New IAM standards

[zadocbrown]

the drive for 'consistency' and the rather petty dictats issued over the last few years

I think these don't necessarily go hand in hand.

I agree. Trouble is I think some people think the latter is the route to the former.....

[zadocbrown]

SD that's pretty much what I worry about. There is a conflict between the desire to professionalise the learning experience and the fact that most observers are not recruited on the basis of their coaching or even driving ability, and many would struggle to achieve even 'enthusiastic amateur' status.

There are observers and examiners who could have a good stab at this, but as a corpus we would have to be decimated to the power 5 at least to get rid of the rest, at which point we couldn't cope with demand as presently constituted.

It's not even as simple as 'can I do it?' Because having delivered an outputs based version of the course you then have to trust that the test criteria and examiners will have a compatible view.....

Now I can:

1. Drive above the standard
2. Get someone else to do drive to the standard
3. Have a reasonable go at a more outputs based approach

But then I do have a broader driving experience than most observers and spend half my professional life teaching in various forms. Even so, getting 2 and 3 to work together is a frickin nightmare, partly because I'm not a professional driving coach but also because the organization is structured around a half arsed imitation of a 70s police driving school, and I may like someone's flexible steering technique, but they will still be criticized when they drive for a different observer or examiners.

[akirk]

Yes, but that is the whole ethos behind the Observer regime. Look at it this way, if you have a GCSE you shouldn't be teaching at a GCSE level. I'm not sure what Observer training entails countrywide, but I doubt that significant time spent around people who a) can really drive and b) communicate how to assess driving issues is top of the list. It's fairly easy to say when someone is not pull-push steering, doing brake overlap and following the system of car control; it's much harder to work out whether not doing those things is necessarily wrong in this case. I'm not sure there are many who can do that now and probably far less who can coach how to do that. I fear that the IAM wil end up with petty diktats because those delivering SfL on the ground are, in general, wholly unequipped to deal with the 'do it your way' mentality.

perfectly put

I think that the IAM possibly is in a difficult place - to recognise what it should be doing is to recognise a future it might not be able to deliver - to change to a system of coaches who could deliver it is probably not cost effective for their current model - to change the model could kill the IAM

however it might be a good starting point to:

- acknowledge that output is the priority
- open up the discussion awareness of a number of possble inputs
- move away from the rigidily formulaic current approach

that could be possible with the current people, and might be steps on the right journey - where they take it from there is perhaps trickier...

Alasdair

[Silk]

Yes, but that is the whole ethos behind the Observer regime. Look at it this way, if you have a GCSE you shouldn't be teaching at a GCSE level. I'm not sure what Observer training entails countrywide, but I doubt that significant time spent around people who a) can really drive and b) communicate how to assess driving issues is top of the list. It's fairly easy to say when someone is not pull-push steering, doing brake overlap and following the system of car control; it's much harder to work out whether not doing those things is necessarily wrong in this case. I'm not sure there are many who can do that now and probably far less who can coach how to do that. I fear that the IAM wil end up with petty diktats because those delivering SfL on the ground are, in general, wholly unequipped to deal with the 'do it your way' mentality.

perfectly put

I think that the IAM possibly is in a difficult place - to recognise what it should be doing is to recognise a future it might not be able to deliver - to change to a system of coaches who could deliver it is probably not cost effective for their current model - to change the model could kill the IAM

however it might be a good starting point to:

- acknowledge that output is the priority
- open up the discussion awareness of a number of possble inputs
- move away from the rigidily formulaic current approach

that could be possible with the current people, and might be steps on the right journey - where they take it from there is perhaps trickier...

All this is irrelevant if you can't attract new members in the first place. You lot are focusing on the bits that aren't broken and ignoring the great big elephant in the room.

Advanced Driving in general has a poor image problem. Not helped by arguing about unimportant stuff such as who has the hardest test. What I want to know is: where does the IAM stand when it comes to inappropriate speed limits and road safety in general; how do you make AD cool, etc. - the important stuff, in other words.

