Tag Archives: confidence

road safety

Calling all road smart women drivers

sarah-iam

Women drivers come in all shapes and sizes including petrolheads, the mechanically savvy, those that are happy to delegate motoring matters to the man in their lives and those whose car is the workhorse that they couldn’t do without in their busy family lives, and which needs regular professional care and attention to keep it safe.

In all cases, the common denominator is the driver, and we’d suggest that females are generally a lot more honest than men about any concerns about motoring concentration or confidence levels.

To address these areas and more, the newly branded IAM RoadSmart (previously the Institute of Advanced Motorists/IAM) has conducted research suggesting that as many as 40% of mums and grandmothers would like to become more confident when driving to unfamiliar places.

And whilst on-road training continues to be important for occupational drivers it seems that many busy motorists, including women, would prefer online courses because they take less than two hours to complete.

IAM Roadsmart research

IAM Roadsmart research highlights a number of important common-sense findings. Not just that drivers’ biggest concern is actually other drivers but also that reducing the cost of motoring and insurance (as a result of driver training) is a highly powerful motivation for younger motorists.

So these are the key areas that IAM RoadSmart is now addressing for motorists and motorbike riders alike.

IAM RoadSmart CEO, Sarah Sillars OBE said

“The most important thing for the majority of drivers and riders is getting from A to B with as little hassle as possible. The daily commute, travelling to a business meeting, or the drive to the shops, can be made so much more enjoyable with just a bit more awareness of the challenges on the road ahead. This is where IAM RoadSmart comes in.

We’ve been around for 60 years now and in that time roads, vehicles and distractions have changed, in some cases, beyond all recognition. The advanced driving and riding tests will remain core to what we do and will continue to be seen as the ultimate achievement, but if you just want to get more confident driving in bad weather for instance, we can help with that too.

We’ve helped create nearly half a million better drivers and riders already and as we become recognised as IAM RoadSmart we hope to be able to help many more.”

FOXY Steph Savill added her congratulations and appreciation of the philosophy behind the new IAM Roadsmart brand.

“I learned a huge amount taking my IAM advanced driving test. As a result, we promote this programme to FOXY Lady Drivers Club members who receive a discount on their Skill For Life programme. We now look forward to promoting their new online and confidence courses to women.

Whilst it’s not just women who have had road accidents that have shaken their confidence, we do know of many who choose to drive the long way round on A and B roads to avoid motorway travel, regardless of the statistical evidence that more accidents occur on country roads. So anything IAM RoadSmart can do to help women regain their lost confidence and become better drivers into the bargain has our support.”

For More Information:

iamroadsmart.

To find out more about the new IAM Roadsmart website.

Why not join FOXY Lady Drivers Club to enjoy motoring savings, FOXY Lady Approved businesses and support services that complement IAM RoadSmart driver training options.

road safety

How to impress women with your driving skills

Road-Rage-Dump-E-card1The IAM have just sent me details of recent research from a behavioural psychologist confirming what I/we know to be true.

That male and female motorists are different and respond differently to behavioural triggers.

What intrigued me most was that 80% of women found bad driving to be a real turn off (ie they are talking about men here) whereas only 48% of men felt that way about women drivers.

Now I’m not sure that these percentages are borne out of driving ability by gender (let’s not go there, I’m not feeling that brave today…) but it does suggest that if you want to impress the opposite sex, more men than women need to drive better than they do.

In this study, 50 participants – 25 women and 25 men – took part to detect the impact of bad driving on their levels of attraction. Reactions were measured in terms of pupil dilation, blink rate, pulse rate, body language and a questionnaire. Here’s how they fared…

Key findings

+ 80% of women found bad driving a turn off
+ 60% of women displayed an increase in pulse rate indicating stress levels watching footage of bad driving
+ Attraction levels in women dropped by nearly 50 per cent after watching footage of bad driving
+ Women showed signs of anxiety while watching a man driving badly –furrowing their brows and shaking their heads
+ 88 per cent of women said they’d prefer to date someone who is always late, than one who breaks the speed limit
+ After footage of good driving, 24% of women felt more positive towards the driver.

