Regular events, local drives and branches?

[Darren]

It seems, although I couldn't make it yesterday (good excuse, some low life's broke into the company Jag that I'd had for all of one day !) you managed to achieve something and had a good day anyway.

I'm currently in the process of trying to arrange insurance for us to be named the ADUK Club I think. But should allow these types of drives, meets, training sessions to take place anywhere in the country, under our banner.

I would also like, if we can do it for our members provide Tutoring for IAM, RoSPA tests as pre-cursor's to potential HPC membership with Hugh or Don.

This could potentially be cheaper than taking a Skill for life course as the candidate would pay our membership (which I believe will be "alot" less than the IAM's £18 ), then IAM or RoSPA test fee.

Basically put into place a syllabus for people to start advanced driving, get back into enjoying the driving then progress through the various levels.

IAM / RoSPA (Bronze/Silver) -> RoADA (Gold) -> HPC

Depending on what comes back, to cover insurance costs, we may need a small membership fee, the site doesn't make enough money yet to totally cover the cost. Any objections?

I've had several drives out and I know others have also done it. There is a platform here to get many people into advanced driving, without the boring image of the IAM or RoSPA.

Why not do something different? Have fun...thats the philosophy HPC runs on, High Performance Drivers enjoying the best they can get out of the driver and the car in absolute safety.

Darren

[TripleS]

Nice idea Darren - a splendid initiative and I hope it can be made to work.

Best wishes all,
Dave.

[MikeB]

Great idea Darren and to answer your question 'in another place' I think this site is terrific and recommend it regularly but can't think at the moment of any way to improve it - it is just very good and easy to navigate around the topics. Keep up the good work

Cheers,

[martine]

Good stuff Daren - it would be nice to have an alternative to the IAM/ROSPA's rather stuffy image (to say the least) yet perhaps not the 'elitist' image of HPC (hope that's managed to insult everyone equally!).

One comment: I wouldn't get hung up about making ADUK cheap...I don't think the membership of IAM/ROSPA puts people off that are serious...as someone has said it's only a tank full of fuel or there abouts. If you make the ADUK's fee 'reasonable' you'll build up a reserve to promote the club and perhaps get more members. There is the argument that many people don't appreciate/value things that are cheap/free.

[Darren]

OK, I was going to set the fee based on expected take up numbers, overheads and mainly the cost of insurance to do this.

What if I said, lets have a vote on what we think it should be?

[martine]

What if I said, lets have a vote on what we think it should be?

Very democratic but sometimes it's better to just set a reasonable fee and promote the benefits. By the way I think you should be clear what the club offers (or should offer) and what makes it different as well.

As a clue I wouldn't need convincing to spend up to £50/year...more than that and I need to weigh up the pros-cons (I'm not saying no - just needs more careful consideration). I always remember a pistol club I used to belong to and the arguments caused by increasing the annual membership from £5 to £10...most members treated it as small change but a few got very heated about the 100% increase!

[Nigel]

I'd argue this from the "other" side.

We are going to need publicity, no one outside of our driving circles has heard of the IAM/rospa/hpc , and in my opinion, if we really want to make a difference, its the normal driver we need to be targetting, rather than the motoring enthusiast.

If we keep the initial cost to an absolute min, I can imagine more people will be willing to help us.

[martine]

I'd argue this from the "other" side.

We are going to need publicity, no one outside of our driving circles has heard of the IAM/rospa/hpc , and in my opinion, if we really want to make a difference, its the normal driver we need to be targetting, rather than the motoring enthusiast.

If we keep the initial cost to an absolute min, I can imagine more people will be willing to help us.

Yes but keeping it to 'an absolute minimum' might mean we'd be scratching round for cash all the time to fund adverts, events, website etc. I'd rather make it a sensible fee (perhaps £30 - £50) and be able to use the funds wisely to promote the club and set up worthwhile benefits.

[Nigel]

You may be correct Martin...but I'm not sure.

You know I've been out and about an awful lot since my neighbours sons death.

I've been mixing with the youngsters, trying to get them to do advanced driving, I know its for their benefit, you know its for their benefit...they don't.

The set of expensive wheels....they "need" them, the set of expensive trainers...they "need" them, driver training...they don't need that, they are young stupid, and in their own opinion, indestructable.

There is buggar all incentive put forward by hm gov., even simple advertising would be something.

You will find this hard to believe, but I've been talking to kids that have paid £400 to make their 1.0 polo sound like its exhaust is blowing, I have gotten them some free training....they actually have the nerve to complain that they will have to pay for the petrol to do that training.

I do this stuff because I want to try and make a difference, I believe the training should be free, or as near as we can get it, at the point of delivery.

I know thats unrealistic, but if we could keep membership including training down to something like a tenner, then at least we may get them to do that, even if they don't pay for and take a test.

