Driving standards can always be improved. John Cradden looks at what driver training can do for general road safety
When you watch them, they're as funny as kids' cartoons. Only the most serious health and safety bore could fail to laugh at those programmes featuring police in-car cameras catching drivers speeding, driving recklessly or otherswise blatantly violating the highway code. What a crowd of eejits! Ha, ha, ha!
As well as evoking laughter, these programmes make most viewers feel like good, responsible drivers compared to those silly twits. Ho, ho, ho!
Whatever your view on this, there are signs that advanced driver training is being taken far more seriously in Ireland. One of the reasons is that the real story of life on Irish roads makes for chilling reading. Humour doesn't get a look in here.
The number of deaths on our roads up until August 14th this year had exceeded the tally for the same date in 2001 - 246 to 241. An even more sobering statistic is that in Ireland, 11 people in every 100,000 are killed on the roads compared to six in every 100,000 in Britain.
Insurance rates here rank among the highest in the EU. One of the recommendations of the Motor Insurance Advisory Board's recent report is that ongoing driver training be more widely encouraged and supported. After all, almost 90 per cent of accidents come down to driver error.
Many companies, frustrated at the sky-rocketing costs of fleet insurance, have already taken this recommendation to heart. They are seeking out driver training for staff as a practical and effective way of reducing the number of claims involving fleet vehicles.
Firms which provide fleet driver training, such as Nifast, report sharply increased demand, and more of them are entering the market. The Allianz insurance company launched a training programme a few months ago under the moniker of "risk and safety services", which provides advanced and defensive driver training for drivers of commercial vehicles.
Insurance companies are also encouraging extra driver training for ordinary motorists. It's nearly a year since Hibernian launched its innovative "ignition" scheme, which fully subsidises the cost of a one-day training course geared at young and inexperienced drivers. Drivers who complete the course successfully can claim reductions of 20 per cent or more in their premium.
Some in the industry say that a one-day course is too short to make any real difference, let alone reduce premiums, but this criticism doesn't seem to be affecting Hibernian's commitment to the scheme, according to its head of marketing, Ciaran Mahon. He claims that a reduction in premiums of up to 50 per cent is possible in some cases.
"Yes, one day isn't very long but you must remember we're an insurance company, not a training company," says Mahon. "We would certainly hope people would continue training afterwards but this is our contribution to it."
There is a six-week waiting list for the courses, which are run in conjunction with Britain's Institute of Advanced Motorists. They are offered on a first-come-first-served basis to drivers on full licence with less than five years' experience. Mahon has no reason to believe the scheme wouldn't be extended following its end-of-year review.
Even more encouraging is that the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) and the Irish School of Advanced Motoring (ISAM) have been in discussions with both AXA/PMPA and Royal and Sun Alliance with a view to setting up a similar scheme.
The IAM and ISAM have 65 instructors between them and take 2,500 students every year, including commercial drivers. The kinds of motorists who want to take advanced driving tuition are usually quite mature, according to John Walsh, managing director of both organisations. Most students do an average of 10 hours' tuition to reach the IAM standard.
The reasons for taking the training are not always about lowering insurance costs, says Walsh. "There's a far greater reward, and that is because they take a pride in their driving, in having greater driving skills.
"Their awareness level on the road is heightened. Everything that makes them a good, whole, rounded advanced motorist is in there and they take a great pride every time they get into the car."
He concedes that, even among those over-40s most likely to consider taking advanced driving lessons, the primary reason is to reduce insurance premiums.
No figures are available to show a reduced accident rate among advanced motorists, but there is enough evidence to show that fleet driver training does reduce claims by companies. It's not clear, however, whether they reduce premiums.
"We've reduced our claim rate per 100 fleet vehicles from 41 between 1999 and 2000 to 14 between August 2001 and August 2002," says Declan Roe, safety manager at mobile phone operator O2, which undertook off-road and on-road driver training with Nifast.
The reduction was due - not just to the training - but also to other controls introduced by the company, which has nearly 300 fleet vehicles. The number of speeding fines its drivers notched up has reduced too, he says.
After a recent insurance policy review, Roe says that, while the company didn't expect a reduction in premiums in this particular insurance climate, "we softened the blow quite significantly from what it would have been had we not done the things we did."
Walsh of the Irish IAM claims a 40 per cent reduction in accident rate among the company drivers it trains.
These are encouraging statistics but insurance companies are perhaps not keen to link themselves too strongly with advanced training programmes until evidence that it reduces accidents and claims is nothing less than overwhelming. Regardless of their attitude, it's easier than ever to justify extra tuition no matter how experienced you are.