IAM AGM

[TripleS]

Oops, feathers ruffled again.

Look guys; I fully accept that I may be wrong about this, but it is simply how I feel about the subject. Clearly it would be wrong of me to dismiss all the conventional wisdom, and advise everybody to ignore it, but that is not what I'm doing.

What I am doing is questioning things and offering an alternative viewpoint. I am also pointing out that I choose to do certain things my own way, not always following the generally accepted advice. That's my choice and I strongly believe I should be free to make that choice so long as there are no adverse effects. If it can be shown that there are adverse effects then I need to reconsider things and make suitable changes.

I get the impression here that some people are objecting to the popular view being questioned, and if that is the case I might as well shut up and stop rocking the boat. However, I must reply to a few specific comments:

Darren - I am not saying that I believe I am at a certain standard, and I'm not claiming that I am advanced. I have no opinion as to the level I'm at, and I am certainly not making claims. I merely try to produce what I believe to be a nice style of driving, and that's all there is to it, for me.

Crr - with respect, you seem to have done a bit of inventing! I have said nothing to indicate that I believe the IAM etc. should accept and adopt anything in particular, and I have no interest at all in passing their test. I merely question their present position and wonder if it is the best that can be done for most people, in the sense of maximising the level of interest in advanced driving and securing the benefits that flow from that.

FF - If I make a special effort I can apply The System, but it is not part of my natural style, and I remain to be convinced that what I actually do is appreciably inferior.

I do not accept your suggestion that it is the safest, smoothest and fastest method of negotiating everyday road hazards. That, to me, is too inflexible a viewpoint, and I prefer to keep an open mind about this and accept that there are situations where one can get an equally good result by using methods other than The System. It is my belief that certain hazards can be negotiated more quickly, and without detriment to safety or smoothness, by using methods other than The System; and I am not telling you that is the case, I am suggesting it.

We have been told repeatedly that 'Roadcraft' (which admittedly you do not mention) and The System were devised and developed for a particular purpose. To me that leaves the rest of us free to choose our own methods, so long as we're not in a situation where it is necessary to meet a particular standard for test purposes.

I hope that may help to clear things up a bit.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

RoADAR's test guidelines are here:

http://www.roadar.org.uk/drivers/test/preparation.htm

and the grading criteria are here:

http://www.roadar.org.uk/drivers/test/grading.htm

Which clearly state a number of things including:

pull push steering will be expected
you will be assesssed on your use of the system
drivers who only apply the system partially or inconsistently will get at most Bronze.

So I reckon Dave could get Bronze, if he put his prejudices aside a little, but he wouldn't get Silver or Gold unless he was prepared to drive to the System throughout the test.

[TripleS]

RoADAR's test guidelines are here:

http://www.roadar.org.uk/drivers/test/preparation.htm

and the grading criteria are here:

http://www.roadar.org.uk/drivers/test/grading.htm

Which clearly state a number of things including:

pull push steering will be expected
you will be assesssed on your use of the system
drivers who only apply the system partially or inconsistently will get at most Bronze.

So I reckon Dave could get Bronze, if he put his prejudices aside a little, but he wouldn't get Silver or Gold unless he was prepared to drive to the System throughout the test.

What prejudices?

It's merely expressing a few doubts and doing a bit of questioning.

....but otherwise I accept what you say.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

[jbsportstech]

RoADAR's test guidelines are here:

http://www.roadar.org.uk/drivers/test/preparation.htm

and the grading criteria are here:

http://www.roadar.org.uk/drivers/test/grading.htm

Which clearly state a number of things including:

pull push steering will be expected
you will be assesssed on your use of the system
drivers who only apply the system partially or inconsistently will get at most Bronze.

So I reckon Dave could get Bronze, if he put his prejudices aside a little, but he wouldn't get Silver or Gold unless he was prepared to drive to the System throughout the test.

Playing devils advocate here.....But if u can pass IAM Test with BGOL (Applied incorrectly) and lack of pull push. Then that is at best a rospa bronze not ROSPA Silver.

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

I don't have access to any similar guidelines from IAM, but I expect they exist. Who's told you you can pass with BGOL and lack of pull push?

Edit: Oh yes I do - here we go:

http://www.iam.org.uk/aboutus/advancedt ... ations.htm

Looks pretty similar to RoADAR to me, although not as thorough. GS or someone similar would have access to examiner's guidelines which may be a little more specific (e.g. number of 4s or 5s required to pass).

Dave - perhaps prejudices was the wrong word - perhaps I meant principles, basically just bending to the requirement a little

[TripleS]

Thanks for your comprehensive reply, Dave.

I happen to value your views on these matters, and I would hesitate to suggest you're wrong in what you say, so I think the probability is that it's me who is just seeing things differently.

Whenever I've driven an expert assessor it does seem to be on two principal items where I'm deemed to be lacking, one being forward observation/planning, and the other is cornering.

As I've said before, given that I always seem to have comfortable time to deal with things in an unhurried manner, I don't see what the problem is. If it were the case that I regularly found myself in a rush to deal wirth things, that would be a different matter, but that doesn't seem to happen, so I don't really see where much more safety is to be gained.

I fully accept that adequate planning is necessary, but as I see it there is a limit to how far ahead one can plan, because if you try to plan based on a situation too far ahead, the likelihood is that events will evolve differently from what you expect at this time, and therefore the plan you make now will not be appropriate by the time you reach the situation. As I see it, the real need is to maintain awareness of what's around us and what may happen, and have time and space in which to make safe arrangements.

Example: Suppose, on a long section of undulating/bendy road, we see in the distance a large lorry coming towards us. OK, we see it and anticipate that we'll meet it at some point fairly soon. I can appreciate that it's desirable that we see it early, but we can't immediately plan anything with any certainty.

