UK Training for driving overseas

[HTG]

I've had a search around the forum, and can find no help with this question - perhaps someone has an answer.

I'm the safety adviser to my company. The most dangerous thing we do is driving, and nearly all of that is in hired cars in the USA or Europe. Many of our employees are quite young, and many do not own cars. We do, of course, have a duty to ensure the safety of our employees in the course of their work, so we've involved RoSPA to do some assessment and training here in the UK. We have a few advanced drivers (of which I'm proud to be one!), but they are not the norm.

However, here's the hard bit - I'd really like to have access to a course to train people in driving skills useful abroad. This is an aspect of training which is really important to managing risks, but is sadly lacking in the market place. We can read books and leaflets, but is there anyone out there who can offer useful training? Even the advanced drivers can't help here, since delivering training requires the kind of understanding of a foreign highway code that we have of our own, but these typically don't exist, or are inscrutable or in a foreign language. Even the American four-way stop is more complicated than it at first appears, since, if my memory serves me correctly, the widely accepted practice differs from the law slightly.

I should add that neither Rospa nor IAM have been able to help me here - I've tried them both.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Yours in hope rather than expectation...

Tim

[crr003]

Hmm, I wish the two companies I worked for in the last 25 years had had a "Safety Advisor".
Back in my day (entering Grumpy Oldish Man mode), we had to use common sense! (And some cash in case an official needed a donation).
I suppose it's progress.

Sorry, not much use.......

[HTG]

Hmm, I wish the two companies I worked for in the last 25 years had had a "Safety Advisor".
Back in my day (entering Grumpy Oldish Man mode), we had to use common sense! (And some cash in case an official needed a donation).
I suppose it's progress.

Sorry, not much use.......

Actually, it's a requirement that every company has such a thing. It's just lucky coincidence, I suppose, that I'm in that role and a big proponent of advanced driving! There's a sort of mantra in health and safety training that you can solve (almost) anything with 'ISIT' - information, supervision, instruction and training. Whilst one may argue that they overlap a lot, it would be really to great to be able to offer something more than 'information', which is sort of available. Supervision is nearly impossible, so instruction and training are my aims, but from where? We currently resign ourselves to hoping that advanced driver training in the UK will be good for driving in other places. I like to think that the system will work, but I'd dearly like to be able to tune it for use in other systems of road signs, etc. A good example is that I believe that it is required to signal before a lane change in the USA - not what we teach here. More to the point, teaching people what to do when they are pulled over by the police in the USA could help them avoid being shot! Etc, etc.

Disappointingly, we usually (if not exclusively) visit EU countries, non-EU Scandinavian countries and the USA, so donations to officials are unlikely to help us out of a spot. Ah well.

Cheers!

[Mr Cholmondeley-Warner]

About 18 years ago, my company ran a series of half-day defensive driving courses. These were, among other things, responsible for my finally getting up off my lazy @rse and getting some driver training, some 17 years later. I do wish more companies would be proactive like this, even if the name "Safety Advisor" does have a rather nerdy ring to it (sorry HGT ).

My company (the same one, albeit with a short break in the middle) now does almost nothing to actually help its drivers, although nearly everyone has a company car, and many drivers are quite young, and have to drive reasonable numbers of miles on company business. Its efforts in this direction consist of a document in the quality manual that they can point to when they get BSI audited, and chasing those of us who have cars on allowance for paperwork once a year so they can cover their backsides on the corporate manslaughter front. A sign of the times, for sure.

[HTG]

About 18 years ago, my company ran a series of half-day defensive driving courses. These were, among other things, responsible for my finally getting up off my lazy @rse and getting some driver training, some 17 years later. I do wish more companies would be proactive like this, even if the name "Safety Advisor" does have a rather nerdy ring to it (sorry HGT ).

My company (the same one, albeit with a short break in the middle) now does almost nothing to actually help its drivers, although nearly everyone has a company car, and many drivers are quite young, and have to drive reasonable numbers of miles on company business. Its efforts in this direction consist of a document in the quality manual that they can point to when they get BSI audited, and chasing those of us who have cars on allowance for paperwork once a year so they can cover their backsides on the corporate manslaughter front. A sign of the times, for sure.

I agree - 'Safety Adviser' is not a great name. I can't remember the piece of regulation word for word, but is says something like, "A company shall appoint someone suitably trained and experienced to advise it on matters of Health and Safety". It used often to be an outside consultant, but they are more keen to have an internal appointment now. It's not my main job - it's just part of my job, but we are a small consultancy company, so it works OK.

