2 years ago, my Discovery failed an MOT with some £2k of work needing doing on the body. With a resale value of £2.5k after doing the work, I opted not to throw my money away. My next car turned out to be a lemon and was scrapped. Following that, I had an old Rover for a while until the head gasket blew recently – a common fault on these cars, mainly because the engine is a bit crap. For the few weeks after that I had some rental cars (new Mondeo saloon – very nice indeed; a brand new Corsa – not bad, but too small for me; ML320 – nice but waay out of my reach) while I desperately looked for a new car. I had a recommendation to go and visit a garage in Risca so off I went.

Stuart, of Trustworthy Motors in Risca didn’t have anything in my price range out front and since it was a Sunday the office was deserted. Nevertheless, you don’t often get a used car salesman with such a glowing recommendation so I grabbed his phone number and left a message. Stuart called me back and we had a chat. He took the details of what I needed, my budget and so on and I was left with a feeling of confidence that he could find me something decent, even though my budget was fairly tight. Then at the end I had the big surprise – since I was a friend-of-a-friend he offered to lend me a car for a few weeks so that he could have a chance to find something and it would at least get me on the road. Once I’d picked myself up off the floor I gratefully accepted and a few days later picked up a Renault Scenic. With that taking a weight off my mind and wallet, life settled back into a routine again.

A week or two later I had a phone call – he’d found me something. An R reg VW Golf Estate, 1.9 diesel (no turbo). Initially unenthusiastic, it was a little over budget but I popped over to see it. Immediately I saw it, I felt better – a 4 door, small family-sized estate, loads of room in the boot. It even had a dog guard and a boot protector. My fears over a lack of turbo were put aside as I drove it and after chatting over the price, we shook hands – with a payment plan that suited me perfectly as well.

Of course, I’ve already told the story of what happened next, not two weeks into the ownership of my new Golf. The good news is that the rumble was just a balancing problem and I’m back on the road with a fully working Golf. It needs a little TLC for the bodywork and a new wheel, but other than that, it’s back to normal. The drive is lovely – it’s such an effortless drive to Aberystwyth, there’s more room in the boot than almost any other car I’ve had and all in all, it’s a cracking little car. My experience with Stuart has boosted my confidence in used car salesmen tremendously and I can’t speak highly enough of him.

Makes a change, doesn’t it?

First of all my car died. I ended up renting one for a week, followed by borrowing one from a used car dealership that was able to get me out of a very difficult situation, but that’s a different post. Finally, I managed to find a new car – a nice shiny red VW Golf estate which has impressed me a lot. I’m loving it.

So in my nice new car I was heading to base this morning, not to work and for once not to a callout. Meeting at base at 1000 we set about to prepare ourselves and the base for today’s event – a royal visit.

At about 1400 today, a number of cars pulled up outside base and out stepped Prince William. As the news reports, he was visiting a number of places in the valleys and stopped off to see us as his final visit of the day. We had some fun prepared for him – some hobnobbing with the local dignitaries, a light lunch and then change and head up to Morlais Quarry where we took him to the top off the cliff and he got to lower someone down a cliff – I don’t think his protection detail would have been too amused by my idea of lowering him off the edge of a cliff, but nevertheless, we had some great photo opportunities. It was a great day with fantastic weather and we all thoroughly enjoyed.

That’s when it all went downhill though, because on the way home, some drunken twat drove into my nice shiny new car and drove off without stopping. The damage isn’t too bad, it was a glancing blow but it’s knackered one of my wheels (it’s bent the actual metal bit) and twatted my rear door and rear wing, and after a drive tonight, I think it might have done something to the suspension or thereabouts. I only managed to grab a partial index – “S633…”, and I know it was a pale blue or silver hatchback – a large one, quite wide. Beyond that, the prick didn’t even slow down – no brake lights. I’ve just got home after filling in a police report which was gratifyingly easy and quick, though the nice young PC didn’t hold much hope of catching the turd, and reckoned he was probably drunk anyway.

Great.

Since the 1930’s the police of the UK have been using a system of car driving invented by a racing driver who was consulted by the Metropolitan Police to try and reduce the horrendous number of RTAs that they were experiencing.  Sir Mark Everard Pepys, sixth Earl of Cottenham, along with input from SCH Davis and Sir Malcolm Campbell created the system of driving as a methodical  system designed to allow drivers to identify hazards and react to them. Initially each student copied the notes out by hand, but in 1954 they were compiled together into a published document and a year later Roadcraft was published by HMSO. So the system isn’t anything particularly new – though it has changed a little over the years, I’m sure those first students would still recognise it now.

