Ride Drive > Advanced Driver Training

Ride Drive on–road advanced driving courses are primarily focussed on developing the skills of the ordinary car driver to improve their road safety by developing their driving ability to a high standard. This page provides details of the ethos behind that objective and details of the skid pan driving and car control add–on extras that are available.

One of the first things you will notice is just how far ahead you will be asked to look, so much so it will actually make your eyes ache! You will also be introduced to a process called scanning, which is a pattern of vision used to collect and assess information about your road environment.

This is where you begin to learn of The System of Car Control, a simple and repetitive process that provides a strategy for the management of all road driving events. Through structured observation you will analyse the information whilst identifying elements of actual and potential danger. This will trigger a graded response, making preparation for the developing situation and all before reaching the site of the hazard.

By the use of The System of Car Control you will always be driving at the right speed with the right gear engaged and in the right position on the road. This means nothing is left to chance and you will always expect the unexpected.

Varying vehicle position within the carriageway, learning about vehicle stability and how to use gear ratios to increase vehicle control adds important factors to the mix. Steering methods, braking, hazard awareness and something called Acceleration Sense helps secure the safe use of a motor car on the road, as will creating enough space for others to harmlessly make their errors.

Giving You the Missing Bits

Very little of what you are given will ever come from a DSA driving lesson, and the techniques we provide can be collectively described as, The Missing Bits. This is about making progress on the road based upon the intelligent interpretation of that driving environment and it works beautifully.

The elements covered during our road courses are:

Development forward, peripheral and rearward observation
Tuning spatial awareness skills and sense of anticipation
Identification and management of actual as well as potential danger
Implementation of defensive road positioning and personal safety measures
Accurate assessment of bends, development cornering procedures, bend linking and rural road driving skills
Dynamic steering methods
Car stability management, including engine power management
Effective exploitation of gear ratios
Timing and application of braking techniques
Dynamic road positioning methods
Acceleration sense
Overtaking procedures, including identification and exploitation of opportunities
Third party perception awareness
Reduction in emissions by reduced burning of fuel
Conflict prevention and resolution

Car Control Sessions (Limit Handling)

Apart from looking at how to deal with developing situations on the road, as a Ride Drive customer you can learn about the dynamics of your car. This will be achieved by choosing one of our Advanced Driving Courses that incorporates a Car Control Experience, which some people like to refer to as, Limit Handling. These programmes provide further expansion and variation in driver skills to enable more effective road driving performance.

The content of the car control exercises always relate directly back to road driving scenarios and use off–road driving venues as these can be properly risk managed. They also provide enough open space in which you can safely lose control of your car as part of the learning experience.

Learning The Car as Well as Learning The Road

You will learn how maximum control is maintained through the smooth and well–timed operation of the driving controls. These will be functions completed whilst working in harmony with the vehicle and by feeling it along the road, as opposed to the more dispassionate process of operating a piece of machinery.

Many modern standard production cars now equipped with electronic safety aids. Whilst the intention behind fitting these is honourable, unfortunately the equipment will cover for poor technique, allowing drivers to gravitate to a level the car will let them get away with.

When converting to a high performance machine, and⁄or a vehicle that is both high performance and does not have computerised driver aids, previous reliance on such equipment will leave a driver with a lack of understanding of the car.

Turning Off all Those Electronic Safety Aids

When you participate in a Ride Drive on-road advanced driving course, and if your car is equipped with electronic safety aids, wherever possible we ask you to switch them all off. With us we get you to drive the car and not be driven by it, so you get total involvement with the machine.

If you can learn the car you will gain greater respect of the car. If you can also learn your road craft to a deep level you will have developed the ideal driver and vehicle partnership and therefore drive with greater safety.

The elements included in our car control sessions are:

Emergency braking
Emergency lane changing⁄collision avoidance
Tyre grip trade–off
Clutch–drag induced oversteer
Power lift oversteer (FWD & RWD)
Explanation and understanding cornering forces
Car stability management, including experience of mismanagement
Understeer and oversteer, prevention and control
Fixed–grip steering
Management of high frequency direction changes

Skid Control – Skid Pan Driving

The benefit of a skid pan driving course is very much misunderstood by the motoring public, as most believe that driver training on a skid pan, or skid car, will help them to get out of a skid situation should this happen to them on the road.

Ride Drive do not provide skidding courses as a single activity, but will always build a skid pan experience into an on–road advanced driving course. We involve the skid pan element as an extension to a road driving course to demonstrate how to drive on a slippery surface with such sensitivity towards the car so as not to skid. The object of the exercise is to develop finely tuned car control skills.

Learn how front wheel drive is different from rear wheel drive, for example, and how a skid happens, not because of a slippery road surface, but because the driver has demanded more from the car at that point than it is capable of delivering.

Elements within a skid pan session are likely to be,

ABS explanation and familiarisation
Tyre grip trade–off (extreme conditions)
Four causes of skidding, plus one
Power induced steering – steering by use of the throttle
Explanation and understanding of energy forces acting on a vehicle
Fingertip vehicle control
Understeer and oversteer prevention and control
Low–grip braking and deceleration techniques
Collision avoidance
How to have a better crash

Advanced Driving Courses for Young Drivers

Scientific studies have revealed evidence there are issues with young drivers concerning mental development which this age group somewhat predisposed to becoming involved in road collisions. This includes a lack in danger awareness as part of the brain that is concerned with rationalisation does not fully develop until the ages of early to mid twenties.

Whilst this may be so it is also true this high–risk age group often find themselves in situations with which they cannot cope. Therefore, some of the blame does come down to inadequate training.

This is hardly surprising when you consider the requirement to take a driving test came into force in 1935 and the skills taught to drive a car have changed very little since, certainly not by comparison to the development of vehicle performance and increased traffic volume.

The Ride Drive Young Driver Safety Course delivers techniques that are of a much higher calibre to those covered during the run up to the driving test. The training provides the missing bits; the real life stuff that actually helps drivers to survive out there in the cold reality of the everyday road environment.

Motorway Driver Training

It is estimated that as many as one in five motorists will avoid driving on motorways. The main reason given is the sense of inadequacy, which must translate to insufficient training. Even driving instructors themselves do not get any formal practical driver training and therefore many of them are lacking in specific knowledge.

Ride Drive motorway driver training, is delivered by people who have actually been trained in motorway procedures as they have worked within this hostile environment throughout their professional lives. They do, therefore, have a wealth of knowledge and experience to pass on.

Speed Awareness Courses

It may be that you are more familiar with speed awareness courses being offered by police forces as an alternative to prosecution. However, such procedures are normally offered only to those who have exceeded a prescribed limit by small margins.

Drivers who are caught for speeding by greater amounts will be dealt with by way of fixed penalty notice, up to a point, or for serious offences will have their cases referred to the law courts. The same court action is applied where a latest speeding offence is likely to amount to 12 or more points on a driving licence, which usually translates to a term of disqualification.

However, Ride Drive offers Speed Awareness Courses to be completed before you go to court, and this can help you keep your driving licence, even though you would normally be looking at being disqualified from driving.

Conclusion

Whatever you drive, and whatever your previous experience, Ride Drive advanced driving courses will provide you with the defensive driving techniques to improve your road safety and help you get more enjoyment from your car.

About Our Advanced Driving Courses

We all Start our Driving Careers in the Same Way

Ride Drive On–Road Advanced Driving Courses