Safe Speed Forums

As a follow-up to the the thread re "RoadCraft's page 11" - thought I would dig out my old training notes and share them with you.... shall be placing one or two of these as threads in own right for discussion and perhaps they may make people think about their driving and their attitudes.


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From my notes on Day One as young BiB starting out at Hendon......

"You must develop a burning ambition to constantly assess your driving abilities, values, beliefs, and ego - provided you can accept all the advice given and be prepared for constructive criticism.

You must develop this - being totally content and comfortable with your driving skills might otherwise stop you from improving. This is what usually stops average drivers from taking the next step towards advanced training.

Having an over inflated view of yourself or an unrealistic opinion of your actual driving skills will also stop you from proressing - irrespective of where you are on the stepladder of driving ability.

Becoming a Class One Police Driver requires commitment and ambition. You are aiming at an in car ambience of safety, smoothness, and calmness.

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Guys - how do we get this across to the young drivers in particular? I was about 24 at the time.....

What a great idea! I look forward t every morsel.



"Burning ambition" is too much to ask of the average joe. It was probably too much to ask of 25% of the course attendees too - they would have been among the drop-outs of course.

What we have to try and do, I think, is find a range of motivators / incentives that score hits with different groups of the population. When you sell a product to a wide range of people they have different reasons for buying. Some buy because it's convenient or expedient. Some buy because of price. Some buy because of features. And so on.

We need to create a package of "benefits" that pulls in as many people as possible. We mustn't aim too high - pitching the benefits of a Ferrari isn't much help for someone who can only afford a Focus.

Every step on the skills ladder should reveal further steps and hopefully further benefits.

Very general points, I know, but we have to set realistic objectives!

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Aye ... the "burning ambition" will not apply to our average Joes ... but the notes are up for discussion and then we need to work on strategy to make this palatable and within reach of our average drivers. We do try to point them in this direction when we pull them up in our patch.

Not got enough data yet to know for sure if this is working - but our KSI rates are keeping static...on early comparisons....

I took my bike test having passed my car test more than 15 years before. I was amazed how much of the "theory" had changed. It was a great refresher. A bit scary realy since there are probably drivers out there that took there test in a Ford Anglia. I wonder how much they strive to improve their skills.

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Speed camera policy Kills

I take my car to the track or the skid pan at least 6 times a year and can honestly say that every time I have either improved or realised that I had slipped from the last time and bring myself back up to the previous level.

I use the skid pan to take the car well beyond its limits of adhesion deliberately so that I know what to expect if it happens unexpectedly on the road. I use the race track to see if I can improve my lap times by becoming smoother and seeing how close I can get to the limits of adhesion without crossing them.

IMO there is no such thing as too much training, you are never too old to take a refresher and you can always learn something new.

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Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!

I have one aim in my driving, 1,000s of miles a year mainly in trucks, and that is to stay alive to see my kids grow up.
At the very least, I feel I must maintain my presents skills and knowledge, but to stay alive on the road, you must accept that every mile you drive is a learning experience, and learn from that experience, if you do not, then you will end up in the mucky stuff, variable depth depending on the situation.
Just manouvring around a delivery yard can teach you every time, and every reverse onto an unloading bay is different.
The other day I delivered to a place in Brum, it took me 10 minutes and about 4 tries to reverse around a particularly tight and evil corner, yet other times, I did it in one.
I will always accept guidance from other Truck drivers, and will offer if one appears to be having difficulty.
The driver who says he/she knows it all, is just waiting to have a fender bender.

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Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

These posts are fantastic In Gear, they really show the mental attitude required for sustained quality driving.
They take me back to my course, best 5 weeks I've done, and perhaps one of the few courses we do which really pay dividends outside the job.

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Fixed ideas are like cramp, for instance in the foot, yet the best remedy is to step on them.

Ian

can non BIB do these courses? I'd love to be able to drive like the road rozzers do.

Not normally, although they have been known to take on journalists and the like. They regularly take royal chauffeurs and their like.

The closest civilian standard is HPC. In some ways, HPC is better because they don't have to allow for such a wide range of applicants. Some police driving techniques are compromised to allow for the breadth of ability of the intake, and some by the time taken to learn. (I haven't done HPC myself.)

Some of the police training (TPAC especially) simply isn't applicable outside of Police work.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Takes a lot of hard work ... but crtainly AIM, RoSPa, HPC (all of which completed by the Mad Lad and most of those daft relatives of ours) run close to it and provide the sort of stuff you really need to know.

But like anything else... it takes a lot of hard work, patience and practice .... and I am sure Ian, Lawman, The Man and Hanbo will all agree .. you continue to learn long after you passed the driving test, police driving tests, IAMs etc....

These courses just provide the know-how for you to build on.


I shall be looking at Observation ..as taught by Plod after Xmas...

Glad you all liked the first batch....

Try to work on this as you drive .... especially at this time of year when Xmas thinking over presents and shopping get in the way of driving ... with very nasty results....


Guess Ian has been tied up with the fracas on the A74 and the lorries..... we had a load of aggro onour patch too.... bad weather, bad driving, bad riding, and we have had to really spoil someone's Christmas with bad news ..... cyclist, car and and a motorbike ... poor weather and drink....