It might even turn off our road and we don't meet it at all, but assuming it remains on our road what else can we do except adjust our expectation of where we might meet? In conjunction with doing that we should be prepared to allow space for it if it looks likely that the meeting will take place at a tight bend or narrow bridge - or something of that sort.

The other thing about cornering came up again at the last Eaton Socon meeting I attended. I did a drive accompanied by an advanced driving instructor and he complained about my cornering. He described the car as 'wallowing' through the bends, and claimed that we could 'feel the front end washing out' and the car wanting to go 'flying off the road'. He also warned of what may happen if we encountered a micro-climate or a diesel spill, and obviously felt that we were vulnerable to such problems. I didn't see this at all.

As far as I was concerned the car was negotiating the curves in a smooth and easy manner, placing only moderate demand on lateral grip, and it felt completely secure to me.

Later on he did the driving in a borrowed Alfa, and admittedly he tackled the cornering quite differently; it was more bold and purposeful, with more power being deployed etc., and afterwards he (perhaps foolishly) asked for my reaction. I said it felt rather too much 'point and squirt' for my taste, which appeared not to be what he'd hoped to hear.

Once again please try to accept that I'm merely seeking to explain how I see these things. With regard to the cornering he is an expert, so he should be right, but for my own use I still preferred my method. Perhaps it will be argued that what he was doing was creating more grip (by use of power?) and that may be true, not that I understand the technical factors involved, but I still feel that he was definitely placing more demands on the car and thus needing more grip. As a result I felt that had we encountered a slippery patch he would have been off the road before I would! Right or wrong? I don't know, but I felt my style was the more pleasant and comfortable, and the one most likely to please the majority of non-expert passengers.

The mysteries remain - with me anyhow. Thanks for listening.

<sniff> BTW, it's 51 years, not 40.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

[waremark]

Triple S Dave, I have a number of questions for you.

Can I ask you about your attitude to system? Is it just The System you don't like - ie the particular order in which Roadcraft tells us to do things - or do you object to the whole idea of trying to do things in a systematic, one could say consistent, way?

Can you see that though your approach works well for you, with your experience and without any need to achieve maximum safe progress, on the other hand it might not be a teachable approach nor one on which it was suitable to build to achieve maximum safe progress?

Do you believe that if you had to train a large number of young people to drive very quickly and safely, as the police do, you could find a better way to do it than teaching them The System?

Since professionally skilled advanced drivers (serving and retired police officers) give their services to the IAM and Rospa, can you see why those organisations take advantage of their expertise, which involves acceptance of The System?

[jbsportstech]

I think stressed dave should write his only driving manual I fore one would read it. I agree some people allow the system to become to rigid and inflexiable but ulitimately I have yet to find a safer way to get around.

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

I think stressed dave should write his only driving manual

I certainly wouldn't want him to write more than one

[jbsportstech]

own sorry

The synobsis:

Advanced Driving should be about smooth progressive driving with good observation and foward planning. Rigid adherance to pull-push or the system of car control can become the overiding factor to the detriment of the overall drive.

Possible titles:

Expert Driving The Dave Turner Way.

Turnercraft

??

Nigel has written D12 his 12 drive manual for IAM, Roadar groups.

[jont]

Nah, if the stressed one is writing it, it could only be called "More Power!"

[vonhosen]

TripleS wrote "but I'd still be in a bit of bother with The System."

What is your problem with "The System" (of car control presumably)? It's the safest, smoothest and fastest method of negotiating EVERY-DAY ROAD hazards that I know.

Perhaps he knows a better one though.

[TripleS]

TripleS wrote "but I'd still be in a bit of bother with The System."

What is your problem with "The System" (of car control presumably)? It's the safest, smoothest and fastest method of negotiating EVERY-DAY ROAD hazards that I know.

Perhaps he knows a better one though.

Oh gee whizz, Von, don't you start. I've got enough trouble already with this lot!

I'll come back to this later, when I'm adequately p155ed - I think that's the only way I can approach this.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

[crr003]

I don't have access to any similar guidelines from IAM, but I expect they exist. Who's told you you can pass with BGOL and lack of pull push?

I did - based on meetings with our two Examiners (IAM). Would they prefer to see pull-push? Yes (because it's a very good steering method for most conditions), but if the steering is accurate and smooth, they'll go with that. Would they prefer to see no unplanned brake-gear overlap? Love to, but given that a lot of Associates are "older" drivers, with ingrained methods, it's not possible or even desirable to beat BGOL out of them. You only have to read any thread on BGOL to find it's not universally accepted as a major fault amongst ADers.
Plus, I'm finding more Associates showing up in automatic 'box vehicles, so try telling them about BGOL! Are we saying they shouldn't be allowed to learn AD in an auto?

I've just had a quick skim through the IAM AD book and can find two references to BGOL. One says "In some circumstances, you may need to change gear just before you finish braking". But it doesn't define those circumstances. The second says, "Keep every drive as simple as possible by not overlapping braking, steering and gear inputs. However, if driving conditions force you to do so, always overlap a gear change with braking, not steering as that would mean having a hand off the wheel."

I can read into this that they don't really want to see BGOL, but it's not fatal, test-wise.

[TripleS]

Dave - many thanks again for your detailed response, but we still fail to agree on all points.

The only way we're going to know what the real score is will involve spending more time together on the road - if you can accept that.

Maybe we'll find out then just how respectable (or otheriwise) my style is. It is still changing.

Incidentally you seem to imply that my style (I won't call it a system) only works because I sacrifice speed. I do not believe that is the case, but thanks again.

Best wishes all,
Dave.