MEDIA
Drive to Improve Road Safety
The roads of Cambridgeshire could soon be safer, thanks to a revolutionary new driver-training centre. Alconbury Driving Centre aims to teach teenagers advanced driving techniques — before they are even old enough to sit their driving test.
The centre, which boasts a mile-long six-lane ‘virtual motorway’, a skid car and a Driving Zone, gives teenagers who can’t wait to get behind the wheel the opportunity to learn skills that could save their lives.
Chief Instructor, Paul Staple, said: “There is no doubt that the skills we teach give young drivers the ability to handle potentially life-threatening situations on the roads. Our aim is to make our students better than average drivers from the day they pass their test.”
Based at Alconbury Airfield, just off the A14, the centre runs two programmes for young people: the Schools Programme, which is a year-long course open to all schools in Cambridgeshire, and Programme 16 — an affordable training course that aims to give 16-year-old would-be drivers a head-start behind the wheel.
Although both programmes are backed by the police, there are no lectures from uniformed officers. The thrust of both programmes is on the practical — with the accent on fun.
Statistically, 17 to 24-year-old male drivers are most likely to be involved in a collision on the road. Many injure themselves and other motorists. Tragically, too many die.
Driving Centre Chief Executive, Terry Turner, said: “It is a regrettable fact that too many young people are killed on the county’s roads due to inexperience and lack of control skills. Alconbury Driving Centre offers young people the opportunity to learn and practise those skills in a challenging, yet safe environment.”
The skid car is the centrepiece of driving training, which is open to anyone who wants to improve their driving skills. Businesses and individuals can book a day’s training, which will give them the opportunity to test their skills and improve on techniques under the watchful eye of specialist instructors.
The Cambridgeshire Police Shrievalty Trust subsidises the Schools programme and its Chairman, Sir Charles Chadwyck-Healey, said: “Teaching young people to drive better saves lives. I cannot think of a more important objective for our charity. The grounding we can give young people here at Alconbury enables them to not only pass their driving test more quickly but drive with greater competence and judgement on public roads. The excellent facilities at the Driving Centre, especially the skidcar, are available to all and hopefully will be used by high-mileage drivers who want to or need to improve their skills.”
Alconbury Driving Centre
The unique setting of Alconbury Airfield, just off the A14 in Cambridgeshire, enables driver training to be carried out in safety on the Centre’s private driving areas.
The Centre features a mile-long runway, now a virtual motorway, Acceleration Zones and safe areas to practise steering, braking, and low speed control techniques.
The race simulator is situated in a thought-provoking context that will make all who encounter it think twice about the consequences of driving beyond their capabilities. But the star of the show is undoubtedly the skid car — a normal road car mounted on a hydraulic frame that enables the instructor to lift the weight of the car off the tyres and create skids and slides as if driving on ice, water or oil.
The airfield, originally an RAF airfield, became a USAF airbase and the home to heavy bombers in 1942. In 1953 it became home of the US 3rd Airforce, but flying ceased in 1995.
The Programmes
Alconbury Driving Centre has one aim — to improve driving skills and make our roads safer; an objective to be delivered through four main programmes of activity:
- The Skid Car: a three hour programme to experience all aspects of skidding and learn what to do when caught out on wet or icy roads.
- Corporate skills training*: a fun, activity-based, programme for business drivers to practise potentially life-saving driving skills.
- Programme 16: to give youngsters too young to hold a driving licence the opportunity to get a head start in road skills so that they can endeavour to be better, safer, drivers when they get out on the road.
- The Schools Programme: a part-time academic-year course that aims to give youngsters a practical-based introduction to cars, driving techniques, traffic issues and road safety.
* this programme will also be available to business and social groups and private individuals.
Both Programme 16 and the Schools Programme are run in conjunction with the Cambridgeshire Police Shrievalty Trust.
The Instructors
Alconbury Driving Centre’s team of six skilled instructors is headed by Paul Staple, who has 18 years’ experience in driver training and is a director of the Federation of Approved Driving Instructors.
Paul, who has been involved with the Schools Programme at Alconbury for the past 18 months, is convinced that good driving habits are formed at an early age and says the type of driver we become can be moulded by our experiences as children; if we were encouraged to wear a seat belt, whether our parents were aggressive drivers or regularly ignored the speed limit.
He says: “We have to teach our children many, many things to get through life, and safe driving is one of the most important lessons.”
As Chief Instructor, Paul says he and his team are aware that a ‘do as I say’ approach to driver training can be counter-productive.
“There’s no point in saying: ‘Do this because I say so’; you have to get young people to understand why, and what the consequences may be if they do not learn.”
After nearly two decades running his own driving school, Paul is passionate about the aims of the Alconbury Driving Centre. He says: “It may be a cliché, but if we save just one young person’s life through the programmes we offer here it will have been worth it.”
