ADI - Diary Of An ADI

BSM To Switch Back To Corsas

12/10/2010

EDIT 28/6/2012: Note that this story dates from 2010. BSM is now run by The AA, and is owned by The AA’s parent company.

I saw this story in the press today. BSM is getting rid of its much-maligned fleet of Fiat 500s and switching back to Corsas. The change will take place in March 2011 – or rather, the change will start in March 2011: there is no indication how long it will take to replace all cars.

The original deal with Fiat was made last summer and was supposed to be for 4 years. One can only guess at how much the early cancellation will cost, and what effect it might ultimately have on BSM at a time when all schools are feeling the pinch and when a double-dip recession is feared by many. Fiat won’t take that lying down.

The story says:

Instructors had complained the three-door Fiat 500 was too small, so BSM decided to make the switch to five-door 1.2- and 1.4-litre Vauxhall Corsas ‘in recognition that instructors often use their cars not only as a tool for their trade, but also as their primary family vehicle’.

Personally, I didn’t have a big issue with the Fiat – I thought it was quite cute – but I didn’t have to drive one, and I doubt I’d have been comfortable if I had. Most other instructors (especially those who who were independent, and whose business it wasn’t) did have an issue, though. But you can’t help wonder why BSM didn’t listen to its own instructors in the first place, because those instructors sure as hell weren’t saying anything different last summer when they first went crazy over the change! They hated the Fiats from Day One.

Of course, there were also problems (well, very strong rumours) with the DSA about having examiners sit in the back of such a small car, as well as safety concerns over 3 doors.

I wonder if this will see instructors who left return to BSM’s ranks?

The source of this story is What Car, and they make the valid comment that a lot of Fiat 500s are likely to appear on the secondhand market – possibly at bargain prices.

You Gotta Laugh

08/10/2010

DOAADI

ADI, Funny

I’ve seen this posted in a few places – it’s a spoof of a driving test centre dealing with independent driving (and it involves Adolf Hitler, so don’t view it if you’re easily offended):

It’s funny – but it is in no way representative of any significant number of problems with the implementation if independent driving. It’s more like wishful thinking.

Someone has written to me pointing out that the sound is all wrong. I realise that – it was just an artefact of recording it (it wasn’t created by me). Obviously, if anyone speaks German then the actual dialogue bears no resemblance to the subtitles.

Clamping At Colwick: Another Update

08/10/2010

DOAADI

ADI, Driving Tests, DSA

I’ve written in the last few months about clamping at Colwick MPTC (with updates after the original clamped ADI contacted me, and after I’d seen another car clamped).

Another reader has contacted me with the following:

Hi

I was also clamped on the 11th May and had no choice but to pay for removal of my wheel clamp – £140!!!

I rang the police as i was clamped by an irish male in a landscaping van, who looked very suspicious and unprofessional.

The police didn’t beleive he was ‘official’ but I had no choice to pay him. He said to appeal against it, which i have sent several e-mails to Town Park Management and not had any response.

I think it is absolutely disgusting. I have parked there for years to walk my dog and are very angry at the situation.

Hopefully, the forthcoming ban on private clamping will stop the cowboys at City Estates (and their mercenary deputies) raking in money for their own benefit.

All that crap in their letter at the test centre – claiming it is because of “Health & Safety” – is bullshit. I was down there the other night on a lesson and there were lorries and cars parked all over the place as they used to be. City Estates is just sending out their deputies when they need a few quid, and targeting people who are less likely to be able to do something about it.

Bad Drivers Revisited

06/10/2010

DOAADI

ADI

I had a day off today and went off to Wiltshire to do some shopping and a few other things.

I was mindful of one of my recent posts about first time passers being safer drivers as I was travelling on the M69 back to Nottingham (actually, the very start of the M69 where the M6 joins it at Walsgrave). There I was, happily driving along on a near empty carriageway, when a silver Ford Galaxy ( reg no. S171 SHJ ) nearly pulled out in front of me without reason (the lanes don’t merge: they just join, so it goes from 2 lanes to 4 lanes).

I slammed on my brakes and it dipped back in, and then the idiot pulled out properly this time, obviously thinking I had slowed down to give way!

I watched the Galaxy over the length of the M69 to the M1 repeatedly pulling out in front of other cars without signalling – the driver seemed to want to stay in the left lane, but was travelling faster than everything in that lane. At the M1 junction, the Galaxy overtook one last lorry – but decided to slow right down to do it, which meant I had to again brake and fall in behind the lorry.

The last I saw, the Galaxy was going into Leicester Forest services. As I glanced over, I saw the diminuitive form of a blonde woman (designer sunglasses, black clad) sitting arched forward, white knuckles gripping the wheel, staring fixedly ahead at the car she was tailgating.

I wonder how many goes she had at the test before passing?

