Mandatory Competence Training for Supercar Hirers?

[nopantshans]

Hi,

I'm doing some research of peoples opinions for a current business venture, and would like to know the board's opinions on a subject thats come up a ocuple of times of late.

Thanks probably to the combined effots of Top Gear and the likes of Gumball, Supercars are having something of a revivival amongst the general (non-enthusiast) population, coupled with soaring property values supercars are a relative affordable purchase for a lot more people now, as a result we are probably seeing more drivers go from normal cars into supercars without any prior experience. Coupled with the huge rise in performance levels of even more modest supercars to levels that would tax racing drivers we can see why the accident ratio is going up.

Obviously the take off of fractional ownership schemes and supercar rental firms means supercars are accesaible ona unprecendeted scale.

So my real question for debate is should Supercar hire companies/fractional ownership schemes expect new first time hirers to undergo and pass a comptencey training course before being allowed to hire, and would you find that if you were a hirer an acceptable ocndition?

We are thinking along the lines of something like Bentleys Advanced driving programme, first time hirers have to attend a course at a test track, and undergo a series of seminars on safe performance driving, as well as practical supercar tuition in skid recovery, safe braking, cornering and so on, some sort of lecture from the plod (unpopular possibly?) - on the consequences of driving like a buffoon and the potential dangers to not only others safety but your liberty if you take things too far on a public road followed by some sort of exam/test. after which you get a certificate of supercar competency.

I think hire companies/fractional ownership schemes could support the scheme by offering to refund the fee against first hire/joining fee, as such a scheme could reduce their risk of car damage and no doubt get them some sort of reduction in cover pricing from their insurers.

I appreciate there is no numpty proof way to stop people behaving like idiots behind the wheel, but i think its a good first step. After all, if you pass your test in a cessna you can't just pick up the keys to a Eurofighter can you?

Sp any opinions, thoughts, suggestions would be welcome. As a cross-section of supercar enthusiasts it would be interesting to hear some opinions on this.

My first thoughts are while its a extra hoop for the casual hirer, for the greater good of the image of supercar drivers in general its a step worth looking at. what do you all thinK?

Martin

[Dr Jekyll]

Are you considering providing 'interesting' cars for the practical exercises? If so it could be a business opportunity in it's own right. Not just for Supercar hire purposes either. Think of enthusiasts who have grown up with traction control and FWD and are now thinking of buying an Elise, TR6 or some such as a weekend car. Or parents worrying about their offspring wanting to drive performance cars.

Mind you, HPC (course, not club) did this 40 years ago and lost a fortune on it.

[dazren]

With the number of owners that manage to stack these cars around lamp posts, I don't expect to see a lower percentage smashed up by people who are hiring them.

Some sort of competency training would be a good idea but if it is not an industry wide requirement, I'd guess companies not requiring it will take more business. In the long run I predict reasonably priced insurance companies will insist car club clients/ hirers clients undergo some sort of training. Although TBH whatever level of training you have it only takes a few seconds driving past your ability.......

Good luck with the venture.

[nopantshans]

Thanks for the comments guys,

I'd like to clarify that we aren't planning to apply this to our standard fleet. Having tested at length (a hard job i can tell you - Gallardo's et all are much harder to unstick and are in general quite forgiving.

What we are looking to do is apply a mandatory standard to our "a-spec" fleet of very serious cars (i cant tell you what they are yet due to commercial secrecy reasons) These cars are a real handful even for experienced drivers. We are aiming our service at the pistonheaders type community of drivers, guys and girls who love cars and maybe own 455's or TVR's or whatever but want to try a hypercar, in order to try and keep the cost of both the rental and the excess into a affordable and real world level for enthusiasts to be able to access rather than just the megarich we need to mitigate the basic risks of handing 650+bhp over to someone who is potentially a complete numpty behind the wheel. We don't expect you to be Schuey, but being able to catch a basic oversteer, correct understeer and know what happens when you lift off mid-bend and so on should be a basic lavel of oompetence for what are basically street legal racers.

We are not worried about Gallardo's and so on that are fundamentally more forgiving so you would not be affected hiring most of the fleet.

So we are trying to work out a way of making that mandatory requirement as pain free and enjoyable a process as possible for our clients, whilst mitigating the risk as much as possible to our company and investors of handing over seriously expensive hardware and trusting you to do your best not to park it in a shop window.

We are aiming our "hardcore" fleet at serious drivers, but all the same what we need to solve is some way to weed out unnacceptable risks so that the majority of experienced good drivers don't have to pay over the odds for their hire to allow for numpty-risk.

[troesma]

Difficult call... my immediate reaction would be yes, if you're going to handle a 600+ BHP and massive torque beast to Joe Doe, who has never gone past a Vectra and happens to have some dosh available to join a supercar club (that saturday lucky dip...) then the likelihood is that he will wrap himself into a tree. Car included, of course.

One of the interesting things about Britain is that once you pass a driving test, you are licensed for life (unless you get the license ripped by accumulating points) In many other countries, you have to renew your license (it is effectively re-issued, new plastic and photo) every 5 years, including passing a medical. After a certain age, it goes to 2 years (only medical) and then every single year (again for medical). And above certain engine size/power, there is another license category where the practical, not the theory test, is kinda more stringent.

On the other hand, if it does not become an industry standard, you could find yourself out of business.

I do always get nervous when I see some 70-something old lady or dude hanging close to the steering wheel on a Fiesta, whether their spatial awareness or reactions would be. Same applies to someone who has never jumped on a Murcie, say, and wants to give it a spin.

You cannot immediately, out of the box, handle the car dimensions (e.g., wider footprint) let alone handle the engine power if it is your first ride. Now if you happen to buy one, and you're sensible and never had one of those before, you take your time and go easy until you get the feel. Maybe even do some specialized driving course. But if you're in for a 2-day driving experience, all of that is gone and you would (naturally) want to max-out the car. Otherwise, what's the deal worth?

Maybe an easier way, dunno (just thinking from the top of my head) is to request current and recent past insurance records, to check what the punter has been driving... if it's only been milk delivery vans, well...

Maybe you could segment membership fees on the basis of past driving experience, to reflect risk levels... so if you've been consistently driving performance or near-performance cars, you pay less than a punter who joins the club but has only driven standard cars in his recent past. Like an insurance company would do to calculate your premium.

Not easy. Hope the best for your venture.

Edited by troesma on Friday 6th April 11:22

[Dr Jekyll]

When newly bought or hired supercars are crashed, presumably some of the incidents would have happened irrespective of the car, some are caused by playing silly buggers, and only a proportion by the driver not being familiar with the characteristics of such a car.

Is it possible to estimate how many crashes are in the third category?