So you can just go out and read the book and become a better driver right? Wrong. The book definitely gives you food for thought and makes you think a little bit more about your driving and your perception of what goes on around you. But it’s no substitute for a well taught course of instruction – and that’s what we had this week courtesy of South Wales Police. In addition to the basic theory, you get a practical view of it from experienced drivers – our instructor had spent 6 years as a traffic officer and another 5 years as a driving instructor for the driving school. Of course, she’d made her mistakes over the years and so that’s also a great benefit. Finally, there’s nothing like being taken out by an experienced instructor and being shown how to use the system and other techniques and more importantly having someone experienced correcting you.

So I’m now happy that this has given me enough skills and basic knowledge to respond safely on blue lights. Where do we go from here – and a question I’ve already been asked is how do people not so fortunate get here?

Two organisations that I’m aware of can help you – IAM and RoADA both of whom offer advanced driver training specifically in the use of the system. From the instructors at the driving school, they’re apparently pretty similar, but one of the interesting comments was that the depth into which they will take the system in their instruction is nowhere near that which the instructors achieve in the police driving school, even on a one-week course. That’s not to say they’re no good – they are excellent and most will have police drivers as members who can instruct you.

I for one believe that the standard tests for young people should be extended. They should be taught to the level of a basic police driver, the same requirement as that which you need to join IAM or RoADA. They should have time on a skid pan to find out how easy it is to lose control. They should be shown what ABS does, what traction control does. They should learn how to read hazards, how attitude affects your driving. I have no doubt that it would reduce the number of accidents on the road and with that reduce deaths and insurance premiums. I’ve already told Sean to ask around for instructors who can teach him the system of car control as part of his driving lessons – he’s seen the difference in my driving and is just as enthused about it as I am.

So that’s my driving course. I’m hoping to join IAM to try and get past their test – it will certainly help with my insurance premiums. I’m happy that I’m a safer driver, but it’s not going to let me get complacent. This is a skill that you need to practice and I’m sure over the coming months, I’ll slip into some bad habits again. I think having seen the course, the drivers and the results, I can honestly say if you’re not using the system, you’re not as safe a driver as you could be.

We’ve been driving a little Mondeo hatchback ST, a diesel model, and once we’d finished our POWER checks this morning, we got going and headed out to the M4. As usual with my colleagues on the course, I was volunteered to be first at the wheel, so I got to enjoy handling a motorway slip road at 0845, heading eastbound.

Quick acceleration up to the limit, into lane 3 and another push up to around 80mph[1] and we start looking at ‘leapfrogging’. Basically a technique where we ensure at all times that we’re not 3 abreast, we’re not alongside a ‘heavy’ and that we have space to our left so that in an emergency, we have a gap that we can use other than the central reservation - a sterile zone. Thus, your driving is a series of leapfrogs from gap to gap. All using very little if any, braking but plenty of acceleration sense and keeping the revs up high before changing. Very interesting techniques, very easy to see how it’s so much safer. One quick shout out to the navy focus driver behind me who flashed us a few times wanting to get past. At 80-ish mph, flashing an unmarked police car may have not been his brightest move of the morning, but fortunately we were too busy training to care about him and before we could let him past and educate him to the error of his ways he took an exit.

Up then onto the A465 past Neath, and some more driving at speed, building confidence and looking at how you handle hazards at those speeds. Quick change of drivers, and then we’re up over the Penderyn road – a fantastic road, and then up to Libanus where we changed drivers again. From there, we headed up towards Brecon on the A470 and then over to Sennybridge on the A40 where we stopped for a quick cuppa. Off again down past the Cray reservoir along what is an exceptionally fast road, and then down to Craig Y Nos where we stop to swap drivers and I’m up again.

I take her over the top through Onllwyn, down to Glynneath and through the town itself. A quick lesson in “dominating the road”[2] and we’re through and back onto the A465. A few more swaps over various roads – all quite fast, and we’re back to Headquarters for lunch (yes, all that in a morning!). On the way a shocking example of how not to drive resulted in a quick bit of sharp driving from Jon under our instructor’s experienced tuition and we pull the gentleman over. Julie, the instructor (an operational police officer, ex-traffic) had a quick word about the use of mobile phones whilst driving before we carried on.

