New data from the IAM Motoring Trust shows it takes an average five year old car a minute and a half for the engine to warm up and the most efficient way to warm it up is by driving it. Reversing out of a space when the car’s engine is cold uses around 20 to 25 times more petrol in the first few seconds than it does when warm. If you do this 10 to 12 times a week that adds up to a cost of about ?100 a year, not to mention the increased wear on the car’s engine.

Reverse parking is also usually safer and is advised in The Highway Code. Reversing into somewhere you can see (a parking bay) rather than reversing out into somewhere you can’t see (often a line of moving traffic) is much safer. It is also easier to control a car going forwards than backwards when it is first started, and attempting a potentially high risk manoeuvre such as reversing when you have just entered a car and are not concentrating fully, is more dangerous.

From a security point of view, reversing close to an object such as a wall can make it more difficult for thieves to gain access and, if you need to leave a parking space quickly for personal security reasons, driving forward provides you with better acceleration and improved vision.

Many drivers find it helpful to lower the left (nearside) mirror to provide a guide to your lateral position. Another option, where all the parking spaces run in parallel rows, is to line your car up with the space in front and reverse back in a straight line. This should automatically position you in the centre of the space - but do remember to look where you are going!

This article has been reproduced with the permission of the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists)

An 11 year licence endorsement is just one of the many consequences of a drink offence, although this isn’t widely known.    There is no foolproof way to check your Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) limit before you get behind the wheel, so the IAM’s message to motorists is: if you’re going to drink, don’t drive.  And if you are going to drive, don’t drink.

Previous surveys have shown a staggering 50 per cent of Britain’s 32 million motorists have owned up to driving after drinking alcohol.

“Just one” is often followed by another, especially if people are buying rounds of drinks. And a generous round-buyer may get you a large wine or a double measure of spirits without you realising. This may be a well-meaning gesture, but it could put you over the limit.

Your ability to drive can be affected by even a modest amount of alcohol, at any time of year. Even if you are actually within the limit, alcohol still affects your judgement.

If you’re driving abroad on a summer holiday, alcohol limits vary for each individual country, with some countries even having a zero alcohol limit. But the general rule to be safe no matter where you are driving remains: don’t drink and drive.

Why not offer to be the (non-drinking) designated driver?   You’ll save money and you’ll be popular with everyone else you’re giving a lift home to.

If you drive at twice the legal limit, you are 30 times more likely crash, and a long sleep or a large cup of coffee after drinking the night before may not be the quick fix you expected to allow you to safely get behind the wheel.

There could be sufficient alcohol in your system to still push you over the legal limit for many hours after you have stopped drinking. So remember to leave at least twelve hours between the “bottle” and the “throttle”.

This article has been reproduced with the permission of the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists)

Regardless of your choice of vehicle, there are techniques you can use to save fuel and at the same time minimise your impact on the environment. These techniques are part of the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists) course, which has delivered eco-benefits through fuel efficiency methods since the IAM was established in 1956.

Ask yourself: “Do I really need to drive?”: Short journeys that are generally less than two miles cause the most pollution and are inefficient in terms of fuel consumption. A straining cold engine will produce 60 per cent more pollution than a warm one. Walk or cycle where possible instead.

Plan your route: Take the most direct route and go at off-peak times if possible to save fuel and time. Sitting in congestion means you are often doing zero miles per litre. Consider car sharing, Park and Ride schemes or public transport.

Have your vehicle serviced regularly: Inefficient, under-serviced engines can reduce fuel economy by 10 per cent or more. Catalytic converters are environmentally friendly - but only if they are properly maintained.

Check your tyres: Correct tyre pressures reduce wear and helps fuel economy. Under-inflated tyres need replacing more often (itself an environmental problem) as well as being dangerous. Make a point of checking them at least once a week.

Obey the speed limits: Try to ‘feather’ the throttle when you reach your cruising speed. Doing 56mph uses 25 per cent less fuel than 70mph and a smoother driving style can bring significant fuel saving.

Reduce the drag factor: Remove roof racks and carriers when they’re not in use as well as unnecessary boot luggage and heavy accessories.

Driving with the window open and using air conditioning increases drag and lowers fuel economy, so use the vent settings instead.

Buy green fuel: And use less of it. If you get stuck in traffic, switch off the engine. Find out if you can buy low sulphur diesel (city diesel) or cleaner petrol (low sulphur/aromatics) locally.

