Motoring: Improvements in Driving Standards
| Published date | 01 November 1962 |
| Author | John Gott |
| Date | 01 November 1962 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6203500608 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
JOHN
GOTT,
M.B.E.,
G.M.
ChiefConstable
of
Northamptonshire
Our Motoring Correspondent discusses an experiment which could
raise the general standard
of
driving and gives his impressions
of
an
outstanding car in general use in several police forces.
Motoring:
Improvements
in
Driving
Standards
Like many other people most intimately concerned with road
accidents, I am convinced that perhaps the best way of reducing them
would be to improve the general standard of driving.
So far, however, public interest seems concentrated rather upon
such palliatives as safety-belts, which, though excellent in themselves,
are really only a means of reducing the more serious results of
accidents, than upon a basic cause of them.
I was thus greatly heartened when spending a day with the British
School of Motoring's high performance course (to which I briefly
referred in the July-August issue), to find that both the instructors
and people taking the course regarded it primarily as a means
of
making them better, and therefore, safer drivers.
When the course was first announced, some teen-agers tried to
enrol with the obvious hope of thrashing an E-type Jaguar around
the Brands Hatch Circuit where much of the instruction was given.
Ex-Inspector R. F. Priestley, D.F.C., who really
"fathered"
the
course and who personally interviews every applicant, refused to
accept them, however, and they are not typical
of
high performance
course"
clients"!
Before an applicant is accepted for the course, hehas either to have
passed the test
of
the Institute
of
Advanced Motorists, or to take a
check-test of similar stiffness and must satisfy Mr. Priestley that he
intends to take the course seriously.
The course itself is based upon a minimum
of
15hours instruction,
during
which"
clients"
choose their car from a fleet consisting
of
Aston Martin DB4, Austin Healey 3000 and Sprite, MGA, Mini-
Cooper, Jaguar E type and 3.8, Sunbeam Alpine, Triumph TR4 and
Wolseley 6/110 with automatic transmission. Two of the 15 hours
are spent in driving between London where the cars are based and
the Brands Hatch circuit, where three hours are spent on the track
and one hour upon the skid pan. The remaining nine hours are
November-December 1962 400
To continue reading
Request your trial