Welcome to the latest edition of Driving Ambition, the e-letter that keeps you in touch with the IAM and the motoring matters of the moment between issues of our triannual glossy magazine, Advanced Driving. Inside you'll find stories on:

• Skill for Life as a Valentine's Day Gift
• Associates' events galore
• Driving on winter roads
• Preventing car theft
• The dangers of motorway hard shoulders
• Dealing with illegal cars and drivers
• Parking tickets - now being sent by post!

Remember, it is only by receiving your comments that we can ensure our e-letters continue to strike the right chord, so do put fingers to keyboard or pen to paper.

Happy motoring!

Bob Hinchliffe
Director of Membership and Group Support
members@iam.org.uk

TREAT YOUR VALENTINE TO A SKILL FOR LIFE GIFT PACK If the love of your life is a driver or motorcyclist, giving an IAM 'Skill for Life' Gift Pack for Valentine's Day is a great way to show just how much you really care... more

ASSOCIATES' EVENTS GALORE A number of associates'/members' events are already in place for 2008, with others under discussion. They include... more

WEATHER WARNING With more snow expected across the UK in the coming weeks, the IAM has repeated the advice it gave motorists in the Highways Agency leaflet "Driving in Severe Weather"... more

KEY CARE In the '60s, a bit of twiddling and a suitably worn car key and you could open half the car doors on any British street. By the '70s, the locks had got better, but the mechanisms attached to them still weren't too clever... more

SHOULDER BARGES The hard shoulders of motorways are dangerous places – and that's official. Apparently in the four years to 2004, 67 people died and 950 were injured on the emergency lanes of our British motorways... more

LAWLESS LOONIES We are told there are millions of illegal drivers on our roads and the cost of compensating the victims of uninsured drivers is said to add £30 to the premium of every law-abiding motorist... more

PARKING TICKETS BY POST Come the spring, what we once knew as parking attendants will be called 'civil enforcement officers' and they will no longer need a car at hand in order to issue a parking ticket... more

FACTS AND FIGURES YOU CAN TRUST! Coming soon from the IAM Trust, IAM Motoring Facts 2008 - a mini encyclopaedia of up to the minute motoring and transport information. See the next issue of Advanced Driving Magazine and the IAM website from March onwards for details. full page