OF ADVANCED MOTORISTS
Scottish Charity SC023512 IAM Group 6168
You will go out on a one-to-one basis with a Member of the Group known as an Observer. Observers are volunteers who give up their spare time because they are enthusiastic about advanced driving and keen to help others to become advanced drivers. Their role is to give you a friendly assessment of each drive and constructive advice on how to improve. They are not professional instructors but they are all exceptionally good drivers who have passed the IAM test and have undergone thorough training on their role as Observers.
You will go out with your Observer usually either weekly or fortnightly, at whatever times suit you both, from a mutually convenient rendezvous point. We will try to allocate you to an Observer that lives near you so that you do not have to travel far to meet them.
Normally you will go out in your own car, though occasionally an Observer may take you out in his or her car to demonstrate a particular technique. Drives normally last 30 minutes to an hour at first, working up to 1½ hours, plus some discussion at the beginning and end. Normally we would expect you to be ready to take the test after not more than eight observed drives – up to seven with your Observer followed by a practice test normally with the Chief Observer – but the number of drives is adapted to your progress. If you are good to start with or make rapid improvements, we will be happy to recommend taking the test after only a small number of drives. If the practice test shows that you need to improve, we are happy to add a few extra observed drives. So the period over which you get help from an Observer is not of a fixed length but normally lasts between two and four months.
Between observed drives you will need to go out on your own to practise. Usually several short runs per week are sufficient to achieve a noticeable improvement.