The HERMES and Module Close-To projects come to an end. CIECA would like to inform about some recent developments with regards to these projects in which it was involved.
The HERMES project
The HERMES project (High impact approach for Enhancing Road safety through More Effective communication Skills), promoting coaching principles in driver training, was finalised at the End of February 2010. The HERMES project, for which CIECA was in charge of the project secretariat, developed a broad variety of different manuals for the coach who provides coaching training to the driving instructors as well as for the driving instructors themselves. In addition the training package contains a series of more than 60 coaching scenarios, illustrating practical hands-on examples of how to employ coaching techniques in driver training as well as the HERMES film. All material is available in German and English. The documentation is available for download here as well as directly on the Website of the European Commission http://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/pdf/projects/hermes.pdf
Module Close to
The Module Close to project will finish by the End of March 2010. It focuses as well on more effective learning through the peer-education method in which "equals relate to equals". In this project young traffic offenders visit driving schools to tell about their experiences and thereby help to prevent the learner drivers from getting in the same situation. The demonstration phase took place from 2004 to 2006, the implementation of the method between 2007 and 2010. Currently the project partners in 11 countries are carrying out national conferences informing about the project results. The national conference for Austria took place in Graz on 11 March 2010 and assembled 120 participants from Ministries, driving schools, courts and other associations. The Austrian region of Styria first implemented the Module Close to project. In the meantime 4,500 learner drivers were reached in Austria, 13,000 in Europe in total. In Austria the project was implemented in 5 federal countries so far and there are plans to integrate the project method into the education programme of Austria’s largest apprentice facility as well with videos into the basic military service. The final report is expected shortly, the evaluation of the project as well as further information can be found at www.close-to.net.
For more information concerning HERMES or Module Close to, please contact Ms. Agnes Reikl via agnes.reikl@cieca.be