Use “accelerator” sense: Save fuel by planning ahead and reading the traffic in advance to gently join a queue rather than braking suddenly as you hit traffic.

Reverse when you park: The engine will be cold and at its most fuel inefficient when you start it. If you can drive away without having to reverse when the engine is cold, you will save fuel and have better
visibility.

Watch your levels: If you fill your fuel tank up to the brim, you may be carrying around additional fuel which in turn means that you have more weight on board than is necessary and this will itself reduce fuel efficiency.

This article has been reproduced with the permission of the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists)

The A pillar is the engineering term for the area dividing the windscreen and the windows. In recent years the A pillars have become sturdier in a bid to improve the structure of the car as a whole.

In response, car designers have made them thicker. But the A pillar has created a blind spot which campaigners have pointed out obstructs the vision of thousands of drivers.

A study commissioned by the Department for Transport (DfT) from the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) found that, while the A pillar can obscure vision, there is rarely only one factor that contributes to an accident.

The study therefore found that there was not enough evidence to suggest that changes to current legislation regarding A pillar design would be of benefit. That means the onus is on drivers to cater for possible A pillar restriction. So what should we do?

More than 90 per cent of the information from the car’s external environment is viewed by the driver through the windscreen and windows. So, firstly, you should be aware of the potential restriction the A pillar may cause in your ability to scan the road ahead.

It is vital to check that nothing is hidden from view by the A pillar before making a manoeuvre. Pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists are easy to “lose” in the space behind a pillar. Make sure you take time to look around the pillar, not just take a quick “snap-shot” look which could allow a cyclist to be hidden from view.

As you are driving in a straight line in approach to a junction, look further ahead, and scan to the left and right on your approach. That way you will see things through the windscreens before they become “lost” behind the pillars.

Remember - good, all round vision is vital. The onus is on you, as the driver, to see what is there.

More information about the DfT study Click here <http://www.dft.gov.uk/rmd/project.asp?intProjectID=11835>

This article has been reproduced with the permission of the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists)

Unfortunately, some drivers over-react to emergency service vehicles travelling on “blues and twos” (blue lights and two-tone horns). This is often because they don’t hear or see the emergency vehicle until it’s too close, and then take drastic action to get out of the way.

The IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists) says that good driving practice will alert you early to emergency vehicles: regular mirror checks (side and rear) for example, and keeping the windows slightly down around town, so you can hear sirens approaching.

Don’t panic and just brake. It’s natural to want to react. But instinctively putting your brakes on immediately in front of an emergency vehicle doesn’t help: it slows the progress of the emergency vehicle and jeopardises other road users.

Think about where you are on the road. You should deal with the problem in the same way that you deal with any other potentially hazardous driving situation. What is the safest option available to you?

Don’t cross red traffic lights or speed to get out of the way. The emergency driver has training and legal exemptions that you don’t have. Bus lanes and box junctions can be problems too, but let them resolve the problem of breaking the rules - not you.

If you are moving it may well be that you can continue at a reasonable pace and the emergency vehicle can follow you out of a pocket of congestion (such as a blocked one way system). In that scenario, attempting to pull over too soon, or slow down, might just cause a needless obstruction and so hamper the progress of the emergency vehicle.

Indicate your intentions clearly Don’t pull in opposite other obstructions, such as centre bollards. If you are thinking about pulling over across an entrance to a school or factory, you may be unwittingly preventing the emergency vehicle reaching its destination. And do think about where you are asking the emergency driver to overtake you - on the brow of a hill or a blind bend can be placing him or her in a very difficult position.

Get out of the way as soon as you can do so in safety.

This article has been reproduced with the permission of the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists)

Remember too that some cyclists, particularly younger ones, have never driven a car, and so don’t recognise the problems that they can cause car drivers. In an accident involving a car and a cyclist, whoever is to blame the cyclist will always be the more vulnerable to a serious injury.

These tips for motorists were prepared by the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists) with the National Cycling Strategy Board to avoid adding to the many cyclists killed or seriously injured each year.

- Cyclists don’t have steel armour round them like we do. Passing them at speed within a foot of their elbow may feel perfectly safe from where you are, but it is very disconcerting when you are the cyclist.

- In traffic, make sure that you don’t cut up a cyclist who is about to pass you on the near side. Don’t try to cut across a cyclist when you need to turn left at a junction. Wait behind the cyclist until the cyclist has either turned left or passed the junction.  And before you turn left after sitting at a red light, check your nearside mirror to make sure there isn’t a cyclist moving down the inside.