You can start by getting rid of that awful GDE matrix. Normal people don't care about it (that's if they even understand it in the first place) - they just want to pick up a few tips on the way to becoming a better driver. That's assuming you can get them through the door to start with.

If people were to concentrate on getting out there and actually driving, instead of theorising in front of flip-charts, we may get somewhere.

[vonhosen]

Yes, but that is the whole ethos behind the Observer regime. Look at it this way, if you have a GCSE you shouldn't be teaching at a GCSE level. I'm not sure what Observer training entails countrywide, but I doubt that significant time spent around people who a) can really drive and b) communicate how to assess driving issues is top of the list. It's fairly easy to say when someone is not pull-push steering, doing brake overlap and following the system of car control; it's much harder to work out whether not doing those things is necessarily wrong in this case. I'm not sure there are many who can do that now and probably far less who can coach how to do that. I fear that the IAM wil end up with petty diktats because those delivering SfL on the ground are, in general, wholly unequipped to deal with the 'do it your way' mentality.

perfectly put

I think that the IAM possibly is in a difficult place - to recognise what it should be doing is to recognise a future it might not be able to deliver - to change to a system of coaches who could deliver it is probably not cost effective for their current model - to change the model could kill the IAM

however it might be a good starting point to:

- acknowledge that output is the priority
- open up the discussion awareness of a number of possble inputs
- move away from the rigidily formulaic current approach

that could be possible with the current people, and might be steps on the right journey - where they take it from there is perhaps trickier...

All this is irrelevant if you can't attract new members in the first place. You lot are focusing on the bits that aren't broken and ignoring the great big elephant in the room.

Advanced Driving in general has a poor image problem. Not helped by arguing about unimportant stuff such as who has the hardest test. What I want to know is: where does the IAM stand when it comes to inappropriate speed limits and road safety in general; how do you make AD cool, etc. - the important stuff, in other words.

You can start by getting rid of that awful GDE matrix. Normal people don't care about it (that's if they even understand it in the first place) - they just want to pick up a few tips on the way to becoming a better driver. That's assuming you can get them through the door to start with.

If people were to concentrate on getting out there and actually driving, instead of theorising in front of flip-charts, we may get somewhere.

The failing in people's driving tends to be rooted in the higher levels of the GDE matrix. If you really want to be a better driver the answer is in the GDE matrix.

You don't try to build a house in quick-sand.

[Silk]

The failing in people's driving tends to be based in the higher levels of the GDE matrix. If you really want to be a better driver the answer is in the GDE matrix.

Yawn.

The thing is, I'm now well into my second million miles of driving and have driven with more people than I can possibly remember in the AD community of varying, and usually very good, ability in as much as my humble opinion allows me to judge - the last time being last night (some of the members of this forum were also in attendance) and yet I still have absolutely no idea what the GDE matrix is all about and, to be honest, I don't really care. Apart from a reference to it in Roadcraft, I've never felt the need to discuss it with anyone in the AD community, and I see no reason to start now. IMO, it's just something for the academics - I'm too busy actually driving to be bothered.

[Gareth]

If people were to concentrate on getting out there and actually driving, instead of theorising in front of flip-charts, we may get somewhere.

I hope you don't mind if I point out the irony here - the people you appear to be suggesting are having an untoward influence on IAM thinking are exactly the ones who are doing what you suggest!

[vonhosen]

The failing in people's driving tends to be based in the higher levels of the GDE matrix. If you really want to be a better driver the answer is in the GDE matrix.

Yawn.

The thing is, I'm now well into my second million miles of driving and have driven with more people than I can possibly remember in the AD community of varying, and usually very good, ability in as much as my humble opinion allows me to judge - the last time being last night (some of the members of this forum were also in attendance) and yet I still have absolutely no idea what the GDE matrix is all about and, to be honest, I don't really care. Apart from a reference to it in Roadcraft, I've never felt the need to discuss it with anyone in the AD community, and I see no reason to start now. IMO, it's just something for the academics - I'm too busy actually driving to be bothered.

