My Driver Training Background

Julian Smith, managing director of Ride Drive limited, talks candidly about his driver training course, within the police service as well as outside. Julian became one of the highest graded class–one advanced police drivers in his force and has now devoted his life outside the police service using his advanced driving knowledge and experience to benefit the public road driver.

I completed my first driving course with the police service, back in 1978, as a pre–requirement to gain authorisation to drive general purpose vehicles. These cars were otherwise referred to as panda cars, and in my day that meant a MkI or MkII 1100cc Ford Escort .

Although not referred to as an advanced driving course as such, this training nonetheless was set at a much higher grade to that of the DSA driving test. It was a three week course, working with two other students to one instructor, driving MkIII and MkIV 1600 Ford Cortina’s.

The System of Car Control

From that point forward my perception and style of driving became changed forever as I developed in the use of a driving system referred to as The System of Car Control. This I not only had to be able to demonstrate on the road in practical terms, but learn off by heart in theory from a book called Roadcraft.

I still have my copy of the Roadcraft manual I used back then, published in 1977, with its various sections underlined in red biro. The pen marks indicated all that I had to learn parrot–fashion in order to pass the theory exam at the end of the course. These written tests were not easy and there was a Highway Code exam too, set against the clock and with a pass mark of 95%.

With the exception of the chapter concerning cornering, which had actually been written totally upon duff information back then, that old version of Roadcraft was and is in my opinion certainly the best of any edition. It was concise, punchy and certainly wasn’t the pink and fluffy watered down thing you can buy today.

Inspired by a Truly Gift Driving Instructor

My instructor for the course was a guy called Ken Whiteman, a long serving police officer who had worked for a great many years on what was then called the traffic division, before becoming a trainer on the police driving school. He used to romanticise about the days of patrolling in MkII Jags and Lotus Cortina’s.

I think it fair to say that Ken totally inspired me by his own ability as an advanced driver. This was a man who was so obviously naturally gifted, had a tremendous affinity with a car and who made driving an absolute art form.

Ken was not about raw speed, he was about making progress with serene smoothness and to the point almost as if the car he was driving, and he as a man, had become merged into one. Mind you, he could make a car shift along alright, but even so, no matter what the speed or the type of road, he was always cool, calm and so deliberate in every mannerism.

I learned the Most Powerful Attribute
of Being a Top–Class Driver was That of Attitude

Ken taught me a lot about driver attitude too. I will always remember, from his opening brief on day–one of the course, him saying,

"No matter how good you think you are, or hope you will be, you will never impress me with speed."

He was very hot on third–party perception too, making sure that all of us knew that come the day we were let loose in a marked police vehicle, the eyes of everyone would be upon us, ready to find fault. Therefore, our road manners had to be impeccable at all times.

To me, Ken was at a level where I wanted to get to and even in that early stage in my development as a police driver I could recognise that his skilled ability was something special. Certainly, as I continued in my police career and subsequent driver training, it proved to be that Ken was one of the very best of the best.

Climbing the Advanced Driving Skills Ladder

I completed several police advanced driving courses at increasing levels as I eventually worked my own way to a place on the traffic division. Several weeks worth of hours throughout more and more intense driver training were completed, all of which required sheer hard work.

There was no pink and fluffy political correctness in those days. If you were driving like an idiot you would be told as much; as blunt as you can imagine. There would be a ruler across the back of the hand if it was left holding the gear lever for too long, or for poor hand position on the wheel. Shame that has been made to stop in some ways.

Becoming a Class–One Police Advanced Driver

My driver training route included the acquisition of my class–one advanced driver status, the ultimate goal of any traffic patrol officer in those days. This was in 1983 and I achieved this at what was then called as a Home Office approved police driving school, based at the Essex police headquarters at Chelmsford.

The training centre took officers from various police forces all over the South East (except the Metropolitan Police) and on my course intake I was the only one from my police force, Thames Valley. It was therefore even more important that I achieved the position of top student, which I did. This just had to be done, especially under those circumstances.

Then came the refresher advanced driving courses, which lasted a fortnight and which I also relished completely. I would have happily spent every week of every year as a police driver trainee as I loved this activity for the opportunities it provided to learn more and therefore become even better.

Learning to Drive Offensively was a Complete Culture Shock

One of the police driving courses I found quite a culture shock was the pursuit management training. I was working on the traffic division when the concept of offensive driving came in, as opposed to the defensive driving style I had always been used to.

This was the era that spawned the term, Joy Riding, which described the process of stealing a car, using it to do a driving display in front of crowds of onlookers and then getting chased by the police; or dumping the car before setting fire to it. Joy Riding reached epidemic levels in the 1990’s and innocent people were getting hurt.

One of the underlying aspects of all the advanced driving courses I had completed to this point was about looking after the car. Yes, it was about making fast progress, but always silky–smooth, and always managing road space so as to allow others enough room to make their mistakes. The pursuit management course turned a lot of that completely on its head.