Independent Driving: Day 1

04/10/2010

DOAADI

ADI, DSA

So, the big day came. Then went. Was it a problem in the end?

I had a pupil on test today and the silly sod failed for not checking his mirrors when changing lanes (and he said he knew he’d done it). Otherwise he’d just got 4 driver faults. The examiner told him at the end that his independent driving was fine.

While I was in the test centre waiting (I don’t see any point scurrying along like a trained poodle just because of independent driving), I asked one of the examiners how it had gone. He said there had been no problems and people seemed to be driving better – I just wish he hadn’t added that “everyone was passing”, or that I hadn’t taken that as literally as I did, given the result 15 minutes later for my pupil!

He said he regretted the loss of a manoeuvre (ditto that), but he couldn’t see that it would have much effect on KSIs.

It’s a huge storm over nothing. If pupils are taught properly they can drive independently – or independently enough to pass the driving test. Simple as that.

And even if KSIs don’t fall by hundreds of percent, it doesn’t mean it isn’t a valuable part of the test.

Classic Lessons In A Moggy

04/10/2010

DOAADI

ADI

Another reader-supplied link to another Autoblog story.

An ADI in Taunton is giving lessons in a Morris Minor – or Moggy. The only part I disagree with in the story is that they say the car is “30 years old”.

It is an “H” reg – and that was issued in 1969/70. So the car is actually 40 years old!

You still see quite a few of these around, and they fetch decent prices. They’re beautiful cars – I can remember when a neighbour has one with a split windscreen and (I think) little flip out arms as direction indicators.

Mind you, although it is a great gimmick, I can’t see how learning to drive in a car like this is preparing young drivers for their life on the road – especially when the first car they get is likely to be at least a 1.4 Corsa.

Official: First Time Test Pass Means Safer Drivers

04/10/2010

DOAADI

ADI

A reader sent me a link to this article in Autoblog.

…first time passers that are the lucky recipients of the title of ‘safest drivers in the world ever’, but this report seems to have official government backing.

A study by TRL, formerly the Transport Research Laboratory, claims that drivers that passed first time were “15 percent less likely to be involved in a collision”.

Autoblog appears to be sceptical of this research (it points out that it was commissioned by the Department for Transport). The story continues:

“First time passers were on average more confident about their driving abilities,” the research noted.
“They also reported making fewer inexperience errors, but more violations and more aggressive violations when driving.”

A separate report by TRL revealed learner drivers who had had lots of practice driving in town centres and in the rain had more chance of avoiding an accident in the six months after passing their test.

Whenever anything like this appears it always seems to start up some sort of war. If it isn’t the people who commissioned the report it’s one of the researchers, or some equally silly quarrel. Everyone else always seems to know best.

My opinion is that it is just proving the obvious. I mean, it must be pretty clear that people who can confidently go to test and pass it are, by definition and on average, more confident drivers with a better understanding of how to apply their skills. Better, for example, than the white knuckle drivers who eventually scraped through their tests after cracking under the pressure on the first few, and who hate driving and always will.

I suppose it is also obvious that some people who pass first time are likely to be proud of that fact and – again, on average – see themselves as superior. It is understandable that they tend to drive accordingly.

It is also blindingly obvious that experience in some topic lends skills that those who haven’t had the experience will lack. Notably, driving in bad weather and in towns.

The overwhelming problem with the survey (or is it the reporting of the survey? I don’t know for sure) is that it is a gross oversimplification of the real situation. Driving skills and attitude may well mix to form a lethal cocktail, but they are completely separate entities. You need to be an arrogant little sod in the first place to drive arrogantly once you pass your test, and passing your test doesn’t specifically make you any more or less arrogant.

It just gives you another way with which to express your arrogance.

And one more thing: the research isn’t suggesting that those who don’t pass first time shouldn’t be on the roads. OK, some shouldn’t – but some first-time passers shouldn’t be, either. It is simply pointing out how innate ability as a driver is reflected generally in test success data.

BSM On The Rocks?

29/09/2010

DOAADI

ADI

I’m hearing a lot of rumours at the moment that BSM is close to going under.

If anyone knows more on this, please drop me a line via the Contact Form.

EDIT 1/10/2010: A reader has commented that whilst at the test centre recently, there is a BSM instructor who is also working as a taxi driver who has admitted to being desperate for work (that’s worth mentioning, because BSM used to supply a lot of work generally). Still no official information, though.

Anyone reading this please note: I’m just trying to find out what is going on so I can report on it. I don’t want BSM to fold – in any case, someone would buy them up quickly (you don’t lose a name like BSM just like that). If they are on the rocks, maybe getting it over and done with and into new hands is the best way forward?

Driving Test Results Rigged? An Update

26/09/2010

DOAADI

ADI, Driving Tests, DSA

There’s an update to this story about an examiner who reckons he was sacked for not failing people on purpose. The updated story is in the Sunday Mail and Daily Record (Scottish news sites), and includes an interview with Jim Kerr.

