World - Diary Of An ADI

1 in 5 Motorway Deaths is Pedestrian

13/04/2011

Another Irish story, this time in the Independent. Apparently, 1 in 5 of all deaths on Ireland’s motorways is a pedestrian. Irish Trucker also reports the same story.

It’s another shocking statistic which perhaps derives from Ireland’s previously lax road laws.

RSA chief executive Noel Brett said pedestrians were a “massive risk” on motorways and not only were they a danger to themselves, they were putting other road users in danger.

“The message is clear: never ever walk on a motorway,” he said. “Pedestrians are at a massive risk on a motorway — you’re taking your life in your hands and putting other road users in danger, too.

“Likewise, drivers who stop on a motorway can cause collisions involving their own car and potentially many others. It’s unsafe and it’s an offence.”

Again, it is frightening that people can have such a blasé attitude. You can only hope that the country’s attempts to modernise it’s driving systems takes hold quickly, but you can’t help think that the present generation will always be a problem.

Driving the Wrong Way

13/04/2011

DOAADI

ADI, World

The Irish Times reports that driving the wrong way (citing a specific motorway in County Limerick) is now “a daily occurrence”.

The report also says:

The most dangerous drivers on motorways, gardaí say, are “middle-aged and older drivers”.

These would be the ones who “learned” to drive under Ireland’s previous almost non-existent (according to my Irish pupils) teaching system. I hope those opposed to Ireland’s attempts to bring their system up to scratch are listening… but I doubt it.

Having some troglodyte coming towards you in the outside lane in the opposite direction isn’t funny. I know.

It isn’t just my take. Noels Brett of the RSA said:

…there were 2½ million driving licence-holders, and the vast majority had had no formal driving instruction, particularly older drivers, who he said may be used to driving in a way that was not suitable for motorways. “If someone misses their exit they may feel it’s okay to do a U-turn, or try and reverse back. One simply cannot do that in the high-speed environment of a motorway,” he said.

It’s frightening, isn’t it? It’s like changing from driving on the left to driving on the right – but doing it gradually.

More on Test Centre Closures

12/04/2011

DOAADI

ADI, Driving Tests, World

I’ve written several times recently about test centre closures – both real and imagined – and the subsequent behaviour of ADIs in the areas covered by the centres in question.

This ~~report in Herald Scotland~~ pushes further the idea that tests could be conducted from a variety of locations – supermarkets, libraries, community centres, and so on.

The article says:

The test centres are self-funding, with costs paid by learners sitting their tests. But is thought the savings would help pay for the £71 million cost of building 66 multi-purpose test centres across Britain.

I’m not sure if that is quite correct. MPTCs were not built to be LESS efficient than what was there previously. They were built to be MORE efficient. It stands to reason that ONE MPTC on an industrial estate is going to cost less to run than TWO or THREE community-based test centres shoe-horned above shops and into converted terraced houses in run-down estates. The explanation given above is another Mickey Mouse coalition way of trying to blame things on Labour.

And let’s not forget something no one else appears to be mentioning. The publicity may be centred upon the ramblings of certain self-styled community champions (“we MUST keep a testing facility in our village… won’t someone PLEEEASE think of the children”), but 90% of the public detest learner drivers and would like nothing better than for the test centre next door to bugger off somewhere else.

Driving 15 miles to the nearest test centre is not the problem people like Mike Weir and Sandra Osborne suggest. Some people have to do that anyway (I had one last week who lived 17 miles from the test centre, and several more greater than 10 miles away), and I’d like to see where it is written that no one should ever have to end up travelling further than they do now just because their local centre moves somewhere else.

Commonsense is being swallowed up and masked by amateurish political schemings.

I wonder if those supermarkets, libraries, and community centres will “allow” tests to be conducted for free?

And one more thing: test centres being further away would be less of a problem if local councils did their bloody roadworks more efficiently instead of digging big holes, putting up barriers and lights, and then doing naff all for two months. The biggest worry when travelling is not the distance, but the time.

