Skill for Life - move your on-road abilities up a gear

[Dominic]

By total coincidence, I have just received my email / newsletter from the IAM with this info;

As an IAM member you can benefit from an award winning insurance service

One of the most successful and rewarding benefits available to IAM members is the 'members only' car and motorcycle insurance scheme provided by IAM Surety. Now in its sixth year the scheme goes from strength to strength and has recently won a prestigious award.

IAM Surety have just been voted the UK's No.1 insurer for value for money by Auto Express, beating all the UK's best known brands.

Auto Express recently released its much anticipated "Driver Power 2012" annual guide to buying and running your car. The poll had responses from 29,000 readers and listed their preferences in order of merit for car dealers, insurance companies and breakdown operators.



IAM Surety was voted the UK's number one ranking for VALUE FOR MONEY and was a close runner up for the overall top spot. Here's what Auto Express said:

"Our highest-ranked new entry finishes in an incredible second place. IAM Surety offers cover for paying members of the Institute of Advanced Motorists. The website claims 93 per cent of members will save if they switch from a rival - and the company is clearly delivering on this, as IAM Surety is rated as best for value. Second place ratings for communication, helpfulness and attitude and overall service cement its position above a host of big-name brands, creating one of the closest battles for the top spot that Driver Power has seen in years. 94.1% said they would renew their current policy."

Simon Best, CEO of the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) commented:

"IAM Surety being voted number one confirms my belief that our members get the UK's best value insurance and a first class service from Adelaide.

But you don't have to take my word for it. Register for a quote yourself and see the difference that being an IAM member can make to your premium."

[robin]

Despite best observation a sudden change in grip can always lead you into a slide/spin when you're not expecting it.

I don't know the details of "The Hendon Shuffle" but I am pretty confident that you have more chance of recovering from loss of grip with rotational steering than any push-pull technique.

Of course there may be other cases where rotational steering costs you some safety margin ... not sure.

Does the fact that you're supposed to do your braking before downshift mean you use a lot of neutral throttle to avoid coasting to a stop post-braking? I cannot imagine driving without engine braking into corners ... not because I'm racing about, just because I don't think I would cope with slowing down only to speed up again (effectively); surely it's also less energy efficient?

But I agree these are all minor issues; what they should focus on is observation - once they know you are making appropriate observations and decisions, why do they (or I) care about how you turn the steering wheel?

Cheers,
Robin

[campbell]

Despite best observation a sudden change in grip can always lead you into a slide/spin when you're not expecting it.

Yup. And based on a risk assessment, this is why I maintain rotational when in the Elise. And yet it's the car with the IAM sticker on it

[Noops]

Well done campbell, , I'm hoping to go on and do an advanced bike assessment next year as part our trip to Germany organised with my instuctor , funny enough the second I.d done my test on the way home the instuctor was straight into advanced stuff

[graeme]

Despite best observation a sudden change in grip can always lead you into a slide/spin when you're not expecting it.

I don't know the details of "The Hendon Shuffle" but I am pretty confident that you have more chance of recovering from loss of grip with rotational steering than any push-pull technique.

Of course there may be other cases where rotational steering costs you some safety margin ... not sure.

99.9% of IAM members (or anyone for that matter) don't have any hope of saving an unexpected skid on the road through anything but pure luck. The 0.1% who might catch a skid didn't learn how on the IAM course. The IAM will teach you how to free up brain cycles to think about outside temperature, recent weather conditions, damp patches, gradient, camber, surface conditions, drainage, shadows, wet leaves, paint, mud, oil, black ice etc etc. In the case of unexpected skids, neither prevention nor cure are 100% effective, but prevention is definitly the best thing to teach Joe Blogs. If you and the 0.1% who know the cure want to add stuff like weight transfer, slip angle and over/understeer response to that list of things in your planning then thanks to the IAM course you'll find you've got the spare brain cycles and the methodology to do so consistently and repeatably. (Eventually even the methodology itself becomes instinctive and everything just turns to Matrix code. )

As for using rotational steering on the road, I use it on carpark ramps and tight junctions and wherever more than 1 turn of lock is needed. I sometimes use rotational to grab an armful of lock, then shuffle back to center again more slowly. Mind you, if I didn't know rotational then pull-push would be just as quick in all situations on the road except the unexpected ones (which we've covered above), and it's preferable in most cases, and is definitely easier to teach, so I think it's the correct method to teach Joe Bloggs on the course. This idea that you'll be failed for using rotational where appropriate is not true and shouldn't put off Walshy's army of dedicated worshipers. It's not about learning to steer in a particular way, it's about learning to be in control without having to think so you can refocus your brain. Arguing over rotational vs pull-push is like looking at Bernini's David and arguing over which chisel he used.

Does the fact that you're supposed to do your braking before downshift mean you use a lot of neutral throttle to avoid coasting to a stop post-braking? I cannot imagine driving without engine braking into corners ... not because I'm racing about, just because I don't think I would cope with slowing down only to speed up again (effectively); surely it's also less energy efficient?

Can't really follow your thoughts on this, but no to coasting or slowing down only to speed up again. You arrive at a corner (or any other hazard) at the correct speed and in the correct gear, only you learn not to pick your gear until you've finished adjusting to a speed you're happy with. The idea being that you don't really know which gear you want until you've chosen the correct speed, and you're happy the conditions aren't changing again before you negotiate the hazard. You brake, downshift, then deal with the hazard in one smooth sequence with no gaps or coasting between stages. In fact, whether slowing or stopping completely, you're taught to complete every braking manouver in one smooth attempt with no sudden load transfers and no second tries or adjustments. On the pedal smoothly once, and off again smoothly once. In theory, if you have a quick load transfer or you get off the brakes and back on again, or coast along, then you judged something badly. Maybe you think you already do this (you generally dear reader, not you personally Robin), but do you do it well every time, and can you explain how you do it, and what a graph of your pedal-pressure over time should look like for maximum pace or passenger comfort or any trade off of the two? It takes a few weeks to unlearn current habbits, a few weeks to learn how to do it better, a few months to master, a few more to tweak to your own personal style, and then you file it under "don't need to think about that ever again" and you've freed up some more brain time, which gets recycled back into your planning and you just get better and better at it forever more.

But I agree these are all minor issues; what they should focus on is observation - once they know you are making appropriate observations and decisions, why do they (or I) care about how you turn the steering wheel?

Cheers,
Robin

Exactly! None of this is any arguement for or against doing the course. The real gold is discovering first-hand that the thing which frees up time for observation and planning is having a system for car control. Once you not only understand that in theory, but do it for real, you won't care what steering method you build into your system, except maybe for the test.

Like any curriculum, there's an element of teaching to the test. It's no bad thing, you've got the rest of your life to refine your system. This teaching to the test does lead to confusion over whether the official IAM message is "use pull-push because it's always better", or, "use pull-push because it works and it will get you through the test". It's definitely the second one, but you can still ignore that advice and pass. I didn't risk it personally. There's enough to think about. 90 minutes of driving with full commentary (optional, but extra challenging!) and as near to zero mistakes as possible is not a trivial task when you've only been using your new-found skills for a matter of weeks.