Perhaps you don't know 'because' you don't care.
You can't avoid it though even if you ignore it, it's all around you & who you are. As such it's an integral part of your driving.
It's why you do what you do & the answer to being what you want to be (if you want to be that is).
It's not easy but then most worthwhile things aren't.


If you (that's a figurative 'you' it applies to me as much anyone else) want a good solid finish you need to deal with the imperfections underneath, or they just keep blistering through the thin veneer that you apply to try & mask them. The more you paper over the cracks the more work you'll have to do stripping it down to get the end result you want. That or you give up & make do and it all just gradually decays while you do a plate spinning exercise of covering one crack while another is appearing ad infinitum.

[Gareth]

The thing is, I'm now well into my second million miles of driving [...] and yet I still have absolutely no idea what the GDE matrix is all about and, to be honest, I don't really care.

You don't really need to know about the GDE matrix if you remember that

1. attitude towards other road users is more important than the rules for sharing the road, and more important than vehicle control skills, once the basics of each have been mastered, and
2. people only properly learn and take to heart when the motivation for doing so comes from within.

If observers think about and act on the implications of these when they are trying to help others, they'll probably be more effective.

[JamesAllport]

My IAM group is piloting the new approach. I'm going to a meeting on Thursday to hear Mark Lewis explain it, I'll report back.

IMNVHO, this isn't about breaking the link between IAM and police driving, but about modernising it. Police schools no longer teach the stuff they used to teach in the way they used to teach it. As is well known, several senior instructors at Hendon changed their approach pretty radically when they were exposed to coaching-based techniques. It was a serving police instructor who first suggested to me that more planned overlap at lower speeds would improve, not detract from, my drive. And recently I've had several interesting conversations with observers, examiners and police instructors about the pointlessness, for want of a better word, of commentary that is just a competition to include as many of Chris Gilbert's stock phrases as possible, rather then giving any real insight into the driver's priorities and thought processes.

I am one of the handful (per Stressed Dave) of IAM bods who would be completely untroubled by a move to a coaching and outcomes based approach; mainly because that's what I do now. I've been assessed as an observer by the IAM powers that be three times in the last ten years, most recently a fortnight ago, and those all went all right. So I wonder whether rigid dogmatism is really what's demanded at the moment. Certainly, the focus of the IMI competencies for observers is on a well structured session that takes proper account of the associate's prior learning and goals, agrees a clear outcome with them for the session and checks at the end that they've achieved it. That's all much more like what Don Palmer and his fellow wiffly liberal coaching-druids do than traditional police teaching.


But then I had tofu for dinner last night, am currently wearing sandals, attend a church that has grown its congregation by 40% in the last five years and was always last in my school sports day races. So I suspect that will be enough for Silk to discount my input. Never let the facts get in the way of a good rant...

James

[waremark]

All this is irrelevant if you can't attract new members in the first place. You lot are focusing on the bits that aren't broken and ignoring the great big elephant in the room.

Advanced Driving in general has a poor image problem. Not helped by arguing about unimportant stuff such as who has the hardest test. What I want to know is: where does the IAM stand when it comes to inappropriate speed limits and road safety in general; how do you make AD cool, etc. - the important stuff, in other words.

Have you considered that it has an image problem precisely because of its failure to move with the times?

I don't think so. I think the main way society has changed with the times is away from driving as a potentially interesting or enjoyable activity. People nowadays regard it as a much less interesting life skill than how to use instagram and see no need or value in improving their driving. Actually, I think a higher proportion want to do it safely than would have given any thought to safety when I was young, but that in itself has been a move away from driving as a fun activity and therefore worth doing better.

[RobC]

All this is irrelevant if you can't attract new members in the first place. You lot are focusing on the bits that aren't broken and ignoring the great big elephant in the room.