Gypsies Stripped of Licences

12/04/2011

DOAADI

ADI, DSA, World

I hope it isn’t just gypsies who have this happen to them – it should happen to anyone who is found to be involved in the same type of fraud.

This story in the Daily Mirror reports that almost 150 Irish travellers paid around £500 per test to have some one do it for them, netting the crooks doing the impersonating somewhere around £150,000.

Two women and a man have had to flee their homes as angry gypsies try to get their money back (obviously, these gypsies aren’t bright enough to realise their own fraudulent position in all this – there is no money to “get back” because the people paying it are as guilty of fraud as those taking it).

The three criminals will be sentenced later this year.

According to the DSA, around 5,000 fraudulent driving tests of this type take place.

Keisha Wall Sentenced to Prison

12/04/2011

DOAADI

ADI, World

I wrote a few weeks ago about the case of a woman, Keisha Wall, who read a text message on her mobile phone shortly before ramming into a pedestrian and killing her (here, here, and here).

This article in the Daily Mail reports that she has been jailed.

She arrived at court holding a mobile phone! She’s been jailed for 2½ years.

As reported previously – and repeated in the article here – she was sitting next to her mother, Constance Wall, who is a driving instructor. Let’s hope that “is” soon becomes “was”, because her mother did not at any time appear to tell the truth during the case (I base that comment on the decision made by the jury). I’ll correct that, because I just saw a more detailed account. There’s something weird going on, because her mother wasn’t called on to give evidence. I don’t know about you, but I’d say that the person sitting right next to the accused at the time of the then-alleged crime (i.e. the passenger) would be a bloody good first choice witness!

Wall’s defence said:

She will have to live with the circumstances of that very short episode for the rest of her life.

She is extremely sorry and remorseful for what has happened. That remorse is deep felt, genuine and long-lasting. She is law abiding and supportive of her younger siblings.

No she isn’t. She’s a filthy liar who killed someone. She lied in court, which hardly makes her “law abiding”, and being “remorseful” didn’t stop her from lying, did it?

Still, she’ll be out in little more than a year.

Ten Year Ban “Excessive”?

11/04/2011

DOAADI

ADI, General, World

One from Canada. The Winnipeg Sun reports that a woman who killed two men and seriously injured a third is appealing against her 10 year ban – saying it is “harsh and excessive”.

Apparently, she hit the accelerator thinking it to be the brake. She accelerated suddenly and swerved across the street, hit another vehicle and tore out a fire hydrant. She pushed the other vehicle into a pedestrian, who was seriously injured. Her own vehicle carried on across the intersection and hit two men, who died at the scene.

Her defence lawyer argues that she is a capable driver who suffered momentary inattention.

This seems at odds with the fact that at the original trial she appears to have been an inexperienced driver who had taken refresher lessons.

It’s obviously a tragic story (for those who were killed), but what caught my eye was the length of the ban. Ten years is a hell of a long time.

I just wish they did that over here. Ten years? It isn’t long enough. Some people simply shouldn’t be allowed to drive.

Nissan Leaf: Culture Shock

08/04/2011

DOAADI

ADI, General, World

At last, a real world EE Times review of the Nissan Leaf and an insight into what happens when you do anything other than read the manufacturer’s specification sheet and live in fantasy land.

Charging seems a little confusing, but this is an American review and they have a 110V electrical system over there. It appears that a UK charge cycle from a home mains outlet would take 13 hours (26 hours in the US, unless you buy a 220V adapter). Charging time also appears to be heavily influenced by the ambient temperature.

As the article says:

Most Leaf owners would not want to put up with such a long charging time, unless they could limit their driving so as not to go below about half a full charge.

Quite. So you can buy a 3.3kW charging dock which costs around $2,200 when “installed in a new construction” (i.e. a newly built house as part of the design, so it isn’t a simple affair). Using this, a full charge cycle takes 8 hours (that’s just from the literature though – the reviewer hasn’t actually tested one).

