Location Overview: The County of Dorset is located in the West Country, lying on the coast of the English Channel. The main county town is Dorchester to the south. Dorset has borders with Hampshire to the east, Devon to the west, Wiltshire to the north-east and Somerset to the north-west. This beautiful county is mainly rural with many small villages, few large towns and no cities.
Road Network for Training – Dorset has a great network of A roads, the A434, which travels through to the Weymouth coast from Wiltshire, the A37, which takes you to Somerset and the A35 that connects Hampshire – popular with our training in Dorset. The larger towns are Dorchester and Weymouth, with many pretty market towns across the county such as Blandford Forum, Sherborne, Gillingham, Shaftesbury and Sturminster Newton. These traditional market towns serve the Blackmore Vale to the north of the county and the quaint coastal towns of Lyme Regis and Swanage in the west. Dorset’s most significant urban centres are in the east toward Poole and Bournemouth. At Drivers Domain UK, we have trained many corporate fleets and private clients who want to get out on the road in safety and make the most of this beautiful county.
During a driver training session, we typically look at:
- Forward planning and observation
- Speed Awareness
- Developing a positive attitude towards safer driving
- How to become a safer driver on all roads
- Car or van control (gears, steering, foot controls, signals)
- Rules of the road
- Dealing with road rage
- Reversing and manoeuvres
- Dealing with adverse weather
- Town and urban defensive driving
- Driving in heavy traffic and allowing adequate space
- Skid control theory and learning what causes skids
- Eco-safe driving (effective use of speed, gears, and planning)
- Anticipation – Learning to see and not just look
- Understanding other road users and their intentions
After the training, you will receive a post-course report. This will document the date of training, the driver’s name, the tutor’s name and their DVSA registration number. We also add a unique verification number to each report, so should anyone wish to verify the report at any time, they will be able to do so. The report acts not only as a confirmation of the training it also gives useful hints and tips to refer back to.
There are a number of benefits of taking driver training with Drivers Domain UK:
- Bespoke training based on a driver’s specific needs
- Personal account manager
- Handpicked fleet/advanced tutors who are all registered with the Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency
- Detailed reporting for each driver – with notes from the tutor who provided the training
- National coverage
- We come to you for the training
We provide advanced and defensive driving courses around Dorset, and we have trained many clients located in and around:
Blandford Forum, Bournemouth, Bridport, Dorchester, Gillingham, Lyme Regis, Poole, Sherborne, Verwood, Weymouth
All training is done in your own vehicle, and we will come to you. We can help with a range of bespoke courses such as:
1. General advanced training
2. Company car and van training
3. Post-RTC training
4. Confidence driving courses
5. Pre-court driver training
6. Younger driver
7. Motorway training
Half or Full Day?
The half-day is ideal for those who have a large number of drivers to train and want to take advantage of the time and cost savings associated with such. The full day is ideal for drivers that want to experience an intensive advanced driving course and really want to iron out any bad habits they may have.
We do tend to find many clients opt for the full-day session – and book one driver in the morning and one in the afternoon – there is no additional charge for this, and it works really well.
When we train drivers, we look at building the course around their specific needs. We initially let them drive for a short period of time. Then after a friendly debrief, we look at introducing a number of advanced driving techniques such as forward planning, the system of car control, advanced observation and much more.
The main part of the course is designed to improve the driver – and we find the best approach here is to work on their specific driving style and requirements and adjust the training to fit with their needs.
Get in Touch:
Our trained team are here to help you. Please contact us with your requirements, and we will be able to help. For online enquiries, we aim to call or email you within 2 hours during working hours.
Road Safety Risks and Information – Dorset
Dorset is a country that is both coastal and rural in parts as it is a popular area, especially for tourism; it reaches from Lyme Regis in the west and Bournemouth to the east of the county. Dorchester, Bournemouth, and Poole are the larger towns that serve Dorset and are linked by fast A road routes.
Dorset does not have any motorways as such; the nearest ones are the M27 towards Southampton and the M5 at Taunton, but understanding the regulations of motorway driving is essential for the fast A road routes. The A35 links Lyme Regis to Bournemouth and follows the coast to the south of Dorset through Dorchester, and from here, you can travel south to Weymouth via the A354. The accident statistics for severe incidents are high in this area, and merging the A31 with the A35 at Bere Regis is especially risky. Other fast A road routes through Dorset are the A354 at Blandford Forum and the A37 from Yeovil into Dorchester. The A338 from Ringwood into Bournemouth is also a particularly accident-prone route, with too many holidays being cut short by severe collisions.
As there is much tourism across the summer months, Dorset has many more accident sites than a town with just local traffic, the towns of Dorchester and Bournemouth are ridden with needless accidents, and some have involved fatalities and multiple vehicles. The ring road of the A37 and the A35, where the roundabout meets Bridport Road in the centre of the town, have seen some nasty collisions. The B3147 across the River Frome has also witnessed several severe incidents. The Christchurch Road, A35, through Bournemouth and onto Boscombe, is an area of concern as this is the main route for local and tourist traffic, and often, drivers may be unfamiliar with their route and hesitant causing other drivers to misunderstand their actions leading to collisions.
The southern half of Dorset is coastal, and the roads that lead to the sea are littered with accidents. The Banks Road to Sandbanks from Bournemouth has roadside parking for the beach all along the road; some accidents shown here could have been caused by trying to leave or enter a parking space on a busy day. The A351 through Corfe Castle and onto Swanage beachfront is another high-risk patch due to the parking along the side of the road again. This is much the same for most coastal towns in Dorset, so it is worth noting where you intend to park before setting out to make sure you are safe. In the north of the county, there are many more rural roads, and these have also seen their fair share of accidents; the A352 from Sherbourne is known for disastrous collisions in the past few years. Another high-risk area is Wimborne Road from Blandford Forum, and we use this route quite often to help our clients build confidence with rural driving.
This is only a tiny selection of accident sites in the county. If you have any specific roads used in the area or are keen to discover regions at higher risk for an upcoming journey, don’t hesitate to contact us. We offer a free-of-charge service to anyone who is interested.