Predictable. Not surprising. How many more times? Typical. All of those describe this story in Click Lancashire.
Just look at this next sentence, which describes what happened:
Zahid Ali, 18, was speeding in his red BMW at 9pm when he collided with a wall and two parked cars, resulting in the death of two (ages 16 and 19) of the four (the other man was age 20) occupants in Lancashire.
How many clichés or stereotypes about young (usually male) drivers involved in accidents could you get into one sentence?
Ali was jailed for 5 years, banned for 7, and ordered to take an extended test. It was bloody quickly sorted, too, as the whole episode began in March.
The sad thing is, it won’t change anything. This kind of tragedy will still happen.
This is an old article from 2011. It is still correct, but I suggest you take a look at Should I Become A Driving Instructor for more information.
Someone found the blog on the search term “what happens if you fail your 3rd adi test”?
You have two years to complete all the training from the date when you pass your Theory Test (Part 1). Obviously, you can do as much training as you like before this, as long as you’re not giving lessons for money – and you can have as many goes as you like at Part 1.
Part 2 is the driving skills bit. You can have a maximum of three tries at this within the two year period mentioned. If you fail a third time, you have to wait until the two years of your Part 1 is finished before starting all over again – with Part 1.
Part 3 is the instructional ability bit. Again, you have a maximum of three tries within the two year period and – irrespective of how many tries at Part 2 you had – if you fail a third time you have to wait until the two years from when you passed Part 1 is up. Then you have to start with Part 1 all over again.
There is nothing which says you can’t do Part 3 training while you’re studying for Parts 1 and 2 (and ditto with Part 2). There is nothing which says you can’t teach people for practice purposes at any stage throughout this (every parent in the country would be committing a crime otherwise). The only thing you cannot do is take money for it – you need a PDI (trainee) licence to do that.
Hadi Mohammed had failed his test five times, so he got Derbas Hamed (who had a full licence) to take the test for him. Mohammed is a former Iraqi police officer.
What happened was this:
Hamed drove to the test alone
He took the test as Mohammed, but failed with 16 faults
Suspicious staff called the police
The article says:
When the police interviewed Mr Hamed at first he gave his name as Mr Mohammed but when he was arrested he confessed. When Mr Mohammed was also arrested he said he had been too tired to take the test.
I love this part. The usual idiotic mitigation spiel by Mohammed’s lawyer:
My client did not actively commit the deception and played a secondary part.
It was an extremely unsophisticated fraud, ridiculously unsophisticated and amateurish. He got nowhere near succeeding and is thoroughly ashamed.
Utter bollocks. He had every hope that it would succeed, but was too stupid to realise it probably wouldn’t the way he was doing it. The frightening thing is that with a few tweaks it could easily have worked. The lawyer adds:
Since coming to this country from Iraq he is desperate to find work and needs a driving licence.
Exactly.That’s why he did it. It’s the only reason: it was for his benefit.
Even better is the Recorder’s summing up:
This is a very serious offence and had you both been successful a completely unqualified driver and not a very good one at that would have been let loose on the roads.
This would have meant a danger to other road-users and only a custodial sentence is justified. I do not accept Mr Hamed’s contention that he failed the test deliberately.
So Hamed reckoned he failed deliberately! I wonder how much he was paid?
Mohammed was jailed for two months, and Hamed (already with form for fraud whilst impersonating someone for the theory test) for three.
This is coincidental. On a forum frequented by young, new or learner drivers, someone is shooting his mouth off about older drivers and suggesting there is nothing wrong with younger ones.
Young male drivers are being all but banished from the roads with news that the average insurance policy for guys aged 17-20 years now exceeds £4,000.
The article explains that by getting married and putting his wife on the policy as a named driver he’ll likely get a £1,000 reduction!
However, what the article doesn’t explain is why the average young male has to pay this kind of money in the first place. You need to look elsewhere for that…
A look at road accident figures helps explain why insurance premiums are so high for young drivers.
