Hertfordshire sergeant represents UK in European driving competition

21 November 2023

A Hertfordshire Police Federation member has spoken about the “fantastic experience” of representing the UK in a competition to find Europe’s best young driver.

Sergeant Brad Cross took on the motorists from 11 different countries in a series of tests and obstacle courses designed to examine all aspects of their driving skills.

Brad said: “It was a fantastic experience. We were there as young people to promote road safety among young people, and this was a way of showing our driving skills.

“Some of the drivers there were absolutely incredible.

“We got to meet new people, network and to see how similar and yet different we all are with our driving styles.”

Sergeant Brad Cross took on motorists from 11 different countries.

Brad took part in the competition in Teesdorf near Vienna, Austria after winning a contest at the Thruxton race track in Hampshire to find the UK’s two best drivers aged 18 to 26.

It was organised by the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) RoadSmart, the UK’s leading road safety charity and advocate.

IAM RoadSmart is a member of the FIA, the governing body for world motor sport and the federation of the world’s leading motoring organisations, which is organising the European-wide competition.

“The first obstacle was the kick plate,” he explained. “It’s a wet polished surface which detects the front wheels have gone over and when the rear wheels go over, it will kick out to the left or the right.

“The ABS and traction control were all turned off and it put the vehicle in an awful spin.

“It was good fun but very tricky.

“You have to get it under control as quickly as you can and get through the remaining cones without hitting them. I fluffed it entirely.”

He added: “It’s amazing how you think you should be alright with it, it’s just skidding, but everything is engineered on those courses to make it difficult.”

Another test involved tackling a multi-surface slalom course in an electric car.

“The car had incredible acceleration,” he said. “You went over different terrain, so you’d have dry and grippy, dry and slippy, and then a wet and polished surface, and going through the cones at high speed was really tricky.”

Brad added: “The off-roading course was fun as well. Taking a Ford Ranger 4x4 in all-terrain mode round a course where you were sideways at some points.

A car skids across water during the competition.

“You’re going round this muddy course without hitting posts that had tennis balls on top of them, and it was fascinating not to topple over at times.

“Everything was made to be as difficult as it possibly could be.”

Brad said that many of their faults arose from driving vehicles set up for motoring on mainland Europe.

“Most of the cones we hit were on the right side of the car, the side we’d usually drive on,” he said.

We thought we had bags of room that side when actually we were getting really close to the cones because we’re not used to perceiving the road from the left hand side.”

This year’s contest was won by Timo Svetina, of Austria, with Elmedin Ćibo from Bosnia and Herzegovina second and Alexander Anastassov from Bulgaria third.

Brad said: “The drivers from the UK didn’t get any podium places, unfortunately, but it was a great experience and fantastic to represent the UK.”