Women’s top five driving turn-offs

1. Illegal overtaking
2. Road rage
3. Bad parking
4. Texting while driving
5. 3-point turn

Driving that impresses women

Fortunately guys there are ways to check out, improve your driving and impress her in future. If you are as good a driver as you say you are (there’s the FOXY gauntlet guys) why not take a totally free driver assessment from the IAM to be sure it’s not you behind the wheel she’s turned off by.

And ladies, this offer is equally as appropriate for you because it’s often the confidence boost we need to prove our safer driver gender record.

And whether we are good, bad or indifferent drivers, EVERYONE can improve their skills so what’s not to like about this IAM offer?

Here’s how to claim this offer

You can claim this totally FREE offer and be sure there’ll be no follow up spam or efforts to sell you more training.

Here’s the information and link you need.

Clearly the IAM hopes you WILL want more trainin afterwards and if you do, I suggest you read my review of the Skill For Life programme that sorted my driving out and gave me back my driving confidence after being injured in a road accident.

This free offer is valid until the end of the year and comes with no obligation in terms of future driver training. Although it sounds to me as if a lot of male drivers could do with taking this further, if they want to impress their date in future…

women drivers

Ideal for novice and nervous drivers

aka IAM’s Skill For Life training programme Part 1

IAM_handbook

I am taking the IAM’s Skill For Life training programme and, based on my experience, want to promote this as the ideal choice for women who are either novice drivers, nervous after an accident or road rage incident perhaps, or simply want some tips and to be brought up to date with motoring matters years after passing their driving test.

A refresher driving programme for women?

A couple of posts on the Mumsnet website got me thinking. One was from a Mum whose husband criticised everything she did behind the driving wheel, so much so he’d turned her from an averagely adequate motorist into a gibbering incompetent, wrecking her driving self esteem in the process.

The other was from a lady who had been injured in a fairly major road accident and had understandably lost her motoring mojo as a consequence. They were both in need of a fairly major confidence boost and unless this came soon, both were likely to find excuses not to drive in future.

Add to these the number of recently divorced and widowed ladies that join the Club for moral support, finding they need to drive again after years of their husband doing this for them. This made me realise that there IS a demand for a refresher style of driving course for women. By that I mean one that

+ encourages and compliments us more than criticises us
+ comes in a packaged form and is affordable
+ allows the motorist to dictate the content (because we usually know what we need to improve upon)
+ gives us a flexible time schedule to complete the job – up to a year I’d say
+ was fun to take…

This all coincided with me thinking about taking a refresher driving course myself. After all, I run a motoring club and probably should be better at motoring than I am and it’s been close to 30 years since I passed my test and I only had 13 lessons before that…

In short I had decided that I wanted to be a better and safer driver in future.

The IAM’s Skill For Life programme

Under normal circumstances I doubt I would have looked twice at the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) because that status sounded so male and all I wanted was to be a better, safer driver, not take on the Top Gear team… However I soon discovered my error when our two organisations were working side by side during a recent roadshow of Ladies Evenings in the South East. I quickly learned that their Skill For Life course offered precisely what I was looking for so I signed up and have since negotiated a 10% discount to benefit Club members.

This programme normally costs £149 so FOXY’s discount reduces this to c£135 and I’m keen to tell as many women drivers of all ages (and young male drivers who realise the risk they run on our roads) about this and that it includes…

+ Free RAC breakdown cover
+ As many observed driving lessons as you need in the company of a local IAM observer (probably an average of c10-12 x two hour lessons during the course of a year)
+ Full IAM membership benefits (magazine, insurance service etc)
+ An optional test at the end (if you want to get the Advanced Motorist badge)

You might save money on your insurance afterwards (I haven’t got this far yet) but that’s missing the point for me. I now know what I was doing wrong previously and what I need to do to become a better driver. It’s not going to be a quick fix but I’m going to be safer and more confident as a result of my new found knowledge and experience. And it will then become a skill I top up for life I hope.

If you’d like to know how I fared and what I’ve learned so far (after 5 x two hour lessons) I’ll be writing about this in my next posting.

FOXY