Cleveland PCC funding for driver training

Cleveland Police & Crime Commissioner Steve Turner has awarded Cleveland Mountain Rescue Team £3,500 from Police Property Act Funding, to provide response driver training for 14 of our volunteer members, further enhancing their driving skills when attending incidents in the area. 

The two-day Emergency Response Driver Training course enables those Team members who are most frequently deployed as drivers to deploy quickly and safely to emergency call-outs in the Team’s 4 x 4 Land Rovers, using “blue light” and response driving techniques. The course covered advanced driving skills, how to stabilise such vehicles in emergency conditions and how to make safe and effective progress with the correct use of warning sounds and blue lights. 

Deputy Team Leader Mike Gallagher said: ‘ERDT are a driver training company who offer a two-day Response Driver Training course designed for Mountain Rescue Teams. The course allowed us to have our driving reviewed by a professional tutor, learn about best practice and get an update on the rules and regulations governing response drivers’. 

Cleveland PCC Steve Turner recently visited our Base where he met some of the newly trained drivers. He said: ‘Cleveland Mountain Rescue Team offers a vital and life-saving service to people in the force area. The public and police force frequently call upon their specialist skills to help in some of the most isolated areas of the region. I am proud to be able to support their work and help their drivers to attend incidents more quickly and safely’. 

Last year the Team’s volunteers, who are on call 24-hours a day every day of the year, dealt with almost 100 incidents including attending 61 call-outs.