It really is clear that Mr Kerr does not have a clue how statistics work, and cannot accept the simple fact that if he is passing more people than every other examiner, then either every other examiner is doing it all wrong… or he is. This is what I suggested in the previous post on this topic.

I also suggested that there was more to Mr Kerr’s story than meets the eye. It appears this is also true:

Jim, who worked at Glasgow’s Shieldhall Test Centre, said: “I was called in last March and told that, because my pass rate was higher than my colleagues’, I must be doing things wrong – and had to fail more people.

“I was shocked. I was probably the most experienced examiner at Shieldhall and possibly the only one not to have a disagreed decision in the quality control process.”

Jim, of Newlands, Glasgow, was so affected by the situation that he signed off sick with stress.

It isn’t clear whether “last March” is March 2010, or March 2009, but the wording seems to point to it being the latter. In other words, Mr Kerr has been dismissed after being off work for a prolonged period of time. This is standard company (any company) practice – you cannot just keep paying people when it is clear they are not capable of working.

The DSA makes it clear why he wasn’t dismissed:

A DSA spokesman said: “Mr Kerr’s dismissal was in no way linked to any variation in pass rates.

“Examiners are trained to assess all tests in strict accordance with DSA guidelines; their performance is monitored to ensure they meet the high standards required of them, but they do not have quotas.

“Every test is assessed independently and on its own merits.”

From what I can see – and putting two and two together – Mr Kerr was not happy about an internal change, thought himself better than everyone around him (he virtually says this in the interview), refused to accept the amendments to the performance monitoring system or the statistical anomalies in his own performance, and went off sick (allegedly with stress, but I suspect at least partly with a strop on).

The claim that he was told to “fail more people” is his own interpretation of something he disagreed with. As I said in the previous post on this subject, I don’t doubt for a moment that some examiners fail people just to avoid getting into any sort of disciplinary trouble and maintain an artificial variance, but the DSA sure as hell doesn’t tell them to do it!

Do driving examiners fail people deliberately?

The short answer is NO. They do not. They are not told to fail people as part of any quota.

However, there are corrupt people in all walks of life, and as I’ve explained elsewhere it is possible that some examiners – a tiny percentage – fiddle their pass rates in order to avoid being “told off” by their managers.

EDIT 30/09/2010: I’m getting hits on “examiner told to fail pupils”. Mr Kerr was NOT told to fail pupils. That was his own idiotic take on being told he was not doing his job properly by passing far more people than any other examiners were doing.

Mr Kerr appears to have gone off sick after refusing to acknowledge he was not doing his job properly and that he was passing people who were not up to standard. He was off “sick” for what looks like more than a year. His employment was terminated for THAT reason.

It is also worth noting his behaviour after the event. He apparently decided to stand outside the test centre handing out his inaccurate claims in leaflet form. He was removed and threatened with arrest if he did it again. Can you imagine what it would be like for a learner going to test having some imbecile giving that sort of thing to you?

Mr Kerr’s actions clearly show that he was not the Colossus of Sense and Reason he appears to think he is.

More Independent Driving Drivel

22/09/2010

DOAADI

ADI

I fully support the new independent driving element of the driving test. A lot of ADIs don’t – just as they don’t support anything else the DSA does.

I noticed on one forum yet another incoherent whinge about what’s wrong with the world and how it is all the DSA’s fault. Apparently, they don’t listen to ADIs. In full swing, the poster in question says:

Rosemary and the bloomin DSA are banging on about the new 10mins independent driving blah blah blah. Actually Rosemary– SOME ADI’S HAVING BEEN DOING THIS FOR YEARS!! ITS NOTHING NEW. DON’T CREDIT ADIS THOUGH WILL YOU? JUST AS LONG AS YOUR NAME KEEPS MAKING HEADLINE NEWS YEAH

This is exactly why the DSA apparently doesn’t listen – at least to some ADIs. It’s because they are talking crap.

This idiot misses the point entirely. Specifically:

a lot of ADIs haven’t been doing “this” for years
a lot of ADIs still aren’t doing it
no doubt, some ADIs will refuse to do it
to all of those that haven’t been doing it for years, “it” will be new
“it” hasn’t been tested for before, so anyone on test who couldn’t do “it” previously wouldn’t have been flagged as such
in the past, a huge number of substandard drivers have been taught by substandard ADIs who only taught them to pass the test and not how to drive in the real world

It’s also worth pointing out – especially in light of this further example of what ADIs often say and believe about themselves – that just saying you do something (or are good at it) doesn’t mean you actually do (or are).

All of this came about from the news story yesterday where there are renewed calls for 17-24 year olds to not be allowed to drive at night or carry passengers, and comparisons with systems used overseas.

Category - ADI