A former high school teacher, Malica knows how young people learn and designed the programme to optimise the technology to help them learn.
“What we’ve done is we’ve put some of the key driving tasks into VR and it helps a new driver or any driver learn best practice driving, what the best practice expectations are in all the different aspects of driving: following distance, speed management, gap selection,” Ashley said.
“It just gets them used to that whole process and that standard that they need, to be safe drivers on our roads, and also the best practice insights that they need for driver testing.”
The company has been running classes in Auckland over the past three years and helped many people from different backgrounds get their driver’s licence.
When students enter into MINTEDVR’s programme by putting on a pair of Meta Quest mixed reality headsets, they enter into a virtual city.
“There’s about 12 different scenarios that test their driving skills at stop signs, roundabouts, give way [signs], reverse parallel parking, changing lanes, merging – and because we can do so safely, we even teach them how to overtake,” Ashley said.
“The beauty of VR is that it gives you this safe environment to make mistakes. Yes, you can crash. Yes, you will crash. But you’re not going to do any damage to any property, you’re not going to harm anybody, and you can learn from your mistakes in this risk-free environment and simply start again and try to learn from your mistakes.”
A 10-session programme with MINTEDVR costs $150 and includes a free app which Ashley said gives students the driving knowledge they need for their journey from learner right through to full licence.
Ashley said compared to the cost of one driving lesson, which he said was typically about $85, the 10-session course was far cheaper.
Hawke’s Bay driving school DriveIQ does offer single lessons in an automatic car for $85, however, it does offer discounted rates for multiple lesson packs.
MINTEDVR’s programme is also offered in 10 languages, including te reo Māori.
“We are trying to make it very accessible to people, so it’s very low cost,” Ashley said.
“Our ultimate aim is that we would like every [teenager] to finish high school with a driver’s licence and this technology can enable them to do that.”
But head of AA driver training Kirsty Vincent said although VR driver training is a tool that could be a useful add-on to real-world driving practice – it is no substitute.
“It could help give learners more exposure to a range of driving situations and environments that they may not be able to experience where they live,” she said.
“However, to become a good driver, learners need to spend a lot of hours driving in real cars in the real world.
“Athletes can use visualisation techniques as part of their training to imagine certain scenarios, but they still put in hours of practice in real life. That is the most important part.”
Vincent said because driving in NZ is unpredictable thanks to other road users, weather and traffic, its important learners have first-hand experience handling these situations “in the real world” to develop skills and ability to drive safely.
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in the UK, Germany, and New Zealand.
