What's happening on the day?
While many events offer a quick tour of exhibition stands and mini-workshops, true professional development takes focus. That’s where the DIA Conference comes in: as the largest provider of training and development for driver and rider trainers, we know that your time is best spent learning from industry leaders in a calm, immersive setting. Our conference provides just that, with top experts sharing key insights on driver training and road safety. Not only will you learn from the best, but you’ll have a chance to connect with policymakers and regulators to have your voice heard on key issues.
Join us at the DIA Conference for a deeper dive into the world of driver training and education.
Why is Continuing Professional Development (CPD) important in driver and rider education?
- CPD helps you maintain and develop the knowledge and skills you need to deliver a professional service and product to customers
- CPD is crucial in ensuring your knowledge is up to date in terms of any regulatory or legislative frameworks you operate in both your specific profession, and in operating a business
- CPD helps you stay more aware of the changing trends and directions in your profession.
- CPD helps you to stay interested and interesting. Experience is valuable, but it can mean that we default to what we have done before.
- Focused CPD opens you up to new possibilities, new knowledge and new skill areas.
- As a trainer the product you promote and provide is up to date knowledge and skills acquisition in the field of driver and rider training - if your knowledge is not developed and current, how good a product are you providing to customers?
- CPD can help you manage risk better - the more you know, the more risks you can mitigate
Morning Session - Keynote Speakers
Kicking off the day, we’ll be joined by leading experts in driver education, and senior decision makers in driver training, testing and licensing. You’ll have the opportunity to ask questions, raise challenges and share your viewpoints - having the voice of the trainer heard by who those needs to hear it!

Dr Shaun Helman, Transport Research Laboratories
Respected Transport Psychologist and driver behaviour expert Shaun Helman shares with us latest data and research on driver behaviour, valuable knowledge which can help us transform how we train drivers and riders

Richard Holden, Secretary of State for Transport (Roads and Local Transport)

Loveday Ryder, CEO, Driving and Vehicle Standards Agency
The speaker who everyone wants to hear from – and give their two-pennyworth to! She’ll be talking post-pandemic test recovery, improving pupil outcomes post-test, developing trainer standards and performance, and other hot topics in both the DVSA’s and our world. Loveday and senior members of the DVSA team will also (of course) taking your questions and hearing your views.
Lunchtime and Breaks
Included in your ticket is a tasty hot and cold buffet, plus time to catch up with the DIA team, colleagues, speak to exhibitors and tour the world-renowned motor museum.
- Network with colleagues, chat with exhibitors, and engage with the DIA team.
- Fuel up with a tasty meal and snacks.
- Make sure to explore the captivating history of over 400 British classic cars at the British Motor Museum during your lunch break.
Afternoon Session - CPD Workshops
The DIA Conference is designed to give you a whole afternoon of quality professional development, with meaningful workshops led by qualified experts, either introducing you to new approaches to training or helping you develop your existing knowledge and skills.
Workshop 1 – The Coach Approach
Coaching verses instruction is still a much-discussed topic in driver and rider training with some trainers still unclear on the best approaches to take, and how to blend coaching and instruction. In this workshop we’ll revisit what coaching is and how to best integrate it into your teaching toolbox.

Kev Field, The Driving Confidence Coach
In recent years Kev has trained with the Coaching Academy to become a personal development and business coach and NLP practitioner and aims to inspire and encourage others, through my passion for coaching, so that they can improve their driving confidence. As well as being a personal development coach, Kev is also an Grade A instructor and ORDIT registered ADI trainer. He has previously also delivered the BTEC Level 4 Coaching course on behalf of the Tri-Coaching Partnership as well as being a Driver Metrics trainer. Before being an ADI, Kev drove professionally and is able to drive anything from a forklift to an articulated lorry, gaining his HGV license at the age of 21. Kev combines his in-depth knowledge of road users and behaviour, driver training and coaching to empower others to achieve their driving, and driver training, career goals.

Neil Wightman, ORDIT Registered Trainer
Neil is an accomplished and multifaceted professional, combining being an ORDIT registered trainer, IAPC&M life coach, mentor, published author (and esteemed executive committee member of the IMTD) with many other aspects of driver training. With a deep-rooted passion for teaching and mentoring, Neil is dedicated to helping individuals unlock their full potential while continuously improving the effectiveness of his training methods. As a strong advocate of continuous professional development (CPD), Neil firmly believes in the importance of ongoing growth and refinement. He relentlessly pursues personal improvement while offering unwavering support to others on their learning journeys.
Workshop 2 – Standards Check (and Part 3) Slam Dunk
Join us for a Standards Check ‘bootcamp’ where we’ll look at what it takes to deliver a slam dunk in your Standards Check (or Part 3) and deliver better on the National Standards in the every day and with every pupil. We’ll look at the stats, the success and failure stories and how to develop your own performance, as well as what DVSA are doing to develop the Standards Check as a performance measure.

Nigel Robinson, Delivery Manager, National ADI and Delegated Scheme
Nigel began is career as a PDI and then qualified as an ADI, he was an ADI for 10 years before joining DVSA as a driving examiner. During this time Nigel conducted car, motorcycle, LGV and ADI tests. Qualifying as a trainer of ADI examiners, he was later made responsible for all ADI examiner training. From there Nigel progressed onto his current position of National ADI Delivery Manager. In total Nigel has 40 years in the ADI industry. If anyone knows about Standards Checks and Part 3’s (and improving ADI performance overall, it’s Nigel!).

Head of Road Safety, Driving Instructors Association
Howard is an experienced ADI with 19 years of experience covering various sectors, including transport and fleet, as well as the provisional car and motorcycle industries. His extensive knowledge of road safety is highly valuable in his role on the DIA Helpdesk, where he provides expert advice and support to our members. With his strong communication skills and attention to detail, Howard ensures that our members receive the best possible guidance and assistance.
Workshop 3 – Developing you, and your pupil’s, EQ
We are driven by our emotions, and emotions play a huge part in our driving, and driving safety.
Emotional Intelligence is important in the development of drivers and riders, in your development as a trainer, and frankly in our development as human beings in general. It’s about developing the ability to perceive, interpret, demonstrate, control, evaluate, and use emotions to communicate with and relate to others effectively and constructively.
In this short workshop we’ll look at what emotional intelligence is, how emotions impact how we respond in the context of driving and riding, and how developing our knowledge and understanding in this area can help you in your delivery as trainers.
As well as introducing you to this fascinating topic, we’ll also undertake some interactive group work looking at how to recognise and evaluate emotions and develop our responses to them. As a result we hope you’ll walk away with an interest in developing your EQ as trainers, and how you can in turn help develop the emotional intelligence of your pupils.

Carly Brookfield, CEO Driving Instructors Association
You may know Carly as our CEO, but she is also a respected communications professional, with experience of managing external and internal communications across a broad road range of organisations, industries and sectors (often managing complex communication exercises in situations where emotions have run high and relationships between stakeholders have been difficult to manage). She has also managed and developed a number of diverse teams, coaching both individuals and whole teams in the area of communication. Developing her own understanding of emotional intelligence has been critical in her work and she is passionate about how developing our understanding of emotional intelligence can benefit driver and rider education. With a Foundation qualification in Emotional Intelligence (accredited by the Institute of Leadership and Management), she is working towards becoming a recognised Practitioner in the space, and developing specialist training in this area for driver and rider trainers.