How do you avoid accidents? By not being there when they happen...

Every day in the UK, 23 young people, under the age of 25, are killed or seriously injured in vehicles. Most of these collisions are caused by bad driving. Not the vehicle, the road, or the conditions.

Driving is the biggest single killer of young people in the UK. Advanced Driving Courses and Tests were designed to contribute to road safety, and the facts demonstrate that nearly 70% of drivers who receive Further and Advanced Driver coaching show significantly safer skills in a number of key areas.

This website is about starting your driving career in the absolute best possible way by having thousands of pages of detailed information on Learning to Pass your Driving Standards Agency Learner Driving Test and moving onto further and Advanced Driver Training.

Choose a Motorway...A1(M) MotorwayM1 MotorwayM2 MotorwayM3 MotorwayM4 MotorwayM5 MotorwayM6 MotorwayM25 MotorwayM40 MotorwayM42 MotorwayM60 MotorwayM62 MotorwayM621 Motorway

A1(M) | M1 | M2 | M3 | M4 | M5 | M6 | M25 | M40 | M42 | M60 | M62 | M621

Choose a Region...North East EnglandNorth West EnglandSouth East EnglandSouth West EnglandEast of EnglandWest MidlandsEast Midlands

North East England | North West England | South East England | South West England |
East of England | West Midlands | East Midlands

There are a total of 1181 instructors listed in our directory!
Please enter your postcode to search the database for instructors local to you:

Learner
PassPlus
Advanced

Search the list of towns / find based on town.

Please enter the name of your Town or Region to search for your local Advanced Driving course:

South West England & South Wales | South East England | Midlands and Mid Wales |
North East England | North West England & North Wales | Scotland |
East England | Northern Ireland |

NOTE: Advanced Driving UK does not condone speeding on Britains roads by anyone, let alone Advanced Drivers. Advanced Drivers have a responsibility to know "better" and lead by example due to the effort and training received.

Dealing with Emergency Vehicles

Deciding what to do when you hear an emergency vehicle approaching can be a dilemma. Do you stay where you are and potentially block the progress of an emergency vehicle? Or do you move into a position that may put you or other road users at risk?

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)

Sharing the Road with Cyclists

Rising petrol costs have encouraged soaring cycle sales – so we are seeing cyclists on the roads with many different levels of experience. This presents issues for drivers; we need to take extra care to judge their speed – as well as the road and weather conditions – from the new cyclist’s point of view.

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)

Smooth Operator

A good, safe drive is about a mixture of techniques, but high on the list must be the need to use the vehicle’s brakes in a smooth and progressive way.  The IAM (Institute of Advanced Motorists) says drivers need to develop observation and anticipation, so that they can begin braking at an early stage and a leave a decent margin for braking more heavily if the need arises.

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)

Fuel’s Gold

If you are increasingly concerned about petrol costs after the recent price rises, ask yourself these questions next time you are driving. What is the delay time between lifting off the accelerator and applying the brake? And what gears are you using?

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)