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I HAVE ALWAYS CONSIDERED MYSELF To Be a good driver (don't we all?), so you can imagine the first thought to cross my mind when the NSI company secretary informed me that I was booked to go on a driving course along with all the rest of the company car drivers (himself and the boss included).

ME! the 'retired' fire engine driver, go on a driving course? My reply was written on a piece of paper and – Oh! you've heard the joke. But there was no escape, I had to go … and I have to admit, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I suppose I should count myself lucky, I was originally taught to drive by the old West Riding Fire Brigade driving school. Every fireman was taught to the police advanced driving standards because our chief instructor had been through every driving course available and, in his opinion, the police had the best course.

Vehicles out of mothballs
But it wasn't that easy. The only vehicles available for teaching on were a small fleet of ex-wartime ATV's, (Auxiliary Towing Vehicles) that had been laid up in mothballs since the end of the war. I distinctly remember the one I was driving was built in the year I was born – 1945. It was a 2 litre Austin with a very robust 'crash' gearbox and boy did I play some tunes on that before the week was out. If you've seen the old war film"Ice cold in Alex", starring John Mills and Sylvia Sims on a war-time trek across the North African desert in an old army ambulance – an ATV was one of those, minus the Red Cross on the side and without the desert tyres.

For a young driver it was (pardon the pun) a baptism of fire.There was no heater (thank god it was summer), it was draughty with sliding windows that had to be kept open for hand signals because there were no indicators, screen washers had not been invented and there was only one very tired old windscreen wiper at the driver's side – and that had to be started by hand. The suspension was as soft as a brick, and the seating was a mesh of old steel coiled springs under a pad of horsehair ... and I had a bum like a Cherry by the end of the week. It had a huge steering wheel (no power steering) because you needed the leverage to pull the wheels round, the gear lever was a two and a half feet long solid steel bar with a tennis-ball sized wooden knob on the top and all the sensitivity of a pudding stirrer. A split screen about as big as a postage stamp was all you had to see through but that wasn't too bad when you consider that it only had a top speed of about 40mph – downhill with a tailwind.

Seatbelts? Don't make me laugh! Dual controls? The instructor had a big handgrip on the dashboard, a brake pedal and a very loud voice – and he needed them all.

In some respects the course was a week of hell, but I passed my test and celebrated by going out and buying a clapped out Ford Popular with roughly the same features as the ATV. Two years later I went through the whole lot again, this time on a pensioned-off fire engine, and emerged at the end of the week as a first line driver.

Late night callouts
The instructor (who died at a fire many years ago now) had the patience of Job and a neat line in roll-up fags. He was damn good at his job and gave every encouragement and praise for my efforts and turned the air blue with four-letter words when I fouled up. He also taught me to think and to observe and read the road and I will be forever grateful to him for starting me the right way, never more so than when it was my turn to pull bodies out of piled up cars when they first built the M1 ... the crashes usually caused by careless or stupid driving.

Today there are some strong implications that could affect us all in driver training. In the security trade we all tend to be high mileage drivers and therefore more open to the risk of accidents. Most of the engineers out there have to take their turn on night calls, and late night callouts after a day's work also increases the risk factor, but the real problem is that, in all too many cases, they have to be back on duty the next day after a night of broken sleep. It is not a good scenario, so where does that leave both the company driver and the boss that puts him there? There is a strong possibility of blame being passed around if you don't cover your back.

Young lads in company cars are notorious for taking risks to get to the job and get finished. As companies get bigger their area of work gets wider so the engineers find themselves with tight schedules and long distances to cover, (possibly organised by some clot in the office that gets the bus to work and only takes the car out on a sunny Sunday). Oh well, it is not their car and someone else is picking up the repair bills, so ill treatment of the vehicle and bad driving practice becomes the norm. But where does that leave the company that 'encourages' their drivers to meet impossible schedule? Wide open for prosecution, that's where!