Learning to Use the Car as a Weapon

This driver training was about using the car almost as a weapon in what could sometimes become a combat situation. A new term of Hard Stop came into the police vocabulary, which described the action of deliberately making contact with the subject vehicle so as to disable it, forcing the driver to a halt.

In the days before this concept, in a pursuit situation one would be expected to follow a suspect until the subject car either ran out of fuel, the driver gave up, or crashed. However, villains were now getting nasty, sometimes seeking out police vehicles on patrol to deliberately ram them with stolen cars.

Whilst it made perfect sense to change this to a policy of trying to bring a pursuit situation to a stop as early as possible, for the interest of safety, to deliberately make your car come into contact with another went completely against everything I had been taught up to that point.

I learned a practiced T–Pack, J–turns evasive driving and ramming techniques. Some of this stuff was physically and mechanically harmful to the car, and being always a driver who was very sympathetic to the workings of the machine, I found I had to grit my teeth against what I was sometimes doing to the car.

The HGV Class–One Driving Course

Another police driving course I got a huge amount of enjoyment from was the HGV Class–One, or Large Goods Vehicles Class–One (LGV Class–One), as these vehicles are now referred to. I was one of two students who spent two–weeks of driver training with a police instructor in a Leyland DAF 95 articulated truck. It was just great!

I got the truck course by pure luck, as the officer whose place I took had, at the last minute, gone sick and I just so happened to be in the traffic office when the patrol inspector came looking for someone to fill the gap in a hurry. I wasn’t even in a role where I needed this qualification, but I wasn’t going to turn it down, that’s for sure!

Continually Working at Being a Better Driver

I think I was very fortunate in driving terms to have always worked with crewmates who were themselves enthusiastic drivers. By that I don’t mean that wanted to drive fast everywhere, but people who were keen to always deliver to a high standard.

With two of my crewmates in particular there was never a day without critical banter directed at each other’s performance at the wheel and this was great from a personal development point of vew.

I have always worked hard at trying to drive well, even in my own car. Every journey was and is an opportunity to do something that little bit better, that bit smoother or more controlled. I have always believed that no matter how many miles you drive, no matter how long the experience or how much the training taken, there will always be room for improvement and more to learn.

Training to Become a 4x4 Off–Road Driving Instructor

Outside the police service, and privately funded by myself, I completed a 4x4 off–road driving and instructor’s course with a fantastically talented guy called Ronnie Dale. This was at the Ronnie Dale 4x4 Driving School at Berwickshire in Scotland and a truly great course. Again it was one that I know I could never get tired of, no matter how long it lasted.

Ronnie is a farmer by trade, a complete petrol–head and an ex–Camel Trophy candidate. What he didn’t know about driving Land Rovers and similar vehicles over rough terrain really wasn’t worth knowing.

I learned stuff with Ronnie that even the most seasoned off–road drivers and trainers today are not aware of. Like Ken Whitemen, who was my first police instructor, Ronnie Dale I found was another man for whom the vehicle he drove became an extension of his own body.

The purpose of completing the course was that of providing 4x4 off–road driving courses under the name of Ride Drive. The company did provide off–road 4x4 vehicle driver training between 1999 and 2003. We had an ex-police Land Rover Discovery 300 TDi, bid for and bought at auction.

Sadly, we had to give up running the 4x4 driving courses as a Ride Drive option, due to the increased volume in the mainstream work of road driver training. Not enough hours in the week it seemed.

Mine Were The Honeymoon Years of Police Driver Training

I think I definitely enjoyed what I refer to as the honeymoon years of police driver training. The reason I say this is that back in the 1970’s through to the early 90’s, trainers at police driving schools were seasoned and long serving traffic patrol officers.

These were people who had seen proper action and who had become wily and wise as a result. They contributed elements to courses that were never found in any manuals.

It was also a period when traffic patrol officers would attend what was then referred to as a Home Office Driving School, to complete a 4–week driver training course and gain their advanced driver classification. The centre I attended was that of the Essex police driving school at Chelmsford. This was the very best driver training course I had ever completed, especially as I came away from that with the absolute top accolade – a class–one classification.

The reason this system worked so well as that course students were from all different police forces, so when doing my course there I made sure I was not going to be outdone member so the others. Sadly, and a few years later, things changed and driver training within my force was taken in–house, so that healthy inter–force competitiveness was gone.

The Worst Course of All

There was another course that I completed away from the police service and I have to say that out of all the driving related activities I have ever been involved with, this one I enjoyed the least. In fact, I found it infuriating, even at times completely stupid. I am talking about the process of gaining a qualification that is required when becoming a driving instructor, the ADI badge.

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This page was last updated
Saturday, 19-Mar-2011

My Driver Training Background