For an extra $700 you can have a cord supplied so you can use 50kW charger kiosks that are supposed to be appearing everywhere. And the Leaf also has a feature to limit charging to only 80% so the batteries last longer (I told you about the damage the 50kW chargers do in a previous article on this subject). Of course, in simple terms 80% charge means only 80% of the maximum range – so 100 miles becomes 80 miles. Or does it?

The reviewer says that on full charge the range display read “93 miles”, but on driving for only 2.7 miles with the heater and headlights on this fell to 77 miles. He also indicates that the maximum “93 miles” fell to 82 miles when the climate control was on…

But the car can run with outside air flowing through the cabin without the climate control on (much like back in the day when most cars did not have air conditioning).

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Still, Mark Goodier seems to have sufficiently low standards to still be gushing about it, whilst simultaneously ignoring the blindingly obvious limitations.

I still want to know how far it will actually go without a charge and with the climate control and lights on. Otherwise, a very good review.

Biofuels? You’re Killing Me!

08/04/2011

DOAADI

ADI, General, World

This is an interesting little snippet from Aircargo Asia-Pacific:

Biofuels ‘driving third world death rates higher’

A report in the UK’s Times newspaper by author Matt Ridley says an Australian government official has claimed that if the world stopped emitting CO2 today, global temperatures would not drop “for hundreds of years”.

He also said that studies in the Journal of Coastal Research indicate that while sea levels are rising (presumably as a result of global warming), the rate is slowing.

He added that biofuel crops may have caused 192,000 additional deaths in 2010 due to their disproportionate impact on malnutrition rates in third world countries.

I hadn’t seen the Times article (and I can’t find it – but I haven’t tried that hard), so this was news to me. The author, ~~Matt Ridley~~ (link now dead), has a book recently published… I’m sure that this is purely coincidental.

Not Another One!

03/04/2011

DOAADI

ADI, Driving Tests, DSA, World

The disease seems to be spreading. I mentioned a day or two ago about instructors up in Dumbarton ready to chain themselves to railings because they’ve convinced themselves that the test centre is going to close and they’ll all be forced to drive 10 miles – 10 whole miles – to another one.

This is in spite of the DSA saying:

DSA plans to continue to provide driving tests in Dumbarton. There are no plans to transfer testing provision… elsewhere.

Then, of course, there was the one up in Cumnock – but it looks like the Mickey Mouse coalition government is anxious to try and win some seats back from the Scottish Nationalists and has given its personal assurance that the tiny, converted terraced house will be reinstated.

This latter story has driven a small group of instructors from Trowbridge, Wiltshire to start moaning about a test centre that was closed down in 2008 – that’s 3 years ago, for anyone who is interested. Since then, they have had to trek the many thousands of miles – well, 13 miles to be precise – to Chippenham.

The coalition has opened up a real can of worms by their stupid intereference in Scotland.

Having offices all over the place is a monumental waste of money to any business, and doubly so during a recession. Fair enough, if a business is offering a service then it needs to have offices in convenient places, but having dozens of the things within a 20 mile radius of a given city or town – which is what the DSA had built up in the past – is a joke.

It’s going to be even more of a joke now the precedent has been set by this coalition – to interfere with simple logic just to win votes.

I wonder if any of the clowns involved in these campaigns realise how much it costs to run a test centre – or how it will be paid for if tiny centres are kept open? Just watch what happens if the DSA has to increase test fees to cover it.

UPDATE 5/4/2011: I have received an email from the coordinator of the Trowbridge situation:

I just wanted to respond to your blog comments:

“This latter story has driven a small group of instructors from Trowbridge, Wiltshire to start moaning about a test centre that was closed down in 2008 – that’s 3 years ago, for anyone who is interested. Since then, they have had to trek the many thousands of miles – well, 13 miles to be precise – to Chippenham.”

I thought I’d let you know what’s actually happened.

We have been fighting to firstly save and now reopen Trowbridge DTC since 25th March 2008 (not just since the news on Scottish DTCs). Whilst the AA Route Planner may show 13 miles from the site of the previous DTC to the DTC in Chippenham to be 13 miles people in Frome (popn 24,500) are having to travel 25 miles and, considering it’s a rural area, up to an hour each way to take their tests.