Advanced Driving in general has a poor image problem. Not helped by arguing about unimportant stuff such as who has the hardest test. What I want to know is: where does the IAM stand when it comes to inappropriate speed limits and road safety in general; how do you make AD cool, etc. - the important stuff, in other words.

Have you considered that it has an image problem precisely because of its failure to move with the times?

I don't think so. I think the main way society has changed with the times is away from driving as a potentially interesting or enjoyable activity. People nowadays regard it as a much less interesting life skill than how to use instagram and see no need or value in improving their driving. Actually, I think a higher proportion want to do it safely than would have given any thought to safety when I was young, but that in itself has been a move away from driving as a fun activity and therefore worth doing better.

Interesting that some within advanced driving think it has a poor image, I would have thought the reverse would have been true.
I do agree with mark that people has much more diverse interests these days and 2, 3 and more car households are the norm where a car was a prized possession at one time. Cars are also easier to drive and have far more safety features. On top of that many drivers have an over favourable opinion of their own driving so do see how they could benefit from further training.
There is of course a massive market for training FLHs in the workplace, so with their Drive and Survive division, IAM should be expanding.

[jont]

AD is always going to be niche and I expect the age profile to remain pretty much as it is unless they can engage the majority of young drivers.

It's kind of depressing that even on an enthusiasts site (Lotus owners), road based AD comes a long way behind "limit handling" training, and the usual response when somebody falls off is to suggest a Car limits session, rather than learn how not to end up in that situation in the first place.

[RobC]

Interesting that some within advanced driving think it has a poor image, I would have thought the reverse would have been true.

Sadly the general public seem to link 'advanced driving' with the image of the IAM being all old farts in string back driving gloves and pedantic viewpoints on how a car's controls should be operated. A few trendier members would help.

There is of course a massive market for training FLHs in the workplace, so with their Drive and Survive division, IAM should be expanding.

The thing is that Drive & Swerve probably are making money hand over fist, but they don't examine to an agreed standard. I guess that they're a bit like you - improving the driving standard to hopefully DVSA tet pass (after it's dropped away over the years) and perhaps a bit above. But they aren't trying to train clients up to the civilian 'Roadcraft' standard. AD is always going to be niche and I expect the age profile to remain pretty much as it is unless they can engage the majority of young drivers.

Hi Dave

I agree that the perception is of a rather staid membership, however IAM has had a lot to say about KSI figures for 17 to 24 year olds recently, and if the IAM could penetrate this market and make IAM membership both fashionable and worthwhile to younger people AND keep these new members then there must be massive scope for increasing membership.

Fleet driver training does bring in advanced driving though not as you say to an advanced test level.
I'm not so sure about agreed national IAM test standards as there doesn't seem much in the way of checks on IAM examiners compared to DVSA examiners who are check tested every month.

Also not sure if drive and swerve/survive are a separate financial entity or whether profits can be distributed to benefit IAM membership and recruitment?

Rob

[akirk]

AD is always going to be niche and I expect the age profile to remain pretty much as it is unless they can engage the majority of young drivers.

It's kind of depressing that even on an enthusiasts site (Lotus owners), road based AD comes a long way behind "limit handling" training, and the usual response when somebody falls off is to suggest a Car limits session, rather than learn how not to end up in that situation in the first place.

Sadly this is not uncommon in many fields - where pushing oneself / improving / training etc. is seen as hard work, not fun...

an interesting case was pony club which suffered huge issues in losing boys at a certain age as the perception of ponies becomes very girly over a certain age - to a limited extent some of this was reversed by starting to explore polo / junior racing / etc. as fun ways of keeping boys involved...

and perhaps there is something to learn there - where is the incentive / the excitement / the fun in AD? If the image is all about driving slowly and boringly then you will never attract the younger driver - the reality is that the IAM discount for insurance never made any difference for me, so may or may not be an incentive...

maybe we need to ask those within the AD community (IAM / RoSPA / others) why they are involved - what satisfaction it gives them / what they enjoy / etc. - see what could apply to the younger driver...

Alasdair