Five facts about accidents involving young drivers
1 in 5 drivers are involved in a crash during their first year on the road
male drivers aged under 21 are 10 times more likely to have a car accident than male drivers aged 35 or over
young drivers have a higher proportion of crashes at night than older drivers
1 in 8 British drivers are under 25, but a quarter of drivers who die in traffic collisions are in this age group
In 2007, 40% of passengers killed or seriously injured – meaning lost limbs, paralysis, brain injury and other life-changing injuries – were in a car driven by a young driver*
Being aware of the risks that come with being an inexperienced driver can help you to think about how you can improve your driving.
* Young driver accident statistics
Road Casualties Great Britain 2006, Department for Transport
DSA, The Schools Programme, Driving Standards Agency, 2000
Association of British Insurers, 2007
Night-time Accidents, H. Ward, Centre for Transport Studies, University College London, 2005
Road Casualties Great Britain 2007, Department for Transport
Is any more proof needed? These are not just made up figures – they’re real ones recorded by major players in the field.
On the forum in question, young drivers are revealing exactly why these statistics exist. They talk of “having to overtake” people who aren’t driving at 60mph in a 60mph zone. They talk of getting angry at a slower, older driver in front of them, and at having to get past them.
Which of thse has the greater benefit?
getting angry and overtaking
getting angry and just staying behind for the short time involved
For young people, it’s that first option.
And that’s why they have to pay huge sums for their insurance.
Update: On the forum I mentioned, someone has started a thread asking why insurance for young drivers has gone up so much over the last few years. Honestly, it’s like banging your head against a brick wall!
One more time:
young drivers have more – and more serious - accidents than older ones
It’s that simple. It’s got little to do with fraud (as someone is claiming on the forum – they’ve got their stories mixed up there). Just saying “but I’m a safe driver” doesn’t alter the fact that you’re also 17 and the ink is still wet on your licence. You cannot prove that you are different to any other 17-year old, therefore you have to accept being treated like any other 17-year old.
If you want to be seen as different, then prove it. Then your no claims discounts will bring your insurance down.
This article suggests that people failing to declare points on their licences, or mention previous accidents, when applying for car insurance is a problem.
Anybody who has had an accident in the past and not reported it, or indeed anyone who has had points added and not reported that either, can discover that their insurer refuses to pay them for incidents and claims. As such, if they then drive without insurance, they will again be operating in breach of UK law.
This seems to be a very complicated way of saying that if you lie on your application, your insurance is void. And if your insurance is void then this means you have no insurance.
People seem incapable of comprehending this – it’s the same with the issue of “fronting” (where young drivers get their parents to insure the car, and they are a named driver).
Just because you have paid money doesn’t mean you are insured if you lied to get the price down.
Whenever I see these stories about people being banned (or prosecuted) the idiotic mitigating pleas their defence lawyers come out with always make me laugh.
Artur Lobacs allegedly had a row with his girlfriend, shot two red lights in front of an unmarked police car, then reversed aggressively after turning into a dead-end street, wove from side-to-side, and nearly collided with parked cars.
When pulled over, Lobacs was unsteady on his feet and failed the breath test. He was found to be nearly twice the legal limit. He was arrested.
In court, his lawyer said he had argued with his girlfriend and drunk one small glass of whisky.
It must have been one hell of a small glass. Working on the approximation that two pints of beer is the maximum you should drink if you’re driving, that would be equivalent to 4 units. Lobacs was twice the limit, so had consumed 8 units. That means his “small glass” was equivalent to four double whisky measures – or 200mls of the stuff!
That’s nearly half a pint of whisky in his “small glass”.
His lawyer still got paid, no doubt, even though the court didn’t swallow any of it and banned Lobacs for 17 months, and fined him a total of £350.
The Shropshire Star reports the following results of a survey.
