Why participate in a BMW Club of Canada Advanced Driving School?

introduction
Talk to an advanced driving school enthusiast or instructor and they'll bend your ear. They'll tell you why you must take a school. They won't let up. They'll hound you for years and years...

learn limits of a car
An automobile (car or truck) will behave in sometimes surprising but predictable ways. These behaviours are discussed at length in a classroom setting by an experienced advanced instructor. Then it is demonstrated in-car.

There are effects a driver may never experience in their entire driving career. But if a car understeers during heavy rain or snowy conditions, the inexperienced driver is forced to react properly, quickly, safely. If one must come to a complete stop fast, to avoid a car suddenly backing from a driveway, what will happen? What if the car doesn't have ABS?

The Canadian BMW club encourages drivers to bring their own cars and to learn its limits (in a safe space). This includes understeer and oversteer, minimum braking distance, threshold braking, weight transfer, tire adhesion.

learn driver limits
New drivers are amazed to learn how much one gains in car control by simply adjusting the seat properly.

Many collisions and spins occur due to improper vision placement and techniques. Instructors encourage an "eyes up" style which remarkably improves the ability to plan ahead.

A form of impairment, often overlooked, even rears it's head at schools--being tired. Skilled instructors can help drivers improve their limits, where possible, and heed them, when critical.

Perhaps not in a single school but with on-going training, a driver can think more clearly, focus his or her thoughts better, be in a relaxed yet poised state, prepared for practically all scenarios. Sensation can be improved beyond simply "feeling the road."

emergency preparedness
Driving schools require a driver to react quickly, safely yet automatically through repetition, to emergency situations. For example, the accident avoidance exercise requires the driver to avoid an object suddenly in the car's path. This simulates something falling off a truck or a child running onto a city street.

Incidents on track are carefully and clearly signaled to drivers and their instructors--an important test of vision techniques.

Something as simple as improved mirror positioning can give the driver more information about what's happening around the automobile. This can help a driver stay out of trouble.

experience different driving conditions
Braking and turning on a cold or wet skid pad or driving on a track during the rain or cold teaches a driver how an automobile, in particular tires, operate in different conditions.

Drivers with a need for speed may complain but teaming rain on the track can be the best learning experience one could wish for.

While schools generally take place in pleasant conditions, the theories learned apply to all driving conditions. In-class training explores hypothetical scenarios which are difficult to simulate.

safe place to experiment
A proactive, humble driver realizes that they know little about their car, how it behaves, how they can handle it. But there is nowhere to explore or test. Not unless one is excellent at talking themselves out of tickets... Driving schools on the other hand offer safe areas for experimentation.

Skid pads are open and clear of obstacles. Well, except for those nasty plastic pylons everywhere!

While on the track, the limited number of cars travel the same direction. Passing during lapping sessions must be performed in the designated zones and only when both parties feel it is safe to do so. It should go without saying that contact is not tolerated (and it has never occured).

Students are accompanied by an instructor while on-track.

Automobiles must be road-worthy. In fact, at the BMW schools, a technical inspection form (not unlike a provincial safety inspection) must be submitted.

improved confidence
Out of all theory and practicum derives a confidence. Mind you, it is easy to cross this line into cockiness. But the school instructors know the signs, and can help a driver recognize this within.

The schools show a driver that driving should never be treated casually; but this very training gives a sense of preparedness, strength, safety. A curious blend of anticipation and relaxation.

There's a two-way effect: a trained driver will make fewer mistakes; a trained driver can better avoid the mistakes of untrained drivers.

money savings
While school fees sound at first glance expensive, they are tax-deductible (for Canadians). The government recognizes and thereby endorses continuing driver training.

The costs saved in avoiding a collision...? Keeping a car on the road...? How much is the well-being of your family, your self, the good condition of your car?

These schools are the best insurance you can buy.

fun!
We've saved the best for last...

Most people, wide-eyed students and nice instructors, coming off a school will likely be wearing big grins. You'll notice them talking a lot with their hands...

Some people come back for more.

Some say it's the most fun you can have with clothing on.


(Prepared by Blake Nancarrow. Thanks to John Burnet, John Dimoff)