 In the afternoon, we had a quick familiarisation drive in the Bridgend Landrover that we’d use for our response driving tomorrow before picking Julie up and heading down through the Vale’s lanes. The afternoon was spent getting used to the Landrover – which was a bit of a shock after the Mondeo – and we all had the opportunity to drive it.

The style of driving is interesting – a lot harder than my normal driving, though this is specifically looking at building our skills at emergency response driving. Certainly a lot more expensive on fuel – I’m having to rapidly adapt my driving when I get into my own vehicle. However, this system of driving makes you stop and think about the hazards on the road. I have no doubt that my driving is orders of magnitude safer than before – and I really wasn’t that bad a driver then. I’ve told Sean that I’d like him to take the IAM test after he passes his standard category B test because that teaches you this system of driving. Julie did say that it was a shame we only had one week with them – and I agreed – I’d love to do the three week course, but it just isn’t feasible.

Anyway, to bed now – I have a day of response driving ahead of me tomorrow along with plenty of classroom work about the law and where we get our powers of exemption from.

[1] This is a police response driving course and was specifically designed to show us how to drive at these speeds. Under these conditions, we’re exempt under the Road Traffic Act, so don’t try this one at home, kids. *wink*
[2] Fnar!

The course that we’re on is a special course designed by South Wales police to allow Mountain Rescue personnel to respond safely on blue lights to incidents. It’s a truncated version of the police basic driving course which usually takes 3 weeks – because we can’t be expected to take 3 weeks off work, they’ve brought it down to one week – and because the driving school operates on 10-hour days, that’s 4 days.

So we started off by covering the system of car control. There’s loads of details on it in Roadcraft, the course manual, but I think it’s safe to say that just reading the book is nowhere near enough. It’s implementation is crucial, and the driving we did yesterday afternoon and this afternoon has really showed us how to implement it correctly. We spent some time on the skid pan, looking at controlling skids and then this morning looked at ABS and different steering techniques and how they affect the car’s balance and handling.

It doesn’t sound much, but that’s 20 hours of physically and mentally exhausting instruction there. I’ve been given another book to read on the Human aspects of police driving, which has a fascinating insight into how the mind processes the information needed to drive. As a result, I’m understanding why this course is so challenging and what I need to do to make sure that the information I receive in this course gets to be a “habit”, an automated reaction and skill to use while driving.

So tomorrow we’re covering the system on larger roads, dual carriageways and motorways before going on to look at response driving on Friday, all of which I’m really looking forward to.

This course is realy opening my eyes. When we started the course, the instructor told us that no matter how good we think we are, and how good we actually are, by the end of the course, we’ll be thinking “My God, just what was I like before this course?”. No need to reach the end of the course I think.

Life has been rather hectic recently, what with some major changes at work (I now have more control over my time and scheduling; Judy has a better idea of what it is I do daily). The car has had a new tire and a new hub bearing although the camber looks as though it’s really badly out which needs dealing with. I was raided by the police, Sean’s been down for a week, Mal broke (and mostly fixed) his car…

Yeah, so you noticed that one. Yes, I can now say that I have experienced Gwent Police’s ability to execute a search warrant. I WAS at work when they broke the door down, but Sean wasn’t poor thing. I had a few words with the officer in charge and once they realised where the cockup lay, they quietly removed themselves. I can’t say too much about it in public at the moment, as I’m going to be issuing a complaint against them and asking for them to make good the damage they did at least.

Sean spent the week down here which was wonderful – an empty house is not very nice to come back to, and it was nice to have a hug when I got home. The central heating finally gave up the ghost – looks like the timer’s gone, so it’s manual control for now until I get a replacement timer fitted. Looks simple, so I’m not expecting any hiccups other than the £50 odd it’ll cost me in materials.

The Cthulhu game in Cardiff is on a bit of a hiatus at the moment, since Simon, our GM, has gone to London for a new job. We’re having a whole day event to finish off sometime in the new year, so I’ve taken up the reins as a GM for my first campaign, and we’re goin to be running a classical game in a world I created based around Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain and the Mabinogi. Last night was the first session and so we have a Bard (Andy) and a Paladin (Mal). Aaron looks like he won’t be able to make it because of his new job, but Louisa, Mal’s missus, and Jon from work are interested, so I have a Ranger, a Rogue and a Fighter for them to decide which one they want. The group at the moment are on a moor with a heavy storm approaching (lightening causes 1d10 d8’s of damage if it’s a direct hit…owch…). The only shelter is an old tor once used as a fortress and burial chamber. What will they do?