Top 10 driving tunes
1 The Who – My Generation
2 Queen – Don’t Stop Me Now
3 Steppenwolf – Born to be Wild
4 The Prodigy – Firestarter
5 David Bowie – Heroes
6 Kings of Leon – Sex on Fire
7 Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run
8 Black Eyed Peas – I Gotta Feeling
9 Elbow – One Day Like This
10 Take That – Never Forget
I’m reasonably with them up to no. 7, but after that… well…
In any case, the whole list is nonsense. Everyone knows that THIS is the best driving song. EVER. Click the play button to listen…
This article at diabetes.co.uk says that the DVLA is bringing forward amendments to the rules about diabetics and driving.
The original changes were brought about by an EC directive, and basically say that if someone can prove their fitness to drive then they can gain their licence. They will need to meet certain requirements and have annual independent medical checks. They will also have to have at least a three-month historical glucose level record held on a meter which has a memory function before they can apply.
The regulations are specifically targeted to those wanting to drive group 2 vehicles (HGVs and PSVs), but the article reports that they could impact on assessment criteria for Group 1 vehicles (ordinary cars and motorcycles).
This article from The News of Portsmouth is interesting [dead link removed]. The author is a reporter for the publication.
The article is titled “There are some things your parents can’t teach you”, and is the author’s personal opinion regarding driving lessons – first with her dad, and then with a driving instructor.
I recently posted an article about private practice, and gave some examples of the kinds of things that can happen to make it… well, not very useful.
I’ve also got a shed load of stories about the family arguments caused when a parent or partner tries to teach a learner.
One current pupil goes out with his dad. After his first time out, I asked him if they’d ended up arguing – he couldn’t wait to unburden himself over how his dad shouted at him, always found fault, told him to do things differently to the way I’d taught him, tried to teach him a “better” way of parallel parking (but couldn’t explain how he – with 30 years experience – judged positions and when to steer, and so created massive confusion), and so on.
A while back, I’d arranged for a pupil’s husband to sit in the back on a lesson so he could see what to look for. At the end of the lesson, I wagged my finger theatrically and said:
Now promise me that you WON’T fall out over this!
My pupil replied:
You’re too late! We already have!
They were apparently not on proper speaking terms that day because of a lesson he’d taken her on the night before (and with hindsight, it explained the look on her face if he said anything during that lesson).
And another current pupil is often in a bad mood because he’s had an argument with his mum after she’s pointed something out while they’re driving to or from school that day.
I could give loads more examples, but the point is that as well as private practice sometimes being of poor quality due to the supervising driver not being necessarily a good driver or a good teacher, there are also the underlying “issues” that frequently exist within families which can prevent even good supervision being received well (i.e. there is no “detachment”)
Anyway, back to this article. The authour comments that although lessons are expensive they should still be a legal requirement becuase parents don’t have the training or detachment (see my comment above)necessary to do the job. She says that yelling at your kids on the street is one thing, but yelling at them when they are in control of the 2-litre family car is something else.
She mentions that things can go wrong – and cites the example of the mother accidentally killed by her daughter in a car park in an accident, but says others are lucky to get away with bumps or scrapes.
She concludes by saying that she believes there should be a retest every 5 years, more than 3 points for speeding, and lifetime bans for drink driving.
I agree fully with her comments, and the reference to the tragic accident involving that mother and daughter is very pertinent indeed.
Mind you, a serial commenter called Ripcords Ghost doesn’t. He or she thinks that the article is an “advertorial” and the reference to the mother who was killed is “very distasteful”.
I’m not really sure how this is “news”. The back of my copy of the Highway Code and other DSA books clearly says it is published by TSO (The Stationery Office), and that’s where I buy my stuff from usually.
So quite why anyone has seen it necessary to announce that TSO has won the contract isn’t clear. I guess they mean they have retained it.
Or maybe, TSO had it – and the DSA was forced to go through a ridiculously expensive and time consuming tendering process to satisfy some lame-brained bureaucrat somewhere, just to confirm what was already the case.
Whenever I see 
This 
The article is titled “There are some things your parents can’t teach you”, and is the author’s personal opinion regarding driving lessons – first with her dad, and then with a driving instructor.