Iam-ing higher

Having just read Richard Meaden’s column on driving standards, I have to say I wholeheartedly agree that those in the UK have dropped. I am in a position to have seen the decline from a police perspective, starting in 1989, becoming a response driver in 1993 and then Class 1 Advanced in 1996. You soon get a different perspective of standards when you are on a run in an armed response vehicle from one side of London to the other. It’s scary.

Now, I might have put this down to in-car entertainment and mobile phones reducing the attention of drivers, but recently the culprit became crystal clear: the instruction that people are receiving and the tests they must pass are not fit for purpose.

The evidence: My wife volunteered me to help some newly qualified drivers at her place of work. The first could not park, and a ten-minute drive showed she could not steer without the car snaking across the road, could not brake or change gear without giving me whiplash, and had no concept of positioning or dealing with roundabouts. Two two-hour sessions gave her the confidence she needed, opened her eyes to the pleasure of driving and also solved that initial parking issue. It is truly worrying that the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency is willing to accept such low standards.

My daughter is soon to take her test. However, her instructor is an ex-colleague, a Class 1 Advanced driver, and at this point she is well beyond what her test requires. I will then pay for her to do Pass Plus and an IAM course, a skidpan course (if I can find one), plus some high-speed driving. Unfortunately she has inherited

her father’s love of cars and speed, but she will at least know how to do it correctly and safely. Stuart Elliott