This course director holds a strong view that protection driving and chauffeur skills have to be taught in vehicles that earn you your living and it’s fair to say he takes this ethos to its extreme. On the day we spent at the training area practicing everything from embus and debus to anti-hijack drills away from Joe Public’s beady eye, there was an eye watering 1.8 million quids worth of vehicles at our disposal, including S-Classes, Range Rovers, Bentleys and even a V-Class to wallow through the cones with.
Now, take a minute to think about this dear reader type, how often do you get the opportunity to familiarise yourself with chauffeur cars you may never have even sat in and here you are let loose to chuck them around the Tarmac whilst things go bang and aforementioned course director attempts to set the odd ex Para on fire, (you had to be there)!
Running in tandem with the protection driver training was the Polaris close protection course so it gave both parties the opportunity to practice working as a team and to fully appreciate each others respective roles. We drivers were able to give the trainee CPO’s a full introduction to the intricacies and technical capabilities of some of the most expensive and luxurious executive motor cars in the world and they showed us their sunglasses.
Seriously though, wearing both hats as I do, I could see the massive benefit of both courses training together for parts of their learning. Here we had trainee CPO’s getting the chance to drive top of the range chauffeur cars doing real world drills, whilst the drivers experienced what life’s like for those sitting the other side of the gear shift. This bonding lark was very effective and the proof in the pudding was the great communication between both parties I witnessed during the final exercise.