- Park with care and prevent any passengers from opening a door until you are sure that there is no cyclist coming up on either side. Likewise, check over your shoulder to see there’s no cyclist approaching before opening the driver’s door.  There might be one in your blind spot.

- Cyclists often ride at some distance from the kerb to avoid drains and potholes.   Remember that their ability to signal is limited compared to ours, so try to anticipate what they might do from the position they have taken on the road.

- Advanced stop lines are for cyclists alone and should be respected, so leave the space between the two sets of stop lines empty, whether or not cyclists are occupying it when you arrive. If you see a cycle lane ending, road space is more scarce and that in turn can make a cyclist more vulnerable.

- Remember to use all your mirrors with extra care before changing direction when there are cyclists.  Pay particular attention on roundabouts, where many accidents involving cyclists happen.

This article has been reproduced with the permission of the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists)

Many drivers tend to brake too late and too hard. Or arguably less dangerous, but equally annoying, some drivers have the habit of “comfort braking ” - touching the brakes to enable themselves feel better, even if they have no intention of slowing the car to any measurable degree. They do so in the belief that they are being careful drivers.

It is better by far to learn to read the road ahead. Not only do you get early warning of developing hazards, you can respond by adjusting your speed using only your throttle.

Have you ever seen a “cascade” of brake lights ahead of you? An advanced driver will judge the speed and distances involved and, having left a decent gap, be able to follow in safety by letting the speed “fall away” and so avoiding the need to brake.

Think too about your positioning on the road. Can you maximise your forward view by putting the vehicle in a slightly different position on the carriageway? This should not be an abrupt repositioning, but a smooth change in your line to enable you to see ahead that little bit better. Careful adjustment of road position improves the view ahead, particularly through corners.

Applying these techniques will also help save fuel.

This article has been reproduced with the permission of the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists)

You can improve fuel consumption and gain the environmental benefits of advanced driving by lifting off the accelerator earlier on your approach to traffic lights etc, and therefore reducing your braking at the end,because you have already lost speed.

Acceleration sense is about how you vary your foot pressure on the accelerator pedal so you don’t have to brake as often or as hard.

Surprisingly to some, one of the pillars of fuel efficient driving is accelerating briskly to a safe cruising speed and then taking the highest gear.

The longer you can avoid braking, the more you are using the momentum you’ve built up. It means thinking a bit further ahead of where you are. Most drivers tend to go straight from accelerator to brake - and that is when fuel consumption suffers.

Plan your arrival at roundabouts so that you decelerate for a longer period in a higher gear.  That way you may not have to stop by allowing other traffic to clear before you get there.

And lastly, think long and hard about that overtake. Not only do you have to be entirely sure you can get past safely (important, to put it mildly) there is also the possibility that you are not gaining much in journey time. Advanced driving is all about thinking ahead, sometimes further than you can see.

This article has been reproduced with the permission of the IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists)

There are some reckless young tearaways on our roads for whom there is no excuse. Many of them cast their mayhem wider into a criminal lifestyle.

Fortunately they are few, and most young drivers are not like that. The vast majority of them want to be safe. But even these youngsters then still crash far more than the rest of us. Sometimes they make tragic headlines of multiple deaths.

As adults, it is tempting to seek in every crash a way to just ‘blame the kids’, and perhaps begin to wonder whether they should be allowed to drive at all. But there are specific handicaps that we, as adults, give to young drivers which increase their crash risk and contribute to the carnage that disturbs us.

This is not to say we should find excuses for the novices who crash - they need to be encouraged to take more responsibility for themselves, not less. But along with this, and more importantly, we can not expect to reduce the problem if we deny the part that adults play in causing it. No matter how horrific the symptoms may be, we should not be blind to the underlying causes.

Along the complex and confusing journey that young people have into modern adulthood, the ability to drive is one of the most constructive elements. Mobility and independence is central to many healthy aspirations and opportunities. This makes it even more important that we help, not hinder, their progress and their ability to drive properly.

Let’s look at three handicaps created for young drivers.

1. We constrain children’s experience of risk in their most formative years
There is growing concern that shielding children from risk - especially in their play - stunts their natural development right through to adulthood. They are less aware of how to identify and deal with risks, and less prepared to take self-reliant responsibility for themselves. This has clear implications when they come to drive.

