This is a very, very old article.
Well, it’s about individuals with poor driving skills taking lessons to bring them up to scratch – but the people who find this blog looking for info about the show won’t be interested in that sort of minor detail. It involves driving instructors, and that’s enough.
Starting on Wednesday, 19th October, the Channel 5 series is called Dangerous Drivers’ School, and on its web page it says that “three experienced driving instructors buckle up with a collection of dangerous drivers”.
In the first episode, a pretty boy club promoter is the subject under scrutiny… or is he?
What Channel 5’s site doesn’t say is that the instructors involved in delivering the training are all from the AA, and this automatically puts them at a huge disadvantage as far as any other ADI watching the show is concerned. But it would have been the same wherever the instructors were from – any large national driving school, or independent is grist for the “professional” ADI’s mill.
You see, it is one of the requirements of being a “professional” driving instructor that you find fault with all other instructors – especially if they’re from a national driving school, even one of the reputable ones. Of course, it is also a requirement of being a “professional” ADI that you firmly believe and proselytize the belief that there are no reputable national schools out there. A third “professional” requirement is that you make badly worded, confusing innuendoes (masquerading as wit) whenever an opportunity like this arises. This occasion is no exception:
…Yep………………..I shall advise all my friends to go to the AA for free and not use my expert services for which they would have to pay…
…How can independants [sic] thrive when the big companies have a hold of the market…>
…I wonder how many non AA instructors will ask for a free lesson from the experts..!
…I am sure that AA instructors would be glad and happy to help these poor souls…
And this is before the first episode is aired. Ironically, some of those comments are from people who either used a franchise to get them to where they are today, or who are still with one (albeit, not the AA).
The AA has some more information on its own website. It apparently runs a course designed for inexperienced drivers (not learners) – this course has been available for several years (I remember that it caused a stir among the unwashed masses when it was launched), and is not new. Nowadays, it appears to be free through the AA Charitable Trust according to that website (I’m not sure what restrictions might apply, though).
But you see, any driving school out there could offer something similar if it wanted to. In fact, with so many of them offering stupid lesson prices and slitting their own throats into the bargain, you sometimes wonder why they don’t anyway. Admittedly, Channel 5 isn’t likely to be sniffing around trying to make expensive TV shows involving “Binkie’s School of Motoring” in the Scottish Highlands (I made that up). So names like the AA, BSM, and so on are automatically at an advantage.
But forfeiting any advantage from the corporate name is the free choice an ADI makes when he or she decides to go independent. You can’t go solo and take the name with you, no matter how nice it would be to do so.
Certainly, knowing how other ADIs think, you wouldn’t catch me appearing on TV doing my job (not that Channel 5 or anyone else would want me to, of course). It would be the equivalent of leaping out of a World War I trench in broad daylight on your own, wearing fluorescent green clothes, and making a lot of noise as you rushed the enemy line. Bloody stupid!
And I can’t wait to see how this develops once the show is aired and those who haven’t yet realised it’s the AA involved suddenly wise up.
As for the show, I’ll watch it – but I’m always sceptical about these things. Why? Well, if I were a crap driver, would I really want to be on TV telling everyone about it? Would I – in the process – think it wise to admit to breaking the law or endangering others?
On the other hand, if I were a complete prat with an ego problem, anxious to be on TV, would I ignore all that and leap at the chance? The answer is quite clear on that one.
That’s why I’m sceptical. The programme is quite possibly more about the complex personal issues of the people appearing, not about getting better at driving.
EDIT 22/3/2012: I understand that a new series is in the pipeline – sounds like it will be shown later this year.