Newslink September 2023

Area news
We’ve an independent streak
in the West Country!
Arthur Mynott
MSA GB
West Coast & Wales
Somerset has its own advanced
driving association to rival
IAM or RoSPA. Arthur Mynott
explains why...
Here in Somerset, we are in the unique
position of having our own group of advanced
drivers, the Advanced Drivers Association
Somerset (ADAS).
We are completely autonomous, not being
affiliated to either ROSPA, IAM, or any other
widely recognised group. In this issue I would
like to explain how this came about and the
different approaches adopted by ADAS.
There used to be a group for Advanced
Drivers in Taunton, Somerset which was part
of the ROSPA Advanced Drivers and Riders
(RoADAR) group. However, this group folded
in 2008 for various reasons. In 2010 a local,
recently qualified driving instructor, Guy
Annan, wanted to improve his general driving
skills and sought out the nearest RoADAR
group, which was in Yeovil, about 30 miles
away. Some of you may have heard Guy’s
name before, as he was, at one time, a
Regional Editor of Newslink and also won the
Editor of the Year Award for the former
Western Region of the MSA GB.
He joined the Yeovil group and eventually
shared a lift to each meeting with a fellow
Tauntonian, Steve Scott-Davies. After a while
they decided to rekindle a Taunton group.
Steve holds a National Diploma in Advanced
Driving Instruction and a DVSA Cardington
Special Test for Driving Instructors amongst
his many other credentials. They contacted
RoSPA for details of the previous Taunton
group and discovered that the funds from
that group were being held in trust in Yeovil to
be transferred to Taunton should one ever
start up again.
So, the process began and a committee
was set up with Guy as the Chairman, Steve
as the Secretary and other committee
members were also elected. News that the
new group had started spread and meetings
were arranged, held originally at a room in
Taunton Fire Station. The group quickly
outgrew these premises and larger rooms
were found for the meetings to continue.
In 2014, a new member, Chris Hillier joined
who had a history of Advanced Driving and
proved to be a valuable member of the group.
He has a Certificate in Education, Diploma in
the Advanced Study of Education (DASE) and
is also a Registered Technical Engineer (R.
Tech.Eng), as well as holding a Diploma in
Advanced Driving instruction. Chris took on
the role of Development Officer in the group
which proved to be of great importance a
couple of years later.
During that time RoADAR was in the
process of changing their existing
constitution and imposing those changes
without consultation. Members felt that the
changes were not within the spirit of
volunteering and that there was a lack of
practical support being offered ,with some
changes felt to be inappropriate. So, a
Arthur receives his ADAS certificate from
group Chairman Guy Annan, the former
MSA GB Western editor for Newslink
decision was made to establish our own
autonomous group. Given his managerial
experience, Chris was instrumental in the
arrangements for making the transition.
The new group was established in 2018 at
an Extraordinary General Meeting and we
quickly established our own training
programmes and a modular approach was
developed. These were submitted for
external approval and successfully
accredited. The training programmes and
advanced tests are much more robust and
consistent with up-to-date practices.
We have members meetings every two
months. These consist of speakers from
various organisations including Blood Bikes,
Police, 4x4 drivers, British Horse Society to
name just a few. We also have on-road
practical sessions consisting of things such
as ‘commentary drives’ together with ‘limit
point’ and cornering routines, for example.
34 NEWSLINK n SEPTEMBER 2023