Adam, i tell ya, the Met courses are just unbelievable! We actually get paid to do those courses! At the time they are very stressful, no one wants to go back to Division having failed a driving course. The things they teach you though! My driving has improved 110% since being shown how to really drive a car.

Track days and the like are all well and good, but do nothing to improve on-road safety. All those do is teach you to handle a car on the limits, and it bears no relevance to driving on public roads inhabited by other drivers...

I consider driving on public roads to be an artform, seriously, and you can never know too much or be too confident. On my particular ground i aim to know every braking point, bend or dip in the road, to allow me to negotiate hazards more safely....

Yep. I agree. An artform.

This closes the loop with the thread subject for me - my main motivator is the desire to give a perfect performance.

[I'm not so sure where the desire to give a perfect performance comes from, however ]

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

It's quite hard to criticise your own driving if you think what you are doing is right, I might admit to being a typical young male-knows it all but knows nothing else type but it stems from being left alone to hone a particular style of driving. If someone was to criticise my driving I would think that they do not agree with my style of driving but that it is not necessarily wrong. I know if I was to go with an advanced instructor I would screw it right up because I know they are looking for weak points so that is what puts me off going for IAM. I do feel that the style of driving I am used to is probably best left alone because if someone insisted that I change then I might just increase my chances of making a mistake

Andrew

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It's a scam........or possibly a scamola


Homer Simpson

Andy,

your post screams out that you NEED more training. I felt I was driving really well until I did my first driving course and discovered I was hopelessly wrong!

Any decent driving course will REDUCE your chances of making a mistake so suck up your pride and DO the course!

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Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!

I agree with the basic advice to "get training", but there really is some justification in Andy's concerns. We do have training organisations in the UK that impose "style" to an excessive extent.

Andy, try to find trainers that aren't too style obsessed - don't be afraid to ask, and if they indicate that they think you're asking the wrong questions, move on to the next. I'm 100% confident that you will be asking valid questions, and a negative response would be a useful warning for you.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Andy - don't get too hung up over style. No law which say pull-push is better than rotational steer.

Use a variety and if you feel more comfortable with one style - no reason to change. You would not fail IAM over this - they are looking for safety, smoothness. increased observation/anticipation skills - etc in the drive.

Aim for a relaxed concentration - driving should be a pleasure.

Sorry if my post was a little harsh but I really believe that all driving courses are of value provided you take away what you think is appropriate for you.

In my first course I was taught the push-pull method and took to it fairly well after some practice. Much later I attended a BMW advanced driving course and was taught rotational steering. At first I found this very difficult as I was so used to the push-pull method but I persevered because that was what they wanted. Their view was that push-pull was more appropriate for older cars particularly if they did not have power steering.

The end result is that I now use a combination of BOTH styles, using the style I feel is appropriate for the conditions... sounds like another topic (speed) here.

I do not advocate either style but the benefit gained from learning both is that I feel more comfortable in every situation because I have a choice of styles rather than only the one.

As I said at the beginning, take away what you feel is appropriate from whatever course you attend and if it doesn't feel right for you then don't do it.

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Ross

Yes I'm a hoon, but only on the track!!!!

Hi Paul

Sorry I've not been in touch for a bit, but I have started the ROSPA training course which seems heavily based around the Police method. It's going well and the main thing is I'm enjoying it. I've managed to get my hands on a few extra Police training videos to add to my collection!

Getting back to the basis of your website, the bottom line is the relationship between speed and safety remains unchanged. The appropriate speed is the only speed. What takes away much of the pleasure of driving for me is holding back on your speed to drive within the law, when the real desire is to drive safely albeit much faster. In terms of the Police, I still think double standards are evident and credibility is lacking.

Robert

I note the phrase of the bottom of 'In Gear's post.

Constructive Criticism.

I believe that the first word of this is what is missing from much driver education (and elsewhere in life these days).

People are increasingly saying " That's cr4p". Problem is they say it without saying how to improve matters, of often just because they don't like something.
We should more often say (for example) "You could do that better by using this technique rather than that one, and this is how to use this technique".

To return to In Gears’ original question “What motivates you to improve?”

1. Desire to arrive where I am going in one piece.
2. Not to injure anyone else.
3. Not to damage my car or anyone else’s.
4. Not to be reported for any motoring offences. A clean licence for 30 plus years is a powerful incentive.

The question should perhaps be how could you improve?

Experience and hindsight are wonderful teachers learn from them.
Read widely, a lot can be learnt from books eg Roadcraft and Paul Ripley’s Expert Driving and web sites such as Safe Speed.

Some years ago the local Council where I was living at the time put on a series of classes once a week over three or four weeks taken by a police driving instructor. I certainly learned a lot and the cost was only a nominal one of about £10 and well worth it.

Personally I am very critical of the so-called safety partnerships who could and should play a much greater role in continuing driver education. A role once undertaken by local Council Road Safety Units. Signs adding to the existing clutter of street furniture telling me how many casualties there have been on a particular road teach me nothing. Why do they not offer advanced driving courses, driving assessments, serious education for all who want it. Compulsion under Court Orders for those who commit offences. Not sound bits and strap lines and PR spin. I cannot understand how taking money off of people teaches them anything except hatred and contempt for the system and all who serve in it.

Perhaps the way forward might be some serious lobbying for them to take on this role thereby depriving these money mad bureaucratic of the moral high ground they seek. No one in favour of road safety can be against more competent drivers can they?