What Is Advanced Driving?
Advanced driver training is any further training input a road driver will receive after passing the DSA driving test which offers driving skills that are over and above those taught during standard learner driving lessons. That being the case even the DSA Pass Plus scheme, it could argued, is a form of Advanced Driving by point of fact it provides training to drive on motorways, which of course a learner driver can not do. However, if Pass Plus is to be regarded as a form of Advanced Driving then it is the very lowest form and there are various other forms of Advanced Driving, ranging all the way from the bottom all the way up to Police Advanced Driver Training, this being the driver training given to the top police pursuit drivers.
When a motorist is looking for further driver training to an advanced level it all gets very confusing, as a quick search on the Internet, for example, and when using a search term such as Advanced Driver Training, or Advanced Driving Course, will bring up all sorts of websites. Some of them lay rather dubious claims to deliver advanced driving techniques, such as those offering services and skills by ex-competition drivers who will have you believe that advanced driving is throwing a car around a few traffic cones within a traffic free environment, and this will give you all the driving skills you need to make you a more advanced motorist for the road.
Advanced driver training means different things to different people, so be careful to check out the background of the service provider, and the details of the driver services they provide, to see where they are coming at you from.
What is Defensive Driving?
Defensive driving is a form of Advanced Driving and comes from the road craft driving system, Roadcraft being the title of a driving manual. The term Defensive Driving is supposed to encapsulate the concept of always keeping back from that line that separates safe ground from unpredictable or less safe ground when on the road.
A typical example of this might be where you are driving a car on a road within a built up area and there might be  some parked cars ahead. In among those parked cars there may be other vehicles, the drivers of which have got themselves in a bit of a jam by all trying to get through a smaller gap at once. A defensive stance here would be to hold back where you have space to breathe until the tangle ahead had cleared, as a more intelligent alternative to getting caught up in the melee yourself. In other words, it is defending your road position until you know it is safe to proceed further.
Going back to Roadcraft, this book began life as a police driver training manual and at a time in history when advanced driving for the public was unheard of. However, in recent years, post test driver training has become popular with the Roadcraft system being the favourite by point of fact it is the advanced driving system taught to drivers in the emergency services. As a result, the Roadcraft driving manual, through the various editions, has become more of a soft advice book rather than a hard-hitting driver training document it once was.
So, to clarify the terms, Advanced Driving is any road driving skills in put that is given beyond the point of passing the DSA driving test, and defensive driving is a term used to describe a driving system that is based upon the Roadcraft manual.
Your Driving Skills Development
It has long been rumoured that the standard of driver skills attained at DSA test pass level are woefully inadequate. Well, let’s stop working with rumours and tell it how it is shall we? The driver skills at DSA test pass level ARE woefully inadequate, because if they weren’t, there would not be such a huge number of traffic accidents attributed to driver error.
That may be a rather purist view, as to deliver driver training to someone to the point whereby they were so skilled they would never have a road traffic accident would be something of a tall order. However, advanced driver training has been proved to be an effective method of reducing traffic accident figures, as statistics show, Advanced Drivers have fewer road accidents, providing evidence that the standard of initial training IS inadequate.
When we first pass the driving test we perhaps drive our cars a little nervously to begin with. After all, it is quite a change to suddenly be driving the car on the road on our own. As time goes by we relax, and as we gain experience, we become more confident. We note how others will tackle certain situations, and we might think that what we have witnessed is so effective that we will take on that style as our own. We learn from others as we see them and through these outside influences, adding them to our own knowledge, we develop our own driving personality. But as you have managed to get away with doing what you do unscathed you will continue to think it is a great way to go on, even if it isn’t, and you will do this because you know no different.
By the time we are three years old as a driver we have reached a plateau, and this is where we now have settled into our habit; our driving habit. As we go on from there we do rack up further years of experience, but still locked into our habit, and the trouble with habit is that it is comfortable. If you think about all areas of human life, whenever we form a habitual way of doing something we stick with it, as this well rehearsed procedure is easy to use, is very familiar and so requires little thought to continue.
The same goes for driving, and remember that no matter what level people will drive to, when it is their usual style, as in their driving habit, it always feels comfortable. Even the worst driver can feel comfortable driving badly, because as a species, human beings are resistant to changing what is comfortable.
Why Do I Need Advanced Driver Training?
When considering further driver training always remember that you can only perform to the level that your last period of training took you to, so if you want to go through the rest of your life at a point where you were a couple of years after your test, not taking any further training will leave you at that level. Whilst you may have a great deal of natural ability, and the potential to be highly effective, unless you are given high grade input you have nothing new to work with and so will never realise that potential. That means you could go through a whole motoring lifetime and never realise what you could me missing.
The trouble is that any form of further driver training has earned such a poor reputation, and it is unfortunately true that it si the driver training industry that has made it that way. Holier-than-thou preaching, finger-wagging, twittering on with condescending sentiment punctuated with plenty of don’t do this and don’t do that by the bucketful? Who wants that? What about learning what you can do for a change?
However, there must be a spark of interest in you to be reading this site, so what will it take for you to take that next step? How can we get you to step up to the plate, to challenge yourself and to break out of the humdrum life on the road that you have settled into?
A negative reaction to the suggestion of completing a defensive driving course is quite common, but here at Ride Drive we like to kick again tradition; we like to break the mould, because believe it or not, our advanced driving courses are a whole load of fun.