Like advanced driving, the whole safety management thing is only any use if you can actually do it. If I'm going to the effort of getting an auditable paper trail, I might as well have one that delivers some benefit! Our work is almost entirely sitting in front of a computer, so in the grand scheme of things, our best chance of killing ourselves or others is certainly behind the wheel, and much enhanced by the fact that it's an unfamiliar, hired wheel, in a country with strange languages, customs, police, road laws, and so on. Americans are (roughly) ten times as likely as us to crash and burn, so this risk goes up yet again. Surely there's someone out there who can train us to be better at it? But apparently not. With luck, the right expert will come along in a minute and change my mind!

Cheers.

[crr003]

We currently resign ourselves to hoping that advanced driver training in the UK will be good for driving in other places. I like to think that the system will work, but I'd dearly like to be able to tune it for use in other systems of road signs, etc.

Well UK AD must help, I'd have thought - observation, planning and all that.
A lot of places now you can get their rules/roadsigns off t'internet, but really who is going to follow all of them? (Even US states vary) Most UK drivers have no idea what's in the Highway Code, and we're British!

My advice would be to start slowly and do what the locals do. Which included following them the wrong way down a one way street in Cairo, but that was in the good old days.

We did get handy hints from more experienced people in-country (if there were any).

But as a project, I think you've got a job for life trying to formalize this!

[daz6215]

I've just had an American delegate out on a UK familiarisation day, talk about being thrown in at the deep end it was the first time she had driven on the left and the fist time she had encountered a roundabout, i recommended to her company that she will require further training before being allowed to drive, so my point is would it not be more feasible to have maybe US training days over there with people from that country who really have a good grasp of the rules and regulations?

[HTG]

My advice would be to start slowly and do what the locals do. Which included following them the wrong way down a one way street in Cairo, but that was in the good old days.

We did get handy hints from more experienced people in-country (if there were any).

But as a project, I think you've got a job for life trying to formalize this!

I think this is all true, and what I suppose we do. As such, it may indeed be the best we can do, but wouldn't it be nice to do better?

[HTG]

I've just had an American delegate out on a UK familiarisation day, talk about being thrown in at the deep end it was the first time she had driven on the left and the fist time she had encountered a roundabout, i recommended to her company that she will require further training before being allowed to drive, so my point is would it not be more feasible to have maybe US training days over there with people from that country who really have a good grasp of the rules and regulations?

Yep - a great idea. I'd love to do this too, but there are a couple of buts:

1) We don't have any American office (or anywhere in Europe) so it's necessary to find a suitable local instructor, and
2) The only instructors I can find pretty much anywhere are related to passing whatever the locals call a driving test. I can't find "safe driving here for foreigners" courses, because it's too niche, and they don't have AD courses anyway, particularly in the States.

Maybe this is the way we'll ultimately have to consider going - doing a local driving course of some sort. The trouble is, the quality is suspect as it's training normally aimed at sub-L-test people. It might be worth a try though. Has anyone any experience of L-test-style training in other countries?

[daz6215]

I've just had an American delegate out on a UK familiarisation day, talk about being thrown in at the deep end it was the first time she had driven on the left and the fist time she had encountered a roundabout, i recommended to her company that she will require further training before being allowed to drive, so my point is would it not be more feasible to have maybe US training days over there with people from that country who really have a good grasp of the rules and regulations?

Has anyone any experience of L-test-style training in other countries?

I've done German British forces Germany tests which were quite a good standard, and I've also seen some of the foreign licence holders that come into this country hoping to pass the L test, not a hope! It would appear that the eu generally has a good standard but anywhere outside that it might be out of a lucky dip bag

[martine]

Take a look at http://www.uk-roadsafety.co.uk/ - I know they do training in other countries (as well as the UK) - ask for Ian Littlefield (mention my name: Martin Evans) - despite their website and name they are actually quite small and approachable.

[redrobo]

or http://www.ensign-gb.co.uk/fleet-driver ... ut-us.html

ask for Andy Rigsby he has experience of training abroad.

[ExadiNigel]

Tim,

I would be very interested in devising a course to suit. I have sent you a pm.

Nigel

[GS]

I've just had an American delegate out on a UK familiarisation day, talk about being thrown in at the deep end it was the first time she had driven on the left and the fist time she had encountered a roundabout, i recommended to her company that she will require further training before being allowed to drive, so my point is would it not be more feasible to have maybe US training days over there with people from that country who really have a good grasp of the rules and regulations?

Just out of curiosity, do you use a dual-controlled car for these courses?

[HTG]

Gents,

Thanks very much for all these positive lines of inquiry. It's better than I've managed with no end of searching. It just goes to prove the old adage that it's not what you know but who you know! I'll let you all know if I crack it, but in the meanwhile, if anyone has new ideas, please keep posting.

Thanks a lot!