There was a callout on the weekend, which the BBC mentioned, and Mark put up some photos on the team flickr site. I missed out on this one as I was stuck in work at the time. Poo.

Hopefully, with my life becoming a little more boring now, I’ll have more time to update, so it’ll be back to the usual random stuff.

 The first was on Saturday morning at around 0400. I got up and quickly dressed before slapping a flask of hot water together and jumping in the car. Made it to base for Alpha and jumped on with Blackie. The callout was in Bridgend where an elderly gentleman had gone missing. Scant details to start with we started searching our area and finally got some details on the guy we were looking for. Apparently ex-military, I had visions of not finding him at all with his ability to hide, but around 1100, the message came – Simon and Merlin the dog had found him.

So we headed back to the control vehicle where I grabbed a few pics of the scene – I’d had some amazing pictures of the sunrise that morning and I found some nice shots of the scene itself. Insp John Williams was there as well, and managed to arrange breakfast for us in the pub whose car park we’d taken over in the early hours of the morning. Amusingly Dave Cross lived across the street from the pub, but had initially headed for Merthyr when the pager went off. Swinging around and heading for Bridgend police station when he heard the voicebank message, he arrived there only to be told to basically head back to his house and meet in the car park.

So we headed back and I met Dave at my house where he kindly dropped off his old fridge (hurrah, a bigger fridge!), and I tried getting a few things sorted for Saturday night – which was the stag night of Chris the Drugs. Having decided on the Mondeo, I cleaned it out some on Friday and was busy hoovering the back seat when I heard an odd noise. Turning off the hoover confirmed it, it was the pager again.

So, quickly throw stuff in the house and we’re off to Merthyr again. Once again I made Alpha and we’re off down the hill on the way to Barry for a missing elderly lady, blue lights and sirens blaring. Before we reach Abercynon, we’re stood down, and we head back to base. Excellent timing, I jumped back into the car, headed home for a quick shower and off to Cardiff for a night out.

The rest of the night was quite uneventful, and much fun was had by all as we ate in Charleston’s and got drunk in Flares. I have no idea what time we hit Mal’s place, but I was utterly exhausted having had about 3 hours sleep the night before and promptly fell asleep while everyone else was still drinking around me.

Sunday dawned early and I took Chris home before settling down for the day. A quick spin back up Merthyr (I really should think about moving there) to see Mark and family and friends in Mark’s Guy Fawkes BBQ.

Today has been a long day, and I was looking forward to a good session of Call of Cthulhu, until about halfway through the pager went off. Arg. Mal and I jumped in the car, took off for base….only to be stood down just as we turn off the A470. We called into base quickly to say hi and then took off for home.

So another 3 so far this week – let’s see how things progress. I might even get some sleep…

Typically, on the weekend that both Mal and I decided to head to Aberystwyth for weekends with respective better halves, we get two cracking callouts. Very little information on these so far – I suspect more will come tonight in the debrief.

The first was friday night, 3 missing walkers. From information so far, they were 3 lads from the Army who were out on a long-distance endurance hike fo about 14 hours going from Talybont to the Cray reservoir and back again. They hit some horrendous weather on Friday night – one of the lads on the call commented that it was the worst weather he’s been out in. Another said “at times the fog was so thick you couldn’t see your feet never mind the ground around you”. By 0500 the three had been found, exhausted and hypothermic and brought down to safety – again around the Neuadd area, this time they were on the Neuadd ridge itself.

Sunday brought another call – an area cal to a fallen climber.  Nothing at all on this one yet.

Finally, yesterday we had an unusual event – an area search. Search for a missing child over on the Carmarthen fans, we were stood down as we were heading up the Swansea Valley, but on our return we got involved in an accident on the M4 which wasted an afternoon.

More details later.

Still no car at the moment, Merthyr Motor Auctions had a gaggle of petrol cars – not what I was looking for, and I’ve looked at a Mondeo and a Fiesta. I’m going back to see the Mondeo again, see if I can drive it and if they’ll knock the price down a bit, I’ll buy it.

Finally, CRB disclosure certificates have started appearing, though not mine as yet, so I’m expecting to go live in the next week or two. Expect discussions of the cases we see starting to appear shortly, hopefully.