Quick test. Hands up if you are a bad driver.

Okay, good. So there are no bad drivers on roads in Shropshire – only good ones, and ones that are delusional (judging by the motorist who overtook me on a mini-roundabout as I was en route to an inaugural driver safety awareness course at TTC, Hadley Park, in Telford – the first of its kind in the country.)

As the course begins, however, it occurs to me that one possible explanation for not volunteering the god’s honest about our driving habits might be that the room contains a police superintendent, a fire and rescue officer, a car insurance broker, a doctor and any number of road safety experts.

But we are here to learn how we can become safer drivers, and professional ranks and titles quickly go out of the window. Because we are all motorists and on the open road we are all equals; we all share the highways of Shropshire and rely upon one another to be responsible behind the wheel in order for us to get safely from A to B.

And anyway, in this classroom situation a few quick practical tests reveal that we could all improve the skills we need to make us good drivers.

Oliver Mason tells his audience that driver error is the biggest cause of accidents

But first, the unarguable facts and the reason we are all here. With 2,222 deaths each year, equating to 42 killed every week, the Shropshire motoring organisation TTC Automotive has launched the UK’s first course to educate everyday drivers and help reduce both the casualty toll and the number of accidents on county roads.

The two-and-a-half hour seminar sees top grade instructors giving an overview of potential road risks facing drivers, with strategies to improve safety, raise awareness about speed, fatigue, driving distractions such as use of mobile phones and sat navs, and the effects of alcohol and drugs.

But the course is driven as much by the contributions of people like us attending the course. Amid the gravity of all, it can even be fun if you want it to be. What follows are lively discussions, admissions, jokes and a whole lot of learning for a group of adults who have long since forgotten when they passed their tests and developed certain motoring habits.

Trainer Oliver Mayson is a man who likes “hands-up” questions. “Hands up if who has broken the speed limit. . . ”

Tellingly, this time almost every hand goes up. Slowly we are becoming more honest about our driving – and the first step in any self-improvement programme is to acknowledge flaws.

Because by far the biggest cause of accidents, says Oliver, is driver error.

We all know – or think we know – what makes a good driver. But, judging by the responses from around the room, the answer to the question “what affects your performance” reveals that very often modern life simply does not always allow us the time to be one.

Typical suggestions that make it onto the obligatory white board – lack of time and planning, mood, other traffic and distractions and aggression (in other drivers, of course).

The mood lightens when one “student” on the course says: “Does anyone really enjoy driving? It’s a massive waste of time.”

He’s wrong, of course. But this is the way constructive debate often starts. Driving is not a waste of time because it’s the one thing that most of the adult population do, and have to do for both business and pleasure, every day of their lives.

A life without cars is no life. Just ask someone who’s had their licence revoked.

We press on, covering the effects of general health, driver fatigue, drugs, and, yes, that old chestnut that is drink driving.

“What is alcohol?” asks Oliver. A drug, comes the answer from around the room. “Hands up all the ‘druggies’?” Quite a few actually.

We are set a little test, which involves maths, science, common sense and a few self-recognition gags chucked into the enlightenment process for good measure.

The scenario is about a bloke called Geoff who takes his girlfriend out for a meal. He has a G&T, followed by three glasses of wine, then rounds the night off with a brandy.

Given that legally the “average man” can drive if his bloodstream contains less the maximum five units of alcohol, we have to calculate whether by the next morning our Geoff can drive to work. A familiar breakfast-time conversation, perhaps.

There is much debate about the size of the glasses and the type of wine our Geoff has consumed, followed by a lot of fumbling with the “alcohol calculator” we have been furnished with, before it dawns on most of us that we are on shaky ground here. Frankly, we are not at all sure how much alcohol is swilling around in Geoff’s bloodstream by the following morning and whether he is fit to drive. Point made.

The rule – don’t drink and drive – is brought soberingly into focus, not least by another lesson: don’t even drink and do maths.

“If you have to do the sums you should not drive,” says one of the motorists around the table, most sensibly.

“One fifth of all drink drive convictions happen the morning after,” adds Oliver. And it’s probably all you need to know.

Superintendent Mike Mead, of West Mercia Police points out that a field impairment test can be carried out on suspected drink drivers, who can get ‘done’ even if they are not over the limit.

“If you are all over the road, we can try to ascertain whether motorists are unfit for driving.”

Dr Fedor Herbatschek tries the 'beer goggles'

The great debate over how much you can drink and then get behind the wheel of a car comes to an emergency stop when the theory stops and someone produces a pair of “beer goggles”.

Volunteering as a guinea pig to try the field impairment test, Dr Fedor Herbatschek, a senior lecturer at Wolverhampton University, puts on the “beer googles” which simulate having drunk too much. Then he is invited to pick up a dropped marker pen.

“Which one?” he asks.

The course tackles modern motoring distractions that perhaps weren’t taking our minds off the job of driving when most of us passed our tests 20-odd years ago: the perils of sat navs, of hands-free mobile phones and even music. Beware The Kings of Leon, one of the course attendee’s favourite in-car house-bands.

“Fast music can make you drive faster,” says Oliver.

Concentration and observation are tools that are as important, if not more so, than how we physically drive a car. As our instructor points out, out on the open road drivers see what they want to see, often suffering from tunnel vision and not taking in the wider picture. It’s the difference between looking and observing and often causes us to miss clues to potential hazards.

As drivers we are given a 10-second observation test. We are asked to count how many number twos (the numerical kind, clever cloggs) bouncing around on a screen in front of us.

The variation in our answers is striking. “Six.” “Seven.” “Eighteen.”

If this is not shocking enough, Oliver asks: “Have you seen a red bear dancing and doing somersaults?”

And no, it’s not back to the drink-drive scenario. Our instructor plays the same film back to us, and, lo and behold, while we have been looking for dancing numbers we have all missed out on the most obvious thing of all – a red dancing bear that appears bang in the centre of the screen.

Through more interactive scenarios the course also covers observing potential hazards and providing a running commentary on the changing view from the driver’s seat, including how to tell the speed limit on a road that has no repeater posts, and national speed limits for various vehicles.

Again, the fact that there is a conflict in opinion indicates that, while we are all fully qualified drivers, we are all still learning – and that we should never stop learning.

And, judging by the comments made by all of us at the end of the driver safety awareness workshop, we have all learned something. And, hopefully, have become slightly better drivers for it.

• To book onto the driver safety awareness course contact TTC Automotive on 0333 8000 222, or email driver:training@ttcautomotive.co.uk or visit www.ttcautomotive.co.uk

• To encourage as many drivers as possible, the course fee has been reduced to £39.99 with further price reductions for families or group bookings and learner drivers.

By Ben Bentley