Planning and executing a “Driving Tour” is fun, exciting, rewarding, and a bit of work. Here are some tips.
- Pick an area you know or would like to know. Pick a date, keeping in mind weather, competing events (e.g., football games, Cars & Coffees, PCA National Events), holidays, etc. Give plenty of time for you to prepare and participants to plan ahead.
- Using online mapping, define a route: choose fun roads, scenic beauty, a destination, whatever you want. Picnics and Poker Runs are fun variants. Specifically, pick fixed start and end locations.
- If you want to use a proven route, check out our “Past Drive Outs” on our Links page.
- Route in hand, go drive it! At least twice: once to make sure it works (or ground-truth an existing route), then a second time not long before the actual drive out to confirm checkpoint mileages and assess any “Uh-ohs!” like newly closed roads, landslides, new traffic lights, etc. Magically appearing stop signs have occurred just hours before a drive!
- Pro Tip: Test Drive your Drive Out on the day of the week and rough time frame it is scheduled for. That abandoned looking set of shacks on Tuesday might be a raging flea market on Saturday.
- Add in Pit Stops: one every hour or so works well.
- Prepare a good Tour Route document to email/hand to all participants. This can be a sequential listing of checkpoints and turns, a nice map, or even a digital version importable to electronic navigation devices. Chef’s choice here, but bear in mind “simple is best”.
Now some Requirements. Here the basics, more detail is online in the PCA Driving Tour Standards.
- Insurance: A PCA liability insurance certificate shall be requested from PCA National AT LEAST THREE WEEKS PRIOR to the drive out.
- Waivers: All participants need to sign waivers (adult and minor forms are used), and our method to ensure all have signed are Smoky Mountain Region wristbands.
- All drivers are to be at least 18 years old, have a valid drivers license, and valid automobile liability insurance.
- Roster: As participants sign up in advance, collect the driver’s and navigator’s names; car color, model, and year; and, cell phone number, create a written roster of these. This roster is a requirement, not just a good idea.
- Each tour group needs a leader and a sweeper car, and they shall have a safe means to communicate. The club has six decent quality FRS Band hand-held radios to use, Channel 3 on the club radios, which is 462.612 MHz.
- Post-Event Reporting: the leader shall file the Post Event Report to PCA within five (5) days, and a non-planning participant shall file an Observers Report to PCA within ten (10) days.
- All Insurance Waivers and Event Insurance Enrollment Form/Certificate are to be retained for 95 months by the Region Historian.
Day of the Drive Out…
- Before that day, email the final roster and route to all participants.
- Bring some printed roster and route documents to the Drive Out as some may not have printed theirs.
- Set up Waiver Signing Stations and process all participants promptly.
- Once all are there, signed, banded, and ready, hold the Driver’s Briefing, following the “MINIMUM SAFETY BRIEFING FOR TOURS” in the “PCA MINIMUM DRIVING TOUR STANDARDS“.
- Introduce all group leaders and sweepers, specifying their car, and break the tour into groups: Ten to 15 cars per group is a good maximum.
- Allow one last Pit Stop, then hit the road and have fun!!
When it is all over, some may plan on meeting for a meal or beverage, and that is fine. Highly encouraged, actually. But remember once the tour has reached the final destination listed on the Certificate of Insurance, all National PCA coverage ceases.
Have fun, safe travels, and go out and drive! Here are some helpful links:
- Driving Tour Planning Checklist
- PCA MINIMUM DRIVING TOUR STANDARDS
- General Waiver of Liability, PCA Form
- Minor & Parent Waiver of Liability, PCA Form
- MINIMUM SAFETY BRIEFING FOR TOURS, to be discussed in the Driver’s Briefing
- Sample MS Excel spreadsheet for developing and distributing your route & roster
DRIVING TOUR COMMUNICATIONS
Communication on Driving Tours is key, as anything can (and has!) come up. In spite of the excellent cell phone coverage we are used to, many of the roads we enjoy are close to The Middle of Nowhere… with Nowhere coverage. The club has a set of radios, but many of us are getting our own powerful Dual Band walkie-talkies, and the BAOFENG UV-5R Two-Way Radio has been our “go to” unit. It’s powerful, easy to use, compact, and with a whip antenna can get up to 5km in range. Our preferred frequency is 462.612 MHz, a.k.a. “Channel 3”.