Add to this the very sad fact that all too many young drivers are taught privately by people with bad habits and wrong information, which they pass on down the line. Many driving schools also take short cuts and teach people to pass their test rather than teaching them the proper way to drive. Bad habits, wrong information and pure inexperience piled onto a very tight work schedule is a classic recipe for driving disaster yet we still send them out in cars and vans that are capable of 'doing the ton' despite the fact that they are often overloaded, and give them schedules that a rally driver would fail to keep. The big question is – where does the blame lie?

Boss could take the blame
Nowadays, with the current climate of apportioning blame a boss may well find himself being held partially responsible for the accident even though he was in another town at the time. The implication is there for all to see:

'You can't blame the lad, he wasn't trained properly and you didn't give him time'. Perhaps I am cynical but when it comes to suing for recompense after the accident the young lad with a low wage and no property is a poor target. On the other hand, the company he drives for ...

Bad driving becomes the norm ... but where does that leave companies that ‘encourage’ their engineers to meet impossible schedules?

Need I say more?
There is another factor to consider – down time. This is the amount of time a working vehicle is off the road due to accidents or ill-treatment. And what about lost man hours? It's bad enough when the lad goes and collects a broken leg playing football, but to be laid up in traction for a month looking like a mummy with a whole collection of broken bones, lacerations and bruises and a written off company car is beyond the pale, and it could all probably have been avoided.

Accident rates are going up, Insurance premiums are close behind and we are all moaning about it, but what do we do? Blame it on the lad? The insurance companies are looking to reduce their losses and one of the theories is that if the drivers are properly trained and made aware of the risks they are taking the accident figures will come down, and so will the payouts. I can't see premiums coming down to match but it could stop them rocketing up.

These, then, were some of the points that were considered by the NSI when the driver training was thought about.

Two pupils per instructor
The driver training company brought in, DriveTech (UK) Ltd, of Crowthorne in Berkshire, were experts in advanced driver training and obviously very experienced in the corporate driving scene, they started with a presentation and slide show which gave us much food for thought and they provided no less than 14 expert instructors to take us out on the road with two people per instructor.

Our bad habits (even those we didn't know we had) and mistakes were spotted in very quick time and the instructors gave some excellent advice on how to avoid not only our own mistakes but also to 'see' and allow for the mistakes of others.

They made us brush up on observation and how to 'read the road' so that we could avoid driving into dangerous situations. They trained us how to be in the right position in the right gear at the right time and to take advantage of all situations as they arise without getting into danger. Once out in the car we had some long discussions on modern driving techniques and road conditions and I found the day educational, enlightening and enjoyable.

All points considered, if, by attending a course like this one, a driver can see and avoid getting involved in accidents, even if the fault is that of another road user (likely to be the lunatic who can't tell the difference between a motorway and the track at Silverstone) it has got to be money well spent.

There is less chance of injury, less time off work, less work lost, maximum no claims bonus and on top of that you learn how to get from point A to point B safely without wasting time and effort.

For the small installer your best route may be via the local Institute of Advanced Motorists who often meet at weekends. For the larger installer, sending your drivers on a course like this may reduce your downtime and increase your work output, but there may also be hidden benefits.

It is possible that you may be unfortunate enough to be the victim of the lunatic on our roads. These guys often have a pedigree of bangs, smashes and other assorted offences so to keep their licence and their ability to create mayhem on our roads they lie through their teeth and try to put the blame on you. In reality he comes out of a side road without stopping or looking, and crump! you hit him ... and then he tries to say you were speeding or not looking.

The fact that you and/or your team has attended a specific training course should go in your favour because the real skill is in knowing to adjust your speed for the conditions and to read the road, being aware of the possibility of a collision and so avoiding it.

You can be forgiven for calling the other driver all the names under the sun but you avoided an accident and that is what advanced driving is all about. It gives the driver a sense of satisfaction far beyond the 'I can get there faster that you' false satisfaction we tend to live on nowadays.