has developed a revolutionary visual-based management software, called the Driver Development Tool that can collect and analyse the driver's performance data via a series of cameras and advanced sensors.

I attended the 'Drive Safe with the Stars' media engagement event held at ComfortDelGro Driving Centre with my cousin and family and through this event, we had the opportunity to understand more about this Driver Development Tool.

As part of the Centre's Drive Safe Course, their training cars were all equipped with this Driver Development Tool and my cousin and I had the chance to ride in one of them.

Veteran artiste Ah Ge Li Nanxing, Constance Song, Julie Tan, Weile and Ruyi were part of the drivers team assigned to bring us on a 10 to 15 minutes ride. We were assigned to Ruyi's car when we arrived since the rest were already out on the road.

Interesting to find out that as professional media artistes, both Ah Ge Li Nanxing and Constance has picked up the bike-riding skills and enrolled with ComfortDelGro Driving Centre's Class 2B Riding Course in September last year. They had completed over 20 riding lessons and obtained their Class 2B Licence this year.

Attributing their success to ComfortDelGro Driving Centre, Nanxing said: "The Centre was able to customise the riding lessons to our hectic schedule and provided one-to-one training. My instructor was very experience and patient. I am glad that I will be able to ride a bike should future acting roles require it." Constance said: "I'm happy to have been able to obtain a riding licence! The whole experience has been nothing less than wonderful. Thanks to ComfortDelGro Driving Centre, I can now ride a motorcycle!" Currently enrolled in a Class 2B Course, Julie added: "It's not easy learning to ride a bike, but the ComfortDelGro Driving Centre instructor has been very patient with me."

In fact, all three artistes will also be taking up the ComfortDelGro Driving Centre's Drive Safe Course. Taking up the Drive Safe Course to Julie was nothing short of an epiphany. She had, just few weeks back, experienced a horrifying car crash in Italy. Although the car was totalled, and Julie had to be extracted out of the vehicle, she did not sustain any major injuries. It dawned upon her to not take road safety for granted and the Drive Safe Course serves to remind her so.

Back to the Driver Development Tool, this unique visual-based management software comes with a portable in-vehicle logging system, cameras and advanced sensors, all fitted in the training cars and working together to collect performance data during the training session. Vehicle handling, road cornering and traffic navigation skills of a driver are analysed, detailed in graphs and then profiled into retrievable data.

The entire training session is captured on video and drivers can playback this video immediately after each session to watch their mistakes and take steps to correct their mistakes. Some of the mistakes this software can detect includes sudden accelerating and braking, improper hand position on steering wheel, insufficient scanning of the environment, tailgating as well as failure to check blind spots or signal correctly. With this software in place, the driving instructor can provide constructive and meticulous feedback to the drivers or riders and manual assessment is greatly reduced.

Mr Lim Tien Hock, CEO of ComfortDelGro Driving Centre said: "ComfortDelGro Driving Centre builds its entire business model on safe and responsible driving. The idea behind the Drive Safe Course is to utilise our customised Driver Development Tool to help drivers assess their driving skills and improve the way they drive. Besides offering driving services, we also have Ride Safe Courses to help riders improve the handling of their machines in various road situations. We are very happy that Nanxing and Constance have obtained their Class 2B licences, and our instructors are committed to helping Julie obtain hers through our well-structured training pedagogy. We are also encouraged by the positive role models set by these media artistes in wanting to continue to hone their road craft skills. We hope their actions can inspire many other road users to do likewise."

After the presentation, we were honoured to be able to take a photo with Ah Ge Li Nanxing, this is the second time we took a photo together and he is still as humble as friendly! Thank you.

Overall, I think that this is a good course for qualified driver, it serves as a refresher course to have someone to remind drivers or riders about which area to improve on. Currently, they are having a promotional price package till 31st December 2019. The fee for the Drive Safe Course is $214 (inclusive of GST), and for the Ride Safe Course, which aims to facilitate continual learning and inculcate a safety mindset into motorcyclists, offers three levels with fees starting from $53.50 (inclusive of GST). Both the Drive Safe and Ride Safe Courses are open to the public to register and details of both courses can be found on www.cdc.com.sg.