Whereas the DSA state that the recession has caused around a 7% reduction in the number of tests, DSA information provided in response to a Freedom of Information (FoI) request has shown that the number of people from the Trowbridge, Frome and Westbury area taking tests have dropped by 33%. Many good instructors are now having to work part time as a result and the majority have lost between 15-20% of their work (some have lost up to 40% and these aren’t bad instructors).

There has recently been a leaked DSA document released by the PCS Union stating that the DSA are looking to reduce the number of DTCs to 200 by 2015 (that’s by about half) and there has been much talk, but limited action to date, on putting suitable measures in place; surely this should have been done before they started to close DTCs, especially in major towns (Trowbridge is the County Town of Wiltshire)?

We have recenty submitted an FoI request and a request via our MP (who met with 5 other MPs with Mike Penning MP on 2nd November 2010 to discuss this issue) for details of planned and scheduled DTC closures between now and 2015. Whereas, previously, this information has been provided without any problem, the DSA are now trying to get out of and at the very least delay in providing it.

I’m assuming that you’re based in Nottingham and that you, currently,have two DTCs in your area, including an MPTC, and waiting lists of 4-6 weeks. I don’t know, since I have yet to receive the information from the DSA, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the non-MPTC isn’t closed and that, like us and other similarly affected areas have experienced, the waiting list at the MPTC for car tests doubles to 8-10 weeks as a result (we used to enjoy 3-6 week waiting lists but currently the best we enjoy is 7-8 weeks and sometimes as much as 11-12 weeks).

We may not be a large group, probably 30-50 instructors in total with an action group of about 7, but we’ve been trying for over three years to get some change and it would seem that we and others are just starting to see some results. Maybe even our and others efforts will ensure that if and when one of your local DTCs closes the waiting list won’t go above 6-7 weeks.

If you’d asked us in February 2008 whether Trowbridge DTC would close, we’d have laughed and said no chance. As an increasing number of instructors are finding to their surprise, DTC closures can happen to them.

According to the latest leaked DSA information, on a simple average, about one in two driving instructors will be hit by DTC closures and a number of those will go out of business unless suitable replacement measures are put in place.

In many areas, especially rural ones, it can take quite a while to travel 13 miles let alone 25.

And a further comment:

Based on DSA data provided in response to an FoI request, which I’ve previously referred to, there will be no additional cost to the DSA or the Government as a result of reopening Trowbridge DTC. As the direct result of reopening Trowbridge DTC, it is anticipated that the DSA will receive additional revenue of on average an additional £25,000 per annum over and above the £29,531 per annum cost to the DSA of running Trowbridge DTC (this includes travel and subsistence for examiners). I’m not saying that this will be the case in every area but I’m sure it will be in several and probably in the case of the other 5 areas that are working with us on this issue.

It’s only fair to present both opinions on the matter. That said, I am wondering how anyone could put a price on revenue to be generated by reopening a closed test centre – it implies that there are 400-500 people per annum who would not take their tests unless Trowbridge reopened, and such data are simply not available, and certainly not in a reliable form. I could just as easily say that if people want to learn to drive then they’ll do what is necessary – and that includes travelling typically 10 miles further (some obviously more, but they had to travel quite a way even when Trowbridge was operating and have now been doing the alternative for 3 years) to the now-nearest centre.

I am certain the DSA did its sums before deciding to close Trowbridge, and its data were probably far more fact-based. It’s easy to put a spin on any argument by making the necessary assumptions.

The irony is that the DSA – being a huge bureaucracy – would probably like nothing more than to open test centres in every city, town, and village (which is more or less what it was doing until a few years ago). It has been criticised in the past for the test fees it charges in order to finance this bureaucracy. You’ve had know-it-alls on forums learn a new word – Quango – just so they could keep saying it every time they mentioned the DSA.

And yet now the DSA is trying to streamline it still can’t win.