For dread of the slightest graze, we ban everything: ball games, tree swings, snowballs, cycling, running in the playground, and even skipping and conkers. And we thrust our head deep into the sand on the damage that this ’safe from harm overload’ is actually doing.

One of the most striking signs of our times is the extraordinary shrinkage in the ‘radius of freedom’ that most kids now have to venture beyond the garden gate. Many are barely allowed out on their own well into the teen years. But filling them with fear is more about the adult’s own peace of mind than the presence of actual surrounding danger. Play that is fondly prescribed, provided and supervised is negative for their development into capable people.

The ‘cotton wool culture’ of risk aversion and dependence, instead of risk awareness and self-reliance, is an unhealthy lesson for every stage of their life. Alongside frustration at the bewildering rules, it lays down the assumption in their mind that someone else will always look after them.

Interestingly, with this over-protection we have also seen a steady deterioration in behaviour and discipline, notably apparent in schools. Perhaps it would help us understand what we are doing if we see the energies of childhood and adolescence as a balloon that will pop out somewhere else when it is squeezed.

Recent work on ‘frontal lobe development’ is also enlightening. This is the finding that the part of the brain responsible for key functions, such as hazard anticipation and risk management, is not fully developed until age 25. These functions have an obvious application in driving, and also help to counter the over-confidence that comes from the ease with which most youngsters learn physical car control.

It is emerging from trials that the ability of this part of the brain can be improved with training and experience - which is excellent if the training is made available. But it also poses the possibility that the converse can happen too, and that shielding children from risk might inhibit the natural process and pace of brain development, leaving youngsters with even less function than they ’should’ have, and contributing to poor risk management ability.

Clearly, over-protection is a social and cultural trend, but driver training must address this handicap if we are to turn out safe young drivers.

2. We give them fictitious stereotypes of adults, males and drivers
Images of the adult world used in entertainment and marketing often bear little relation to reality. But careful presentation makes unlikely celebrities and fictional characters look like reasonable aspirations and role models. Especially in this fantasy, masculinity is defined as various blends of strong, fearless, daring and arrogant. And cars and driving are often employed to make the point.

For young boys, this taps straight into the raw urge for action-oriented challenges that nature has wired into the male brain. The images are designed to be compelling and to meet with approval in peer groups - who are equally confused about who they are and how to grow up. When they need guiding lights, these are false beacons that point to the rocks.

We see them hooked into the fantasy as the strutting bravado becomes a naked parade of the anxieties and self-doubt that it tries to keep secret. But this is difficult for a teenager to fathom from the inside, and even harder if there is no guiding adult male at home or close by to make sense of it all.

Girls tend to be less affected by the action-stereotype. The yearning in the female brain is to socialise instead. So boys tend to be drawn into ‘heroic quest’ computer games more seriously than girls, while the advent of chat-rooms has suddenly rocketed the hours that girls spend online. Even today’s ’so cool’ techno-kids are still nature’s children, living out predictable roles.

At the same time though, we also see an overlap where some girls seem intent on copying the worst male behaviour, such as binge-drinking, creating a bizarre notion of competition and equality.

But still, and despite what they would have us believe, a lot of young people’s behaviour is guided by what they believe an adult is. And this is definitely something they learn mainly from adults.

In fairness, we should not be surprised that saturating children with an alchemy of distorted stereotypes leads them to strange assumptions about what society wants and expects from them as they grow up. They don’t see through fantasies as well as experienced adults can, and warping their view of the world makes a lot of things more difficult.

Again, this is a handicap created by social factors, but especially for young males, driver training must expose the stereotypes. This begins by recognising the specific flawed beliefs that create macho driving styles, and then carefully dismantling them. The action-impulse doesn’t need to be outlawed, it is the backbone of male achievement, but it does need direction.

3. We withhold the most critical safety skills when we teach them to drive
This is the worst adult delinquency of all - the way we train young people to drive. More than anything else, this ensures high risk when novices suddenly go solo.

There is now a broad and overdue acceptance that “fundamental reform in how we teach people to drive” is urgently needed. The traditional focus on physical car control does not impart the skills required to drive safely. Years of statistics bear testament.

This is no startling revelation, of course, it has been known for generations. The maxim, “You really learn to drive after passing the test”, isn’t an urban myth or something that teenagers dreamt up to torment us. It is a rational adult judgment on the training system borne of long experience - known for decades, yet still allowed to be true.

