Another excellent ‘three in a car’ session this morning with the Bristol IAM group.

It was another chance for me to get out with one of the local examiners, Andy Poulton, who’s the same chap that did my Advanced Driving test back in April.  Thoroughly nice chap, ex-police of 30 years, and by the time he retired he was the main man, responsible for teaching and qualifying not just the Police drivers, but also their instructors and examiners.  It’s fair to say there’s not a lot he doesn’t know about Advanced driving!

Anyway, we went out with another chap from Bristol, a former observer*, Tim, who’s coming back to AD after a break and re-qualifying as a local observer.  We took it in turns to observe whilst the other played the part of the associate*.   It’s pretty nerve-wracking to drive with someone like Andy in the back, but that’s exponentially more pressure to be the instructor under scrutiny as you have to be one step ahead of the student at all times, and trust me, Andy is about 17 steps ahead of you and analysing every potential outcome before you’re even started thinking about it..

Anyway, I had a message from him this evening to say he’d messaged the Chief Observer (who also happened to be my observer preparing for my test) to say I should have my final assessment drive ASAP as I was well up to standard!

Crikey, that’s not bad after just two observer training drives eh!

* in AD terms an ‘observer’ is an instructor, an ‘associate’ member is a student pre-advanced test.