Firstly, we do not thrust a copy of the Highway Code at you, have you doing turns in the road or reversing into road junctions. In fact, we don’t teach you how to drive at all, because you know how to do that already. You passed your driving test didn’t you? What we do is to build on your existing level, using that as the foundation of a new driving style so as to open up a whole new world for you on the road. Cars are designed in a way to be exciting and fun to own and drive, so let’s bring in something radical here shall we? Let’s make the art of tuning your performance to up rate your skills something that is fun and exciting to do. Where have you seen the words Fun and Exciting appear on the same page as anything to do with training before? Well, now you have, because that’s what we want you to know we deliver here.
What Does Ride Drive Know About Driving?
You will recall at the beginning of this page that we said Advanced Driving extends all the way from the bottom level of Pass Plus all the way up to police advanced driver training all the way at the top. Well, the top of that list is where our skills base comes from, because almost every one on our team, all over the mainland UK, has been trained to the police advanced level through their many police advanced driving courses, thjis being the top of the advanced driving tree. They have also, through the line of work associated with the profession that gave that training, spent a career of studying driver behaviour as well as attending and investigating the scenes of countless numbers of traffic accidents. This means that coupled with their highly regarded level of advanced driver training they know what ingredients need to be put together to make a traffic accident happen, and when you have that information, you are better prepared to avoid becoming involved in one.
Road traffic police officers have to drive on the public road under some extreme conditions, and sometimes at speeds that will be over and beyond anything that any member of the public will ever get near to. They know that one slip, if thre is just one small error of judgement, that can spell disaster. That is why their driver training has to be to such a high advanced level, and it is those sharply honed skills that you, the Ride Drive customer, will be getting when you book yourself onto a Ride Drive advanced driver training course.
How Do I Book a Defensive Driving Course?
As you can see there are many different driver training course options to choose from, and it is important that you take time to read about the content of each so as to understand what they have to offer. You can access this additional information about each by clicking on the INFO links that you see next to each listed option.
Whilst choosing the driver training course you want you will note there are some that involve purely advanced road driving and some that combine this with car limit and vehicle handling sessions, these taking place at selected and approved off road venues. We also build in skid pan sessions so that you can learn about skidding, as in skid prevention and skid control techniques, in case you ever find yourself driving on ice.
No doubt your choice will be based upon your available budget, as balanced against the content of the advanced driving programme that may interest you, but whatever you choose, we will make sure that the content will be aimed at what you want to get out of it and be tuned to the type of car that you drive. However, if you don't find exactly what you are looking for, just give us a call and we will see if we can build a bespoke driving course just for you. If you can’t make up your mind we are always happy to advise, and without hitting on you with the hard sell tactics.
Are There Any Motor Insurance Benefits?
Check out our amazing motor insurance discount scheme with Adrian Flux insurance, a motor insurance broker that is one of the biggest operating within the UK, and who are underwritten by a huge list of well known names within the motor insurance industry.
If you complete a Ride Drive advanced driver development course that has a time-span of 8-hours or more, and we have assessed you as representing a low level of insurance risk, by renewing your motor insurance cover with Adrian Flux Insurance, you will be granted as much as 25% discount from what your current provider is asking for. It certainly is a good way to get cheaper car insurance, and at the same time as gaining higher skills.
How Do I Book My Advanced Driving Course?
There are a number of ways in which you can book your defensive driver training course. This can be done by telephone, using the details on the mouse and phone graphic at the bottom of this page, or if you click on that same graphic you will find this is an email link to us. Alternatively, you can go to our published list of driver training options and click on the BUY link, which feeds you to a driving course booking form.
Once we receive the information, including details of the driver training option you want, we will immediately set about allocating one of your local Ride Drive advanced driving specialists who will speak with you about available dates.
Can I Buy a Driving Course As a Gift Voucher?
You can buy any of our listed advanced driving courses as gift vouchers, or you can buy a gift voucher that represents a contribution towards the cost of one of our advanced driving options. Whether you are looking for a gift for her, or a gift for him, you can be assured that the gesture will be very well received and the recipient of the gift voucher will be very well looked after. If you tell us what colour, make, model and year of car they drive we will even try to match it with a photograph of a similar car on the front of the gift voucher card.
Is this Advanced Training Okay For Young Drivers?
The advanced driver training that we offer is suitable for all ages and levels of experience, but if you were to buy your kids a Ride Drive defensive driver training package it would be by far the most worthwhile product you will ever give to them. Whilst it would be easy at this stage to use the clichéd tactics of taking about traffic accidents and how young people represent the highest risk group of drivers, the driver skills training that we offer just blows away anything like Pass Plus. You’ve only to look at our background to see that is so.
What Ride Drive offers are real life advanced driving skills that come from the gritty reality of road driving. We have a lot of fun with our customers, but we work them really hard too. There is nothing more satisfying for us at the end of the day to see how someone, who thought they were just an ordinary driver, leave us having developed into an advanced road driver.
How Do I Know I am Going To Get Good Service?
If you have not been to us before then you don’t know the answer to that question. However, if you can put your hand on your heart and say it had all been a waste of time we will tell you to tear up your invoice. You don’t make payment until afterwards anyway, so you have always got control over the quality, and you only have to look at the customer feedback we get to know that quality will never be a worry.
When you come to us the input you receive will be from our team of advanced driving specialists who are absolutely passionate about driving, whether you drive a fast car or a standard production car. Their enthusiasm is infectious and they will understand where you are and what you need, and in that way will develop your ability to make sure that you get your very best out of your Ride Drive advanced driving experience. |
