In 1966, Denise McCann, then Chairman and Managing Director of the British School of Motoring, wrote in the foreword to 'High Performance Driving for You' by Tom Wisdom:

"There can be few skills more satisfying than that of handling a car correctly, using its power to the full and being capable of taking advantage of every opportunity for the speediest, safest journey…we in Britain now have the world’s most traffic-congested highways. This is where the really skilful high-performance driver comes into his own, for conditions are such that only the motorist with advanced skills and specialised techniques can hope to overcome them in safety, while maintaining a fast time."

In the book itself, Tom Wisdom went on:

"It seems that few motorists have ever sat down and really thought about driving. Few people have felt the joy of knowing what a car can do for you or the horror of realising what a car can do to you…..It is not enough to drive so that you do not cause accidents. You should also drive so that you are not involved in accidents, however they are caused. A good driver is rarely in trouble and never causes trouble. He never takes risks because on a public road there is no such thing as a justifiable risk. He never frightens passengers or pedestrians and his driving is smooth and easy and relaxed whatever his speed. He concentrates always on the job of driving and never has to take emergency action because he deals with potential emergencies before they arise."

The High Performance Course went on to embody these ideas and principles, and when the High Performance Club was set up, the aim was to maintain these same principles, but to add some fun in ‘extra-curricular’ activity. Eventually, we came to formalise the values of the Club as:

• Passionate about driving
• Focused on self-improvement
• Fun loving

These values permeate everything the Club and its members do. So it is not a coincidence that the Club should be concerned about driving standards. How can one improve one's driving standards if one does not know what standards there are to aspire to? With the changes in the relationship of the Club to approved coaches, it is also clearly necessary to define the standards for entry so that coaches can bring candidates to the Club who meet the entry standard. But with the passion that the Club brings to everything it does, there is more to standards than just entry into the Club. There must be standards for members to aspire to so that they can make progress in self-improvement, not only in road driving, but also in track driving, which is increasingly important to many as Britain’s roads become more and more congested (If they thought the roads were congested in 1966, one can but wonder what they would think now, nearly 40 years later at the time of writing!).

It has been a surprisingly difficult thing to do, to define standards. Interestingly, the old High Performance Course defined only the competencies (i.e. the skills) which must be mastered, but did not put into words or equivalent the standards to be achieved in these competencies; reliance was placed on experience to recognise skill at each level, and there is nothing wrong with this, as long as this experience is maintained and can be passed on without errors in transmission. To do this, now we need to define the standards carefully so that they are clear and obvious to all, and this document does that, so that we can drive with passion, struggle to improve, have some fun on the way and become drivers who aspire to and hopefully reach Tom Wisdom's ideal!

Peter Dixon, October 2005