Police driving standards and cars they used

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EasyShifter
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Police driving standards and cars they used

Postby EasyShifter » Fri Jun 03, 2016 8:17 am

ratty wrote:In my experience RoSPA's standards have always been consistent, although they may be struggling a little bit now.

RoSPA always had a lot fewer examiners and they also insisted that all examiners were class 1 qualified as opposed to the IAM's version which was hundreds of examiners who only had to be advanced drivers.

I was under the impression that the 'Class' designation was no longer in use in police driving schools - or am I mistaken?
Michael

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Mr Cholmondeley-Warner
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Re: RoADAR re-branding and new constitution

Postby Mr Cholmondeley-Warner » Fri Jun 03, 2016 8:28 am

It still is in some schools, but not the majority. I spent an illuminating meeting with Bob Smalley, the last "real" Chief Examiner, and the head of Wiltshire driving school, while that was explained to Bob :)

The RoADAR manager is performing the role now. I'm not sure if she's even taken an advanced test. They are reduced to this because nobody will take on the Chief Examiner role for the wage they are offering and the hours they expect.
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Re: RoADAR re-branding and new constitution

Postby Rolyan » Fri Jun 03, 2016 9:14 am

ratty wrote:RoSPA always had a lot fewer examiners and they also insisted that all examiners were class 1 qualified as opposed to the IAM's version which was hundreds of examiners who only had to be advanced drivers.

Are you sure that's correct? It's certainly not my understanding, which is that most if not all IAM examiners are serving or recently retired Advanced police drivers, the old Class 1 classification.

While that may change in the future as part of the IAM dumbing down program, the IAM and Rospa examiners are currently the same standard (and always have been), and often test both organisations.

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EasyShifter
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Re: RoADAR re-branding and new constitution

Postby EasyShifter » Fri Jun 03, 2016 1:47 pm

Rolyan wrote:It's certainly not my understanding, which is that most if not all IAM examiners are serving or recently retired Advanced police drivers, the old Class 1 classification.

I'm pretty confident that Class 2 was also advanced, the final grade being decided by the marks achieved.
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GTR1400MAN
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Re: RoADAR re-branding and new constitution

Postby GTR1400MAN » Fri Jun 03, 2016 7:07 pm

Found the new constitution online. So re-branding really does mean re-branding, all the way to a local level. I can see why some of the groups may be upset/concerned
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Rolyan
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Re: RoADAR re-branding and new constitution

Postby Rolyan » Fri Jun 03, 2016 9:53 pm

EasyShifter wrote:
Rolyan wrote:It's certainly not my understanding, which is that most if not all IAM examiners are serving or recently retired Advanced police drivers, the old Class 1 classification.

I'm pretty confident that Class 2 was also advanced, the final grade being decided by the marks achieved.

Yes, I think that's correct. But my understanding is that the IAM examiners are usually serving or retired Class 1. I'm questioning Ratty's assertion that there is a difference between the examiners in the two organisations. I don't think there is.

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Re: RoADAR re-branding and new constitution

Postby chriskay » Fri Jun 03, 2016 10:56 pm

I can say from personal experience that my RoADAR re-test a few years ago was conducted by an ambulance driver, although I suppose it's possible that he had previously been police.
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ratty
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Re: RoADAR re-branding and new constitution

Postby ratty » Sat Jun 04, 2016 5:47 pm

EasyShifter wrote:
ratty wrote:In my experience RoSPA's standards have always been consistent, although they may be struggling a little bit now.

RoSPA always had a lot fewer examiners and they also insisted that all examiners were class 1 qualified as opposed to the IAM's version which was hundreds of examiners who only had to be advanced drivers.

I was under the impression that the 'Class' designation was no longer in use in police driving schools - or am I mistaken?


Some schools still do it, some don't.

There are now lots of differences in police driver training. I'm sure that the Met police 'advanced' course no longer even uses manual cars, and you can do a course which includes pursuit or one that doesn't!

This is why Rospa was having problems recruiting the standard of examiner they historically wanted which were class 1s. There are so many different standards across the country. I'm sure that there was an experiment with standards about 30 years or more ago when a very small number (2 I think) of civilian police instructors were tried, but this did not work out.

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Horse
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Re: RoADAR re-branding and new constitution

Postby Horse » Sat Jun 04, 2016 7:46 pm

About 10 years back, IAM had two civvie bike examiners but who both had police-awarded Class 1 certificates.
Your 'standard' is how you drive alone, not how you drive during a test.

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Re: RoADAR re-branding and new constitution

Postby ratty » Sat Jun 04, 2016 9:50 pm

Rolyan wrote:
EasyShifter wrote:
Rolyan wrote:It's certainly not my understanding, which is that most if not all IAM examiners are serving or recently retired Advanced police drivers, the old Class 1 classification.

I'm pretty confident that Class 2 was also advanced, the final grade being decided by the marks achieved.

Yes, I think that's correct. But my understanding is that the IAM examiners[u] are usually [/u]serving or retired Class 1. I'm questioning Ratty's assertion that there is a difference between the examiners in the two organisations. I don't think there is.


Your comment above appears to support my comment! "are usually" surely that means that they aren't always?

I may be wrong, and if so I apologise, but I suspect that you may not know how the police driving class system works or worked.

A police officer who took an advanced course was graded as either fail or pass. If you passed you were awarded either a 1 or 2 classification. This was based on your marks during the course. The, I would say, large majority of police advanced drivers are or were class 2 s. I would say typically about 20% of advanced course students passed with a 1 classification. It used to often be the case that if an officer described themselves as 'advanced', what they meant was that they were a 2. Class 1s tended to describe themselves as 'class 1'. The problem people outside of the police have is that it is very difficult for an outsider to find out the actual details of a police officers qualifications. As a result of this, I have no doubt that some police officers claim they are 1s when in fact they are 2s. The same as some ex-police civilian instructors claimed that they were class 1s and /or police advanced drivers when in fact they were not. Their driving classification was that of 'instructor', not class 1 or 2. Just because someone worked in the traffic department (or driving school) does not mean they hold a 1 classification. I have no doubt at all that the majority of 'traffic' or 'roads police' drivers were and are the equivalent of class 2s. A 1 classification does mean the holder is an 'advanced driver'. 'Advanced driver' does not necessarily mean a 1 classification though. Historically RoSPA always just wanted class 1s, the IAM only required an examiner to be 'advanced', which can be either.

As someone has said, some examiners examined for both organisations, I did, but I was a class 1. The reality is that a candidate taking either test would not know one way or the other what the examiners grade is or was and it doesn't matter. The problem is that a serving or ex class 1 MAY look at things slightly differently to a class 2, but this can also be said about different examiners from different forces and if they were taught at different times.
Last edited by ratty on Sat Jun 04, 2016 10:18 pm, edited 2 times in total.


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