How not to give a talk about motoring

THE projector was definitely taking the day off.

In a crowded hotel suite last night I was a picture of nervousness, because the technology rigged up to help me was doing exactly the opposite. It was the monthly meeting of the Sefton Institute of Advanced Motorists and I, as that bloke who does that column for The Champion, was the speaker. Or at least I was supposed to be, anyway.

Because public speaking definitely isn’t my sort of thing what I’d done is prepared a short film detailing my three-and-a-bit years of writing about cars for two different newspaper groups, aptly titled Confessions of a Motoring Journalist. The idea was to raise a few quid to help the Petrolhead Pub Quiz I’m holding next month, show the 35-minute film, and use the crowd as guinea pigs for one of the rounds of the quiz.

But, as is so often the case, it didn’t quite work out like that. The quiz element was going really well, but for whatever reason, the projector just wasn’t playing ball and taking a feed from the laptop we’d brought along.

The technical whiz helping me suggested I swap for his and once we did that, I thought we’d cracked it. It picked up the feed straight away, the film was ready to roll, so I gave the introduction to my speech. Lightning surely, couldn’t strike twice, but it did.

“Windows Media Player Has Encountered a Problem and Needs to Close”. The error message made my heart sink, and it wasn’t a one-off. Every time I tried, the film which had played perfectly on countless different computers was a no-go. All the while, a crowd of Sefton Advanced Motorists were waiting anxiously to see the presentation they’d heard so much about.

So I blagged it. I binned the laptop, the film, and gave a rather different talk. A talk with no notes, no autocue, nothing. It was just me, a crowd of people, and my best efforts to waffle through a subject I know rather well; motoring journalism.

Amazingly, I lasted the full hour and even got a round of applause at the end. How, to be honest, I’ll never know!

It did at least teach me a valuable lesson I’d forgotten since I’d sold my last Mini. Never rely on technology…

Confessions of a Motoring Journalist, the original presentation, will be available to view on Life On Cars later this week

Feature: Institute of Advanced Motorists calls for younger drivers to sharpen their skills

WHY would I need to sharpen up my skills behind the wheel when - being Champion motoring correspondent - I'm already a brilliant driver anyway?

That's the exactly the sort of question the Institute of Advanced Motorists are hoping younger drivers will be able to answer for themselves when the driving organisation launches it next round of Skills For Life courses next month, which they're keen for younger motorists in particular to take up. Young male drivers - like me - are particularly at risk because we naturally think we're brilliant, even though the accident statistics and the cripplingly expensive insurance shows that isn't the case. Naturally, an advanced driving course isn't going to make you the next Sebastian Loeb but it will make a difference. I should know, because I've done it.

Simon Best, the organisation's chief executive said: “Young male drivers suffer from a lethal combination of overconfidence and inexperience. They don’t need curfews and other restrictions on their driving; they need to practice and gain driving experience safely.

"There are many paying thousands of pounds a year in insurance and killing themselves. The solution to this problem is to link driver training and insurance discounts."

 If you like driving you'll like the Skills For Life course - the observers know you can already drive, so it's all about honing your techniques and learning to spot the hazards early, so you can react to them nice and early with the need to panic. Best of all, there's absolutely no L-plates involved! I started my course in January and successfully passed the advanced driving test at the end earlier this month, so expect to venture out under the expert eye of a volunteer observer once a week or so, where they'll suggest techniques you can use to make your drive a smoother and safer one. Once you've done that, you take a senior observer out for a drive to show them how brilliant you are, and once you've managed that you take out a Class One police driver - in my case, a serving road traffic officer - and see if you can impress them as well. It's not easy, but it is rewarding when you get it right.

The course costs £139 which I know is a lot of money when you're young and skint but consider this; that's not only a lot cheaper than doing normal lessons on L-plates and doing the standard driving test, but the IAM operate their own insurance scheme which usually gives those who pass the test the chance to get cheaper premiums which recognise you're doing something to make yourself a bit safer. Because IAM graduates are 70% less likely to have a crash, they can afford to knock the price down a bit.

For a course that's focused around safety I actually really enjoyed doing it, because I really enjoy driving, but I reckon it'll pay itself off several times over in the accidents I don't have. The course might cost £139 but you can't put a price on staying safe.

Sefton and West Lancashire residents can take advantage of the next round of Skills For Life Courses, which start on Monday, May 14. For more information about the course, which costs £139, contact Ray Woods on 01704 538595.

Life On Cars passes the IAM Advanced Driving Test

NO L-plates were harmed during the making of this article.

There is no clichéd snap of me ripping one up to add an air of occasion, no cheesy grins for the Champion photographer. But you can bet your Grand National winnings that the sense of achievement, for me at least, is the same. A ham-fisted twentysomething passed the Advanced Driving Test!

I’m particularly proud because I’ve had – and I don’t mind admitting it to you, the region’s petrolheads – a bit of a patchy track record when it comes to learning to drive. Not once have I pretended that I am the North West’s answer to Lewis Hamilton, and I’m lucky to be able to count my attempts at the normal driving test with the embarrassed digits of a single, sweaty hand.

That’s why, even though I’ve been doing the advanced driving course since the start of the year, I’ve kept schtum on the subject until now, because I was secretly worried I’d do exactly what I kept doing with the normal driving test – make promising progress, get nervous on the test day, and make a complete hash of it.

Luckily, I had a top-notch observer who also enjoys driving to the point that it’s a hobby, and helped me fine-tune my control of my little MX-5 to near-police levels of pedantry and precision. So cheers, Alan (seeing as I know you read this column) – your Yoda-like mastery of motoring has helped me to impress the serving police officer who actually had to sit with me this morning, put his life in my hands, and decide whether I made the grade. Amazingly, I did.

Yet in many ways I am the exact sort of person the Institute of Advanced Motorists would like to see passing the test; I’m young, I’m male, and a petrolhead. I not only enjoy driving nice cars but I enjoy driving, full stop. Driving is not getting from A to B on a miserable Monday morning and trying not to think about it – it’s a craft to be finely honed and improved, like fencing or fishing or painting. I’ll travel hundreds of miles to the middle of nowhere if it means finding a rewarding road.

If you’re reading this column chances are you’re the same – you’re a petrolhead and that means you like cars, and sharpening up the skills used to drive them means you’ll enjoy them more. Driving, and doing it well, gives you the grin factor.

Being into cars without being into driving is like ordering fish without chips.