Police advanced driving - What does class I mean, and is there class II, III etc? If so, what's the difference

Question

What are the criteria? What standards of driving are there in the police force?

Answer 1

As bear said there is now no class 1 and 2, the advanced course is either a pass or fail.

Answer 2

When I passed my course in 2000, they were still doing class 1 and class 2 passes. In a nutshell a class 1 pass was a perfect test drive with literally no faults. A class 2 was a pass with a few errors. As far as I'm aware there wasn't a class 3.

I don't know if class 1 and 2 are still in operation.

The standards of driving are simply basic and advanced. On the basic course officers learn the standard of car control, which they implement and develop to the point of taking a test. The driving is fairly basic. The advanced course is much harder and can be very tiring. It is also based on the system of car control, however advanced driving is ultimately about extending your observations and reading the road and your surroundings.

Advanced police drivers can automatically become members of the Advanced Institute of Motorists without further testing. I am led to believe that the advanced police driving course is a higher standard than the AIM.

Once you become an advanced driver you can look to take a Tactical Pursuit and Containment course, commonly known as TPAC. This looks at using various tactics used to end pursuits.

Answer 3

There isnt any standards for joining they will train you everything they want you to know before you graduate just know how to drive.

Answer 4

Class One is the very highly trained officer, further down the scale the standard is lower and you can only drive vans or smaller cc vehicles.

Answer 5

class 1 is a DVLA normal driving licence.

class 2 is a vocational driving licence,where a medical has to be taken at regular intervals,same as PCV,LGV,taxi,private hire etc.etc.

Answer 6

As Bear and Edd say, technically (in UK) there are only advanced drivers. The Met still dish out Class I and Class II, Class I being perfect. I was a Class IV which meant I was allowed to tow cars in a van.

Answer 7

Class 5 = normal driving, cannot use blue lights unless stationary (one day test) used mainly for new officers

Class 4 = Emergency responce, use blue lights at speed (three week course and limited to 115 BHP vehicles) which is average driver in police

Class 3 = As above but with pursuit and stinger authorisation and 155 bhp vehicles. Used by some specialist units

Class 2 = Advanced driver as above but can use any BHP. Used by traffic

Class 1= As above but full Tactical Pursuit And Containment  Authority used by traffic/Armed police/surveillance

It totally varies from force to force and this is a rough guide