Education Driving instructors learn from each other through the ‘Toeters en bellen’ podcast series Written on Monday, April 14, 2025 Tim van den Boomgaard is a driving instructor at the Netherlands Police Academy. He loves to drive and to teach. To share his teaching experiences with other driving instructors, he recently launched the podcast series ‘Toeters en bellen’ (Dutch police jargon for sirens and emergency lights). This new way of sharing knowledge is a hit. So far, ten podcasts have been produced and a further eight are planned. Tim started his career as a uniformed police officer in Arnhem-Noord. In 2018, he became a driving instructor at the Police Academy. He turned his passion into his profession: ‘I used to participate in racing competitions’, he says enthusiastically. ‘There, I coached many people, so when I wanted to advance in my police career, I looked for a position in which I could combine driving and policing. I succeeded and I can’t image a better job than being a police driving instructor.’ Recording experiences ‘When I joined the driving instruction team, the team consisted of many highly experienced colleagues who had been doing this job for around thirty years. In recent years, most of them retired. I had the opportunity to learn from them, which helped me a great deal. For this reason, I now want to record what I learnt, as I think it’s important to share this knowledge in an easily accessible way.’ ‘Teaching is typically something you learn through experience. As I am an enthusiastic podcast listener, I chose this format. In this podcast series, I hope to record the experiences of driving instructors, so they can be shared with other instructors. The objective is to raise their overall teaching quality, and I hope that it helps new instructors become adept at teaching more quickly. Because once you know the basics, the only persons who can still teach you about your profession, are your colleagues.’ ‘For we do not get our instructors from within the educational field, they come from police practice. So, these police officers need to evolve into teachers. Most didactic principles are quite abstract until you hear people speak about them. That is the only way to get to understand them. I try to zoom in on different aspects of teaching by exchanging experiences. In every episode, we discuss a different theme related to teaching.’ ‘The basics, life as a teacher, experiences and tips & tricks’ ‘I divided the themes into four categories: the basics, life as a teacher, experiences, and tips & tricks. In the basics, I want to address all elements that make up being a teacher, so how do you explain things or how do you best coach people. In life as a teacher, the discussion is more in-depth, for example: how can instructors best support each other? The category experiences includes things that driving instructors went through and that may be helpful to know for others.’ ‘And finally, there are the tips & tricks podcasts. These short episodes each include one tip or trick from one instructor, for instance a piece of instruction or advice to students that they can use to turn something difficult into something that is easier to understand.’ The natural habitat of driving instructors The podcasts are not just fun to listen to, but can be watched as well. ‘For now, every podcast is also recorded to be watched. In every episode, we interview a different instructor in their natural habitat, i.e. the passenger seat. The car that I drive has been converted into a mobile studio, so the conversations can take place in our instructors’ classroom. As they are in their natural habitat, they feel more comfortable sharing their stories. The instructors decide on the route we take, and you can see how they observe my driving. Sometimes, I intentionally do something naughty, just to keep them on their toes.’ ‘What is the most difficult aspect of being a driving instructor? You need to anticipate potentially dangerous situations before your students have seen them. As a driving instructor you have a sort of ‘overcapacity’. You are used to driving at an advanced level, where you see everything before anyone else who isn’t trained in this skill does. As a teacher you teach students to be very observant. When you’re driving 90 kilometres per hour in places where the speed limit is 50, you need to plan ahead for potential dangers much earlier. You teach this by having the student focus on the essentials of traffic; focusing on what is important in what you see.’ The language of the road ‘First, you pay attention to certain road signs and situations that you recognise to mean potential danger. This helps you distinguish between important and less important things. Seeing a cow in a field is nice, but not relevant to your driving. The road sign a little further down the road, however, is important as it tells you there is a minor road crossing the main road. This signals someone potentially driving on the minor road who may not anticipate the speed at which you are approaching. We call this ‘recognising the language of the road’ and this is what we teach students.’ At the moment, the podcasts are only available to driving instructors at the Police Academy, as they are Tim’s intended audience. In the future, Tim would also like to record podcasts for students. ‘In the summer we will evaluate the project and decide if we want to continue it and in what form. Currently, the podcasts are for internal use only, but this may change in the future.’ Help and support ‘I had great help and support from Monique Uelderink who is one of our educationalists, and from podcast maker Marc Pollen, who created the Scherpschutters podcast. He helped me get started and taught me the do’s and don’ts, which was very helpful.’ ‘So far, I have only received positive feedback’, Tim says. ‘The other driving instructors see it as recognition of their work and are interested in hearing how their colleagues approach things and what challenges they face. Bianca Dijkstra, Tim’s Team Lead, believes the podcast offers an informal way of knowledge sharing: ‘You may listen to it when walking the dog, for example. In this way, you can continue to work on your professional skills, almost without realising it. The podcasts bring the listeners inspirational content in an easily accessible way, interspersed with some humour.’