Off-road Incident Avoidance Coaching

This half-day course is highly beneficial for experienced business drivers wishing to reduce their chances of getting caught out by some of the most commonly occurring road incidents.

Driving incident avoidance comprises three distinct elements:

Skid Cause & Prevention

It’s not just ice and snow that cause skids. Skids occur in a wide variety of road and weather conditions, and have numerous causes, but what they all have in common is that, for most drivers, they happen quickly and seemingly without warning. And more often than not the resulting incidents are serious.

Skid Cause & Prevention is a crucial element of this course, and uses the Skid Car system, which is a conventional saloon car mounted on a hydraulically-adjustable frame, allowing the trainer alongside the driver to vary the amount of grip available to both front and rear wheels at the touch of a button. By doing this the trainer can emulate front wheel, rear wheel and four wheel skids at relatively low speeds and in complete safety.

The focus of the course is prevention rather than cure. Our instructors spend considerable time explaining how and where skids happen, and the techniques for preventing them happening in the first place. Once this aspect is understood, we progress to the special techniques required to defuse the potentially dangerous situation that the skid represents.

ABS Training

Although Antilock Braking Systems are widely fitted to cars sold in the UK (it was a mandatory fit on all new cars sold from mid 2005) many drivers, as well as those selling them the cars in the first place, still do not fully understand its operation and benefits for vehicle control.

In this section of the course we aim to explain the theory and put it into practice….at realistic speeds and in a safe environment. Drivers are invariably surprised to find out that ABS does not make braking distances shorter or provide the universal panacea for extricating themselves from trouble.

What they do gain however is the confidence to use the system in the appropriate circumstances and get the best from it when it counts most.

Confined Space Manoeuvring

It’s a well known fact that the vast majority of insurance claims derive from low speed contact with other vehicles or static objects, and in the case of ‘self insured’ fleets, these are the sort of costs that come straight off the bottom line.

Most drivers are reluctant to admit that their low speed manoeuvring and parking skills leave something to be desired but Drive & Survive has devised a form of ‘parking by numbers’ routine, which will have even the most diffident drivers beaming with pride!

This driving incident avoidance course is a highly cost effective way of achieving driver improvement.

 “…… just a short note to pass my thanks to your team who made our event on 13th/14th November very enjoyable and very educational.  A lot of us are experienced drivers, but we still learnt a lot of new and valuable information from the instructors who did an excellent job on both the track and class-room sessions.

I'll have no hesitation in recommending your programmes to other BP colleagues.”

John Allan
Truck, Marine & General Industrial Technology Manager
BP Global Lubricants Technology