Pierre Savoy, chief instructor for BMW's driver training program, says he's always amazed when he hears somebody has crashed into a telephone pole.
"There's 60 metres between telephone poles. They couldn't have found a spot in between?"
His advice to those taking part in a recent session held at CFB Downsview recently? "Don't look at the pole. Look at the solution, not the problem. Look where you want to go."
I don't recall if it was Savoy or one of his colleagues dating back to the first of the dozen or more advanced driver training courses I've participated in since the early 1970s, who taught me that lesson. I do know it paid off during the 2004 Targa Newfoundland Rally.
We'd come over a rise in a village with the Kia Spectra5 in third gear to face a downhill run into a T-junction at which we had to make a right turn.
I braked and downshifted, but misread the corner and carried way too much speed into it (just like you might do with a highway off-ramp, incidentally), causing the car's nose to plow inexorably towards, yes, a utility pole. I recall being fixated on that ever-widening ex-tree for a moment, before deciding there had to be a better alternative to hitting it.
I straightened the wheels, braked, drove between the pole and the wall of a building, and back out onto the road. And a very exciting moment it was too.
I'd made a mistake, one of many during the event involving miscalculations of either physics or talent, but a simple driving lesson well-learned had saved me from embarrassment, or worse.
It's obvious (to me anyway) that actually learning how to control a vehicle can be critical, but while licensing requirements today are stiffer, the actual training required is little changed. You still don't need professional instruction, and if you do go to a driving school most (there are exceptions) concentrate on teaching the rules of the road with little or no emphasis on vehicle control.
The most important actual driving skill you'll likely acquire will be parallel parking. "Now that's really important at one o'clock in the morning when you hit black ice. You'll be able to hit that guardrail flat," jokes Savoy, warming up his audience as he launches the classroom session that starts the day-long program.
BMW Driver Training was launched in Canada in 2000 and has taught more than 8,000 students to date. It offers an introductory, half-day Advanced I program ($290) aimed at new drivers or those who feel unsure about taking the full-day Advanced II ($480), which I was involved in. You drive the school's 330i sedans in both.
If they've hooked you at this point, you can then move on to Perfection ($870),which includes an autocross in M3 coupes, and then Fascination I ($3,150), a two-day course involving high-speed track instruction. Fascination II ($1,650) is basically a lapping day. These are held from spring through fall, but there are two full winter weekend events held in February at the Fairmont Le Chateau Montebello in eastern Quebec.
If you really don't know anything about driving, or are intimidated by the idea of training, Advanced I makes sense, but I'd skip it and take Advanced II. These programs are a little expensive to my mind, but on the plus side they are operated at the level you'd expect of BMW, you do get good instruction and don't have to use your own vehicle.
Your day begins with a classroom session in which Savoy employs wit and humour and a real car-guy's enthusiasm to get across a number of basic lessons.
These are centred on attitude, aptitude and awareness and deal with basics like seating position, mirror use, vision, using the brakes and explanations of under-steer and over-steer.
You then head for the cars and spend the rest of the day dodging cones while performing steering, braking and accident avoidance exercises, and learning about under-steer and over-steer on a wet skid pad. The program ends on a high and fun note, with a competitive slalom.
Mike Stuart, an insurance broker from Richmond Hill, had done this before, in a Mercedes-Benz program at Shannonville. "This one wasn't quite as intense, but covered most of the same topics and was very much worthwhile. It served as a refresher.
"You do one and it doesn't quite feel like enough. This was the second time around and I still made some of the mistakes I made the first time. It's something you should consider doing every couple of years."
Azure Campbell from Scarborough, who owns a cosmetic business, received the course as a birthday present. She's owned a BMW since 1999 and always wanted to take the course. "It was fun and I was paired with somebody who made me look really, really great."
Campbell says it was important to her to be put in a situation where she was out of control because it was something she'd always feared.
She says she spun the car a couple of times on the skid-pad while learning how to, first, avoid that happening, and second take appropriate action if it does. "It will make me a more confident driver."
Justin Wu, who works for a Toronto brokerage firm, was another first timer and says courses like this one should be mandatory for anybody getting behind the wheel.
"It was a great experience and a lot of fun. I learned a lot here that I can take on the road to improve my day-to-day driving. Like the proper seating position and the whole vision aspect of driving."
The Ontario Ministry of Transportation web site has a listing of advanced driving schools, and a number of car clubs also offer them and they're usually open to non-members. Might make a good Christmas present for somebody you care about.
