Sadly, this Forum seems to be dying

[WhoseGeneration]

Perhaps we all need to migrate to Facebook, because, from what I've read, that seems to be where web based interaction now occurs.

[martine]

Why do you say that? Posts come in fits and starts depending on juicy topics or perhaps a keen 'newbie' (Hi Insanity1234!).

Do you fancy organising an ADUK day - that would be good?

[TheInsanity1234]

I think part of the problem is that the majority of members on this forum are people with jobs and very little spare time to spend on the internet, and perhaps, some of them may be a touch too, um, elderly, to operate computers

Also, you find that most places that have a constant level of activity tend to be populated by, either a extremely huge membership, or by a lot of young people, such as myself.

Now, there's two problems with the above:
1: Advanced driving is an very narrow topic that a very substantial proportion of the population are not interested in at all - leading to low numbers of membership.

2: Advanced driving has an image of elderly chaps in flat caps that moan every time someone doesn't indicate quite the right number of flashes before performing an manoeuvre - This is indeed, very "uncool", to use the language of modern teenagers, and as such, will not encourage young people to join up.


I think if you want to keep AD going and increase the young population in the membership figures, there will need to be a huge advertising campaign to change the image of AD. One way of doing this is to have AD members run young drivers days, much like the Admiral Young Drivers scheme, things like that.

The trouble is, it requires very deep pots of money, which means the membership subscriptions would have to be increased by an exceedingly large amount, which would then cause membership to decline as no one could afford the fees, or government funding, which is very difficult to get, and includes a lot of red tape that would probably be the end of most of the smaller groups.

So we'll just have to plod along as we are now, unless some millionaire comes along with an excellent advertising idea.

[Silk]

Perhaps we all need to migrate to Facebook, because, from what I've read, that seems to be where web based interaction now occurs.

Why would anyone want to spend all day looking at endless drunken group photos?

[Rick101]

Why would anyone want to spend all day looking at endless drunken group photos?

Your friends sound like fun

[WhoseGeneration]

Do you fancy organising an ADUK day - that would be good?

It has, in the past, crossed my mind to do so. Problem is,it would probably mean moving a county to ensure interesting roads. I say this as a past 12 car rally organiser and I tend to think there are similarities in ADUK days and 12 car ralllies.
We've lots of holidays coming up but I will definitely consider this, get the OS maps out and recce possible routes.
Although, how about an urban, surburban and Motorway based ADUK day?

[waremark]

Perhaps we all need to migrate to Facebook, because, from what I've read, that seems to be where web based interaction now occurs.

Why would anyone want to spend all day looking at endless drunken group photos?

Not my experience of FB. What is your experience of it?

But I cannot see why moving to a different channel would make much difference to content.

HPC invites young drivers to an interesting day - see elsewhere - and it is generally under subscribed. There just aren't many people who can imagine that learning and practising better road driving can be an absorbing hobby.

[Horse]

Perhaps we all need to migrate to Facebook, because, from what I've read, that seems to be where web based interaction now occurs.

I take it by 'what I've read' you're not on Fb. Neither am I, so that's two fewer taking part. However, if that is your view, then here's your challenge: start a linked (to this site) Fb page

Put up or shut up?

[trashbat]

Is this any different to the average? I think back whenever I signed up, there were a very low number of posts a week, and we've been comparatively spoilt recently with quite a lot of activity.

Maybe at the height of summer everyone is just out driving instead of talking about it. Me, I don't know how much there is to say anyway.

[Carbon Based]

Well, it is a rather nice weekend. I didn't get as far as washing the car, but may go to a garden centre later. All these distractions...

I don't think there is any problem beyond a more general issue of how to get more people involved. So how many others have you brought here?

For AD in general, I'll suggest it is a bit tricky if those you know use an oyster card rather than a car but I'm working on a couple.

But what about the existing AD community?

What proportion of IAM/RoSPA groups use any form of social media? How can that be improved? Potentially richer pickings if you want to increase forum traffic.

And then the driving days.I've only managed to attend one so far, which was great. By my reckoning, four either completed or planed so far this year. Is that good compared to previous years?

[Silk]

Perhaps we all need to migrate to Facebook, because, from what I've read, that seems to be where web based interaction now occurs.

Why would anyone want to spend all day looking at endless drunken group photos?

Have the IAM groups changed that much since I last went to one?

Out of interest, are you the same Mr Foster who used to frequent uk.rec.driving years ago? One hell of a coincidence if you're not. I'm not going to make anything of it, we all move on and all that. I'm just interested.

[Silk]

Perhaps we all need to migrate to Facebook, because, from what I've read, that seems to be where web based interaction now occurs.

Why would anyone want to spend all day looking at endless drunken group photos?

Not my experience of FB. What is your experience of it?

The only time I've had dealings with Facebook is either when someone of the younger persuasion has said, "take a look at this" or when checking people out with a view to employing them, or otherwise.

I much preferred it when the general public was largely ignorant of the Internet, rather than ignorant and on the Internet.

All I can say is, thank goodness it wasn't around when I was a teenager.

[Zebedee]

Another issue is the lack of fun / seriousness when discussing AD online. Interminable discussions about steering or BGOL don't help

Advanced training has hugely increased the satisfaction and pleasure I get from driving. Yet that's lost in online discussions. Instead, we've got a lot of pull-pushing on the web!

[GS]

...

I much preferred it when the general public was largely ignorant of the Internet, rather than ignorant and on the Internet.

All I can say is, thank goodness it wasn't around when I was a teenager.

I think this is brilliant, but I suspect that we are of a similar age

[Kimosabe]

My greatest understandings of AD have come from a couple of very kind people I met through ADUK and many others who have contributed to healthy discussions, who took the time to share some of what they knew with me ie outside of IAM/RoADAR observed drives or organised events.

I'm still doing my best to get it right in my nifty little MX5 and Freelander 2 and when AD questions arise, as they invariably do, this forum is my first point of reference for answers. So I am neither lurking nor fully contributing because others can and will often explain what I want to say far more succinctly than I can and I can still get on with the job of trying to apply ideas to my driving in ways that hopefully set me apart from yer average driver. I had a blip a while ago after witnessing a crash between a cyclist and a car and that set me back a bit. What I mean by that is that when driving, I tend to not 'go' unless I know I can, rather than to go and then deal with unlikely events should they appear, as they appear. Following much encouragement from ADers, I found that I was more able to deal with events by pushing my limits and planning ahead more. Somehow this cyclist being knocked flying caused me to back off from road-based activity a bit and i'm just getting my driving spangle back. With that, along with life in general going on, I didn't feel upto chatting about driving much.

Right now, after deciding that seeing people carriers being driven around country lanes by elderly ladies faster than I was able to do in a RWD MX5 was becoming a matter of mild paranoia, i'm once more in the U-Bend of LPA/ bend analysis/ car balance in it's application. I found a really useful website but I am waiting for permission to post a link to it on here before starting a thread on LPA. So yes, I could read the other threads on LPA but I'm also curious to test the waters to see if there's anyone else out there who could use a refresher on this topic and mindful that it could be something to discuss for those who haven't yet.

So that's me. As always, anyone who fancies a jaunt in a roofless MX5 can drop me a line; i'm on first name terms with most tea room owners in the Sussex area since starting ADing over a year ago.

Keep chatting,

Kimosabe