I just had my fourth drive with Observer Colin from Edinburgh Advanced Motorists. The Institute of Advanced Motorists existed at first to train and test Advanced Car Drivers and the other categories, such as motorcycles, followed later through the years as the need became apparent.

Edinburgh IAM are separate to EDAM, the car group spun off the Motorcycle group a number of years ago and both groups have grown to be two of the biggest voluntary road safety organisations in Scotland, with hundreds of full members (i.e. those who have passed the advanced test in the relevant class) in both groups.

There have been similarities and differences between efforts toward the IAM Motorcycle test and the Car test. Similar stuff is:

• The System of Motorcycle Control and the System of Car Control are closely related, both with Information, Position, Speed, Gear and Acceleration phases.
• Both emphasize safety over all other considerations such as smoothness and speed.
• Positioning for corners and limit point analysis are similar, within the constraints of the relative sizes of the different vehicles.
• Both are prepared for by means of the Observing arrangement, which isn’t quite training but more of a drive and comment arrangement.
• Both are based on their versions of Roadcraft.
• Both have specific starting and stopping drills to apply a systematic approach to beginning and finishing a drive.

Different things are:

• Where the Observer goes. In the car they sit in the passenger seat alongside you and can make comments as the drive runs. For Motorcycles they follow on their own machine, and then stop and discuss the ride in a debrief before continuing. This is quite an important difference, as Motorcycle Associates usually contribute to the fuel expenses of their Observer.
• Motorcycle Helmets restrict peripheral vision, so the System of Motorcycle Control also features the so-called “Head Check” and “Lifesaver” looks which are a quick look to the right or left (depending on the maneuver) or a look right round over your shoulder. This takes place before the Acceleration phase and is part of the Information phase which extends throughout.
• Not a System thing but a group thing, Edinburgh IAM run 3 class based theory sessions which take place before the drive, and they also give you a CD-ROM and DVD with the course info. EDAM run a weekly homework system based on chapters from Roadcraft.

I might think of more differences, so I’ll post them if they occur to me.

A bit of a gap in posts, so it is time for a catch up. I’ll post separately on Advanced Driving and work and other things, but I’ve been on holiday and generally wiling away my hours doing nothing much in the warm weather.

Had a relatively quiet weekend, I’m really looking forward to my upcoming holiday.

On Saturday I popped in to town to assist a bit with some EDAM stuff, so I took the bike in – which was fun 🙂

And on Sunday I went along to the introductory session for the Autumn course with Edinburgh Advanced Motorists. It was interesting to see the mix in attendees, around 20 with a number of different ages, and a few women too! We had a presentation, a video, a demonstration run in an observer’s car, then another final presentation before we got our cheque books out. The run was quite reassuring, I think I should have a good chance of passing this one!

They covered a brief part of the history of the group in Edinburgh, apparently they were formed shortly after the IAM themselves in the late 50’s. They are obviously good eggs because they spun off Edinburgh Advanced Motorcyclists (EDAM) a few years back, which now stands firmly on its own two feet.

Just had a brochure through the post from Borders College, listing out their evening class programme for September 2007. There is a range of classes at their places in the Borders, from the Know Your Motorcycle course which I did earlier in the year to Belly dancing.

Another one that looks really interesting is mountain bike maintenance at Glentress – I know quite a few folks that go down there to use the trails.

Apologies if you see error messages over the next few weeks, for some reason the existing platform threw a bit of a wobbly yesterday. I suspect it might again while I consider the upgrade.

Tried an upgrade to subtext last night, but it didn’t work and I wasn’t getting enough diagnostic information back to lead me on a troubleshooting path.

Like a few of these things, the instructions are great if you have access to the box admin (terminal services etc) but I’m on a cheapy shared hosting arrangement and this puts a web UI in front of a lot of the admin stuff.

I’ve not given up though, I just can’t be bothered spending all the time fixing it at the moment. But I like the idea of subtext so much that I’ll be giving it another go soon.

And I am so relieved that I managed to get .Text back and working – phew!

My hosting provider has just switched web and database servers, so for the first time in about 3 years or so I had to change some settings. Needless to say there were two connection strings in the web config, and I only changed one of them (yes – the first one I found). But cheers to WilliamW for spotting the blog was barfing and letting everyone know the database login account it uses to connect to the database – oops :).

Made it a long to Roadsafe 2007 at Cumbria Racecourse. Similar to last year, the live band were good – kept the rest of the family happy. There were slightly less police vehicles, which was a shame. There were more clubs with custom bikes etc. And a few more car clubs.

The Blades, an aerobatic display team were amazing – either I forgot how good they were, or they have got better since last year.

Check the gallery for some piccies.