Category - ADI

I was watching a discussion on a forum recently (frequented by people who are learning to drive).

One thing that has become extremely clear from reading this particular forum is that every single person who ever learns to drive apparently does so as if they are the only person ever to do it. Whenever they ask for advice, all they seem to want to hear is “you will pass” – anything else offends them.

The thread I am particularly referring to here concerns a learner who has apparently been told she “will fail [her] test in a couple of weeks”. She says:

so i’ve been having more lessons recently as my test is fast approaching but it seems to me the more lessons i have the worse i am at driving

i hate roundabouts and always mess up on them
i’m rubbish at bay and parallel parking and my instructor always says things such as ‘you will fail badly for that’ i’m pretty sure he hasn’t taught me anything and my parents have taught me more than him. He just sits reading his magazines in the lesson or booking someone elses driving test whilst i’m driving!

any tips for the test? and is the test 1hr or 40 mins?

The comment about her driving instructor reading magazines and taking phone bookings has attracted the expected crop of “experts” (including a driving instructor), who obviously believe every single word without question.

Let me just point something out here. Out of the many hundred of pupils I have taught who have had lessons previously, not one of them has ever answered my question about why they left their last instructor by saying something like:

Well, I messed him around, sometimes couldn’t pay, missed lessons, cancelled at the last minute all the time, and he got fed up with me and told me he couldn’t teach me anymore.

However, I have got rid of loads like that – some of whom I’d picked up after they left their last instructor - and a casual glance at any ADI forum reveals that such pupils are common. And another thing that instructor forums reveal is that stories like this one are also very common:

My last instructor was too friendly, too nasty, shouted at me, turned up late, finished lessons early, didn’t turn up at all, cancelled lessons at the last minute, used his mobile, made comments about other drivers, was racist, didn’t teach me anything, etc.

The number of driving instructors who believe all this stuff without question is huge. They are eager to believe it – I think that’s the main problem.

But back to the original quote – the person adds in a later reply:

thanks guys for your comments

i think i will do the test and see what happens
my instructor does in fact have a high pass rate (god knows how) and ALWAYS brags about it ……maybe i’m just terrible at driving

it’s little things such as not enough mirrors, or signalling too late that i think will mess up my chances
but thanks guys!

nervous
and the show and tell me questions i hate so much!

Mmmm. Maybe it isn’t the instructor, then. But she asked for tips for the test. Well, let’s look at the issues:

• can’t do roundabouts
• can’t bay park
• can’t parallel park
• misses “little things” like mirror checks and signalling in time
• has problems with the show-me-tell-me questions

(and let’s not assume she’s an A1 expert at everything else here, because the signs don’t seem to point to it), my advice would be to cancel it, and rebook it after you learn to drive properly. It isn’t rocket science working that one out. Unfortunately, though, such common sense advice is clearly the wrong answer.

The correct answer is provided by someone right at the end of the thread:

Don’t worry! I was told I’d fail 2 days before and I passed

So there you go. Don’t waste your money actually learning – just get someone to tell you you won’t pass, and everything will be all right!

But anyway, the original poster seems happy with any sickly-sweet replies geeing her up – even though she clearly isn’t ready. I can already imagine whose fault it will be if she fails.

Update: And the poster in question passed. So, it just goes to show, doesn’t it?

This BBC report says that Northamptonshire police are set to target poor driving standards amongst taxi drivers and vans. Well, they have their work cut out there.

The story says, though, that:

Officers will be carrying out checks to make sure that all Hackney and private hire drivers and their vehicles are properly licensed…

Sgt Bob French, coordinating the operation, said: “Driving under the influence of drink or drugs, using a mobile phone, speeding and not wearing a seatbelt are the four key causes of collisions involving death or serious injury.”

Right. So it’s not really going after bad drivers – just the usual relatively soft targets. After all, the police should already be targeting drink, drugs, mobile phones, and seatbelts. Shouldn’t they?

If the police want to impress the public with something that’s really new, perhaps they should target taxi drivers who stop or turn wherever the hell they want, whenever the hell they want, whatever the signs or yellow lines say. That’s far more important to me than whether or not a taxi has got a valid licence to pick up fares.

And the same goes for van drivers – ALL van drivers, Yes, including those who work FOR the councils who are involved in this operation. Dustbin lorry drivers are some of the most arrogant prats on the road, deliberately stopping between parked cars and reversing into narrow roads to empty bins, and causing major hold-ups (usually during morning rush hour).

The smell of hypocrisy is strong in this one!

While I was checking links for that story about the learner who accidentally killed her mother, I came across this one from February (which I somehow missed at the time).

A father was being given a driving lesson by his wife, and they had their 4 year old daughter in the back. His satnav – an old one – told him to take a right turn across a 60mph road. Their car was t-boned by a car coming the other way and the 4-year old girl was killed.

The road signs clearly and copiously say “NO RIGHT TURN”, but older satnavs don’t contain the correct information.

Obviously, a very tragic story. The inquest decided that there was no point pressing charges, even though the driver was clearly and definitely in the wrong – a perfectly sensible decision.

However, you can’t help but think about the issue of blame and responsibility (let’s imagine no one was killed and those involved were other people, just to remove the emotion here). After all, at least one person in the car was an allegedly qualified driver, and ignoring road signs is a major hazard these days for the rest of us. It couldn’t have been much of a driving lesson in terms of quality if this sort of thing was the outcome, or if they were using a satnav in the first place.

I can hear the pedants out there already, screaming: “But teaching people to use a satnav is important”. Yes, but that is almost certainly not what was happening here. If it was, the whole situation becomes ten times more serious because of the obvious ignoring of road signs involved.

Around this way, there is a NO RIGHT TURN junction on the A60 into Ruddington. It is on a blind bend, there are double white lines and a hatched region. There are appropriate signs. The speed limit is 40mph. And yet there are certain people who interpret NO RIGHT TURN as only applying to non-residents or those under the age of 60 – a handful of them use it regularly (along with a smattering of white van men who have added the inability to read road signs with pictures to their overflowing toolbox of poor literacy).

I’m always surprised at how tragedies involving children usually don’t delve into what is likely to be the usual behaviour of those involved. Like routinely taking such illegal or dangerous routes.

Maybe the authorities ought to consider that if you don’t penalise people for breaking the rules (and the law) more and more of them start to assume it is OK to do it. Not prosecuting someone for the accidental death of their own offspring is one thing, but banning them from driving due to clearly dangerous behaviour likely to impact others is another matter entirely. After all, you can’t bring a deceased child back – but you CAN do something about not adding anyone else’s to the list!