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.