Nigel wrote:I've spoken to my local group motorcycle guy about this, to see how it affects the IAM bike lads.
I've read him the replies etc, as he is very familiar with the document, and he was surprised by the replies.
Apparently the IAM lads are already recognised, ROSPA aren't (I'm not sure what the reasoning behind that is)
I can't tempt him onto here, but he doesn't seem to think this is any problem to us.
WARNING...LONG AND RANT MODE ON
Symbiosis
If I were advising the DSA I'd have told them to bend over backwards to get the IAM first 'cos they are the biggest, the most 'establishment', the longest-established, the best known, the most 'amenable', the most basic and the least threatening of advanced training providers...and one of the few (two?) that cater for most types of road vehicles.
And if I were the IAM's marketing consultant I'd have sold my corporate soul to be first DSA recognised provider in order to have that Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval and 'prove' that we were the biggest, the oldest, the best-recognised, most accessible...and most obviously desirable government partner...and therefore yours too, Mr Fleet Manager.
A true marriage of convenience. Now the DSA has (the big) one it can pick off the rest of the PTW advanced training market one-by-one in its own time at its own pace.
It will go the same way as advanced training in the car market has. The DSA's creeping expanding assertion of its own interpretation (which no training company to my knowledge was prepared to put its head over the parapet and challenge) that off-road 4x4 days, advanced tuition, race track schools, skid pan training sessions (even go-kart coaching for kids, if rumour is to be believed) etbloodycetera were the 'giving of driving instruction' 'under the Act' and therfore needed (by law) to be run by ADIs.
IAM 'Observers' (what a pathetic weasel word that is) seemed somehow to be exempt. Oh, 'Not doing it for the money', you say? More sophistry: punter pays IAM £85 for Skills for Life; IAM passes a bit to the local group and an 'Observer' from that group then trains the 'Associate', free at the point of service delivery. Note how cleverly none of the punter's money transfers directly to the 'Observer'; most sticks in Head Office coffers. (And, BTW, what contribution did it ever make to road safety allow any Tom, Dick or Harry to give tuition to any other T, D or H...but to permit only ADIs to do it for money?)
How, pray, is this different from Client pays Company X £85; Company X commingles this with its other income and uses said income to defray all its business direct and indirect costs - among which is a salary paid to the 'Trainer'? No direct fiscal connection between Punter and Client at all...smoke and mirrors!
But nobody (including me, to my shame) ever challenged it. I had a little fantasy sometimes of going down to the local cop shop with a client in tow and getting him to write us (the limited company, that was) the cheque for Advanced Driving Instruction right there in front of the duty sergeant and asking to be charged. 'Look, officer, I'm an Advanced Driving Whore - I'm doing it for money!'
But I didn't; I just couldn't be bothered. I focussed on advanced bike training instead...now that's going to be centralised and regulated and strangled and reduced to the lowest common denominator as well.
Its enough to make you weep.