Police Driver Courses
We look at the different types of training police drivers undertake
Permission for blues and twos
Aside from the initial heart in mouth moment when you see the blue lights in your mirror, it's worth taking a look at how police drivers thread their way through traffic.
It may not always be faultless, but the way they approach it is no accident. No drama, no flapping hands, no harsh inputs., just a car trying to get to its destination as quickly and as safely as it can.
Police drivers in the UK go through some of the most structured driver training in the world. It isn't a single course, and it isn't a weekend in a hall with a clipboard. It's a stack of qualifications, built one on top of the other, with the better drivers being filtered upwards into more demanding work. Here's what that stack actually looks like.
1. Standard Response
This is the minimum requirement. Every officer who wants to drive operationally has to clear it first. They learn to drive at speed safely, respond to calls, and use lights and sirens without scaring the bejesus out of every other road user in their path.
2. Advanced Police Driving
This is the one most people mean when they say "police trained". Reserved for selected officers and built on the foundations of *Roadcraft*, the police driving manual that's been quietly shaping British driving standards since the 1930s.
Car control gets sharper and observation is extended. Drivers plan stretches far ahead, ensuring nothing is ever a surprise. That's the trick to unfussed driving - the fewer urgent inputs you have to make, the better you're driving.
This is also the level our coaching is rooted in with the goal of reducing drama.
3. TPAC
"TPAC trained" they shout in all the videos! That's "Tactical Pursuit and Containment" and where things are dialed up a notch.
Officers learn how to bring another vehicle to a controlled stop using their own car as a tool. Boxing in, pinching, etc.
It looks aggressive in body cam footage. It's actually surgical, choreographed work, with a lot of trust between the drivers in the convoy. Not the sort of thing your local force lets just anyone loose on.
4. VIP Escort
The protection world, used by firearms officers and close-protection teams moving ministers, royals, and the occasional visiting dignitary. High-speed control sits alongside discretion, anti-ambush drills, and convoy positioning.
If you've ever seen a Range Rover sweeping through London with another saloon glued to its rear quarter, that's the work.
5. Police Motorcyclists
A breed apart, frankly. The Bikesafe courses many of us know are an offshoot of this world.
Police motorcyclists train to a separate but parallel standard, using the advanced system of motorcycle control. The hallmark is stability and you'll spot them at lane filtering speeds without a single twitch of the bars, reading the traffic the way the rest of us read a road sign.
6. Public Order
Riot squad! Driving a personnel carrier into a hostile environment is its own high pressure discipline. This is for riots, protests or anything where the vehicle itself becomes part of the operational picture.
Done well, it's slow-speed work, mostly - not the screaming, tyre squealing drama of the riots in the 80s! With discipline it's keeping your cool while people throw rocks at you - the bar for vehicle control is unusually high.
7. Surveillance and Covert
The opposite of blue lights. Officers learn to follow without being seen, hand off targets between cars in convoy, and generally be the most boring vehicle in the rear-view mirror.
The driving has to be invisible, which means smooth, predictable, and entirely unremarkable. The opposite, in other words, of what most people imagine police driving looks like.
8. Instructor Development
The pyramid's apex. Only the most consistently capable drivers get here, and even then the course filters hard. Becoming a police driving instructor means learning to teach as well as drive, which is a separate skill entirely.
Adult learning theory, debrief technique, performance assessment. The lot. Many of the instructors at Driving Masters came through this route, and you can tell within ten minutes of getting in the car with one.
The Pattern
Look at the eight courses together and the theme is obvious. It's never about speed for its own sake, it's all about mental discipline and being in control.
Every level adds more control, more observation, more anticipation. The best police drivers don't look fast at all. They look smooth, settled, and slightly ahead of whatever the road is about to do.
That's what we're trying to give people on our advanced courses - not the lights and sirens (although that would be fun), just the bits underneath that can transform the driving experience for the better.
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