Advanced driving: IAM or RoSPA?

bigjl

Silver-Surfer wrote: »

Yes, I remember someone shamefully coming back with the exhaust back box under his arm claiming it just fell off after he'd done it.

Some people filled up other people's exhaust tailpipe with the power washer for a laugh.

It also had the side effect of making the vehicle sound like a big burly V8 muscle car on tickover, not that they were quiet on tickover, you could rattle windows of nearby houses on tickover. I once had a MOP complain about it when doing paperwork. Though in fairness that one run a bit rough, used to shudder on tickover more than most.

Still kept on going.

Is likely either living on in Mongolio or Cuba or has been scrapped. They scrapped loads back in 2011/12.

Robin-o'-the-Hood

bigjl wrote: »

And you base this opinion on what exactly?
Police, Fire and Ambulance staff get automatic IAM membership aswell as Rospa Gold.

I'm in the ambulance service. Never heard of this 'automatic membership'. How do I claim it??

wazza99

My experience of the IAM, having passed recently and obtained a F1RST is , i wish i hadn't bothered to be honest !

I joined for the £149 offer which included 1 year membership, instruction and test.

Everyone i met was pleasant enough, but having been driving for 25 years the instructor and myself both agreed there was very little to learn and it was more a case of preparing me to pass a test.

Sure enough i passed, on insurance renewal hardly anyone asks for IAM membership, if they do its almost negligible discount, Lloyd's Car Insurance didn't even want to know.

Renewal is something like £40 a year...

May by if your new to driving or a nervous driver or similar you may get something from it but all in all i found it very obvious stuff and other than some nice drives out of an evening of little benefit, sorry......

Rolandtheroadie

Robin-o'-the-Hood wrote: »

I'm in the ambulance service. Never heard of this 'automatic membership'. How do I claim it??

http://iam.org.uk/about/membership/exemptions

Quentin

Robin-o'-the-Hood wrote: »

I'm in the ambulance service. Never heard of this 'automatic membership'. How do I claim it??

It isn't "free" membership of the IAM, just as an Ambulance Driver you don't have to take the test.


But at £32.50/year you might find it a total waste of money!

Silver-Surfer_2

Quentin wrote: »

It isn't "free" membership of the IAM, just as an Ambulance Driver you don't have to take the test.


But at £32.50/year you might find it a total waste of money!

You might do, but if you fly a lot you may save that on airport parking.

Quentin

Silver-Surfer wrote: »

You might do, but if you fly a lot you may save that on airport parking.

Not really.


You can get much cheaper discounts on airport parking than those offered to IAM to members (Which seems to be a marketing exercise anyway as anyone can take advantage of the IAM rates: https://partners.aph.com/iam )


See MSE article: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-airport-parking


(And checkout the usual cashback sites too)

almillar

This IS OCD the only way you'll have that sort of awareness when drivig is if you're checking your mirrors every 3 seconds and each time you check your mirrors that's less time you're looking at the road in front of you.

You know nothing about advanced driving. You think your driving is 'good enough' but I bet it isn't.
If you did, you would know that it's not OCD, and you would also know that you don't look in the mirror every 3 seconds. That's the 'L' test you're thinking of. Advanced drivers will barely 'look' at their mirrors at all and will be using peripheral vision to see what's going on behind them, only looking when they expect change.

Everyone i met was pleasant enough, but having been driving for 25 years the instructor and myself both agreed there was very little to learn and it was more a case of preparing me to pass a test.

Good - this is the exception - you have developed good habits instead of bad, congratulations!

Silver-Surfer_2

almillar wrote: »

You know nothing about advanced driving. You think your driving is 'good enough' but I bet it isn't.
If you did, you would know that it's not OCD, and you would also know that you don't look in the mirror every 3 seconds. That's the 'L' test you're thinking of. Advanced drivers will barely 'look' at their mirrors at all and will be using peripheral vision to see what's going on behind them, only looking when they expect change.



Good - this is the exception - you have developed good habits instead of bad, congratulations!

Who taught you? As that's wrong.

Arfa__

I've no experience of the advanced driving tests, but I passed by IAM on a motorcycle last year. I had been riding about 3 years (driving over 20), and found the course really useful. From defensive riding (through road position), machine control (low speed control, counter steering etc), planning ahead to just general theory (e.g. on legal filtering). The social aspect with my local group (ELAM - East London) has been good too, made a number of new friends and had many good ride outs. In the future I'd like to head to some of the track days and off road stuff the group has planned.

Overall, I got many hours of tuition for the money (though on bikes, volunteers ask for a tenner towards petrol money for each session, which is fair enough). But yeah, had negligible insurance discount since passing.

Maybe one day I'll go for the advanced driving test too - dunno if it'll be as fun though...