[martine]

I do sympathise Nigel and I think what you are doing is to be applauded...keep going - it may take sometime using various techniques to get a take-up.

I would argue that they are willing to pay £400 for an exhuast the size of a power station cooling tower, so therefore money is not an issue. They have justified the expense in their own minds and so think it's worth it. They think car mods are cool and it gives them street-cred.

I think we should work on making advanced driving cool too...no one argues that Fernando Alonso isn't cool and he's a fantastic demonstration of car control using skill, anticipation while being couteous and quite good at making progress as well!

Seriously, I don't believe the cost of advanced driving is putting kids off...it's the image and they can't see the point. Even making it free wouldn't get them to sign up - it's an excuse.

[wenlocksimon]

I recommend this site to anyone who will (or, indeed, will not) listen! Especially on Paul Smith's site which is regularly visited by tree-hugging anti-drivers who consider speed limits to be The Gospel of safe driving. What they cannot understand is that adherance to speed limits - in road safety terms - is a very small cog in a very large wheel.

I find the members here to be the most cogent spokespeople on driving standards that I know of, and - by following the advice of all the qualified postees - I believe that my driving standards have improved immeasurably. Certainly, my car's MPG has improved; from a usual 490 miles per tank has been upped to 520 miles per tank! Just by adjusting my driving technique!

So.

I have a slight problem with donating to SafeSpeed as I think they project an image of "pro-speed" to the anti-speed lobbyists which in the current climate is not what us car users need.

I think, Darren, you will wield more clout as a promoter of Advanced Driving and I would be more than willing to contribute if it would mean increased awareness of better driving standards in this country and the realisation from anti-drivers that more speed limits are not the answer; better driver training at inception is.

My credit card is at hand...................

Sy

[Nigel]

You may well be correct Martin, and Chelmsfords experience backs you up.

I find that if you offer them something for nothing, like an assessed drive etc, it at least gets their interest.

Immediately charging, like the IAM are now going to do, in my opinion just puts people off.

[Prelude]

As for younger drivers.. mostly male, having some sort of death wish with cars and 'showing off', I think the only option is raisng the limit to 18 but i know it won't happen. Kids grow into adolsecence quickly and I suppose grow out of it quickly too but that's a wide generalisation. You've got to feel sorry for the impressionable young passengers (and their parents) that are maimed and killed along with the irresponsible driver who may have 4 young 'kids' in with him. One hears all too often about it in the news and newspapers, unfortunately. From the age of between 16 and 17 it is ONLY one year, but it's not the same as say, the ages between 27/28 or 30 and 31...etc. if you get my drift!!

[Darren]

OK it seems we are all of the same opinion.

The IAM / RoSPA image puts people off.
Advanced Driving itself does not put people off.
Cost generally is not a huge issue.
There is room in the market for "something else"

I think we need to formulate a need for younger drivers and put it to them straight. I would also like to come up with a manifesto for what we want to achieve. Some ideas there would be useful and a marketing plan to achieve.

When I setup the site, I wanted to make advanced driving very public, constant drip feed visibility. I wanted to put together a plan of what to achieve and how to get there and over what timescales. Structured approach to improving road safety. Not the ad-hoc approach that IAM and RoADA have.

I'v just run out of time, there is so much to do and at the moment this is part time outside of working hours. We can't compete with the IAM/RoSPA on man power, but my experience in managing priorities with a plan has allowed us to get this far in a short timescale. Not take 3 years and lots of members money working out which direction we wish to go in. We achieve more reach in a weekend than the IAM does on the internet....surely that should be utilised.

Very happy for people to contribute ideas and listen to what should go into the plan, what we need to achieve and how to get there. I do think there needs to be a global overall aim, otherwise, what exactly are we doing here?

I'll make one thing clear for anyone reading this that is not sure of something. I do not wish to compete head on with the IAM or RoSPA, in their own way they do the right kind of things. HPC also provides for the "money" end of the market where people can afford to have days out with Hugh and Don.

Unfortunately, due to the IAM's nature, they will see us as competing as they believe they have a monopoly on anything that is advanced driving related and nobody else should be allowed to be involved (unfortunately that is the truth). The IAM get very defensive over someone breathing a possible "other angle".

BTW I wanted to have a chat with some HPC people, James (Allport) would yourself and Catherine Lloyd be available for a chat sometime? I need some advice.....

[Nigel]

One idea I've had, from my experiences in the last six months or so, would be to hold some sort of track day.

Let the youngsters drive around a track, under supervision, quickly, let them see what their cars will do ( or in most cases wont do).

Then hit them with some on road training, on the same day.

I actually find track days boring, I think skid pan training is very overrated, but again from my experiences recently, its that sort of stuff that actually gets the youngsters to talk to you.

Cost is the major issue here, if, and its a dam big if, we could get use of some facility, and do all this for free, in the name of road safety, the publicity comes along freely !