There are other beliefs implanted into young minds that compound the neglect, such as:

• ‘Driving skill is about good car control, especially at speed’
• ‘Good car control will let me handle any situation’
• ‘The L-test and a bit of practice covers the skills needed for safe driving’
• ‘Passing the test demonstrates that an acceptable standard of safety has been reached’.

And we should not protest that we don’t directly tell them these things. Again, these are not beliefs the youngsters invent. They are absorbed from the adult ether, and the training system allows them to thrive when it should be doing surgical removal.

In reality, we have been keeping big secrets, because we know that:

• real safety is in how drivers think - before they commit to physical actions
• focusing on car control will inevitably incite red-blooded young males to prove themselves
• novices are left to discover the most critical safety skills for themselves, as best they can on their own. And without being told what the skills are, or that they are necessary
• young drivers need to become far safer than their test performance.

The Essential Thinking Skills proposal to the Driving Standards Agency has already outlined a start-point for introducing thinking skills into driver training. It recommends the inclusion of:

• Beliefs - that are true (!) and provide a safer mindset from the beginning
• Sense of danger - to identify risk in terms that drivers can trust and control
• Driving skills framework - to explain how and why thinking skills are so critical
• Learning from experience - to implant a naturally increasing safety ability
• Specific techniques to improve risk assessment and control in real traffic situations.

To some extent, these are gained over time by experienced drivers. But the mystery box can all be disclosed and taught to learners and novices at the outset.

These are also the skills that enable drivers to take responsibility, and this removes another key blockage. Without knowing how to do it, the call to ‘take responsibility’ is a hollow demand that drivers will always struggle to meet. Car control is a poor illusion of being actually in control of driving situations.

Significantly too, the lack of training in the mental skills leaves novices more exposed to picking up unsafe driving practices from family or friends, or bowing to influence from peer passengers. With little grasp of how to assess risk as they drive, there is no benchmark against which to judge the folly of inattention, drink, drugs, fatigue, wrong speed, or simply acting the fool. They are also more exposed to the dangers created by other road users.

Novice drivers are at the point of being most dependent on what they are shown. And their fate is currently skewed by the yawning chasm in the training they receive.

Conclusion
Through honest eyes, the main reasons for the carnage among novice drivers are rooted in what adults do. We deny youngsters healthy encounters with risk, give them a distorted picture of adulthood, and withhold skills we know they need to have. In our nurturing of future generations, this is simple neglect.

Although some of the handicaps for young drivers are created in society, outside the realm of driving, this does not put them beyond reach. It simply underlines that driving is part of life, and that society tilts the pitch against many things that people need to do.

In driver training, our adult responsibility should lead us to:

• recognise how novice drivers are actively steered into high risk
• replace false beliefs with ones that will help young people understand and cope more successfully with the demands of driving. This can and should start at pre-driving age
• reveal the full scope of driving skill, and show how it really works
• teach the specific thinking skills that are the core of drivers being able to take care of themselves.

The necessary reform of driver training must accept the responsibility for creating safe drivers. The system design should not include restrictions and law enforcement as an easier alternative, or to cover over known and avoidable failures in the training. Our job is to work on the causes of the problem, not just punish the symptoms. And no one wants a rising generation that is primed with resentment.

Many novice drivers themselves sense that something is wrong, and would be keen to learn about the ‘real driving’ that confronts them after the test. Young people do want to be skilled, and value the boost that comes from being regarded as such.

The adult responsibility is to take this opportunity, and ensure that fundamental reform is ‘fundamentally different’ from the stream of past measures that have made no impression on the casualty graph.

Stephen Haley runs The Skilldriver project and is author of the book “Mind Driving” and can be contacted at shaley@advanced-driving.co.uk

Road safety is not a national problem – it is an international problem. SAFEX 2008 asks the question: what are the world’s governments doing to address this global catastrophe?

SAFEX 2008, organised by road safety experts IVV and sponsored by the DIA, is the only world road safety conference to target driver trainers and driver education and provide a truly international perspective to the issues involved in reducing the number of deaths on the world’s roads.

SAFEX 2008 is coming back to London after many years. The conference offers opportunities to meet old friends and make new contacts with road safety practitioners, academics, politicians, key researchers and members of the driver training industry from around the world.

The Driver Education World Conference is being held in London from the 16th-18th May inclusive. More information can be found at http://www.ivvsafex.com/