May bank holiday travel advice
Travellers are advised to check for delays and cancellations before beginning journeys this bank holiday weekend.
As many as 15 million cars are likely to take to the roads this bank holiday weekend.
With schools breaking up for half-term, roads are expected to be particularly busy on Friday 28 May, and again on Saturday.
The AA predict that routes to the south west of England are likely to be the busiest, with congestion also expected on main routes to the coast and national parks.
The Highways Agency is due to complete 23 sets of roadworks before the weekend and is suspending 31 other sets from 6.00 am on Friday until midnight on bank holiday Monday.
Although 32 sets of roadworks will remain in place over the weekend, including those on a section of the M25 in Hertfordshire.
The Highways Agency is telling people to check their journey before leaving.
[link removed – out of date]
The Met Office weather forecast looks good (which means it might be cold and wet, or it might be hot and sunny). The May Bank Holiday is the bank holiday formerly known as Spring Bank Holiday, by the way.
There’s a debate/argument going on on one of the forums (the one where the crazy people all go) about the GDE Matrix and “coaching”.
In a nutshell, you have one group who believe that no ADI currently instructs properly unless they have been trained to “coach” using the GDE Matrix, and another group who believes that the GDE Matrix is anything from a complete waste of time all the way up to just putting into a lot of words what they already do.
One poster has said:
Imagine a 18 year old, who in training are great but how will their behaviour change going to meet a friend with 3 of his mates in the car. What is his main goals for this journey? Well, almost certainly to get there safely, but what other goals are there here? Perhaps showing his mates what a good driver he is? What could this mean in practice? Possibly driving quickly? And what happens if these goal causes a misjudgement – crash!
Behaviour is related to context, encouraging a driver to recognise this and to develop coping strategies is what level 3, is about, as well as the environmental issues outlined above. Of course the next question is how do your raise this awareness and get past the ‘Oh no I would never do anything like that, I will always drive exactly how you taught me’ response? Well one approach is coaching.
Tonight, after my last lesson, I was nipping to the local Asda. As I came down Loughborough Road, past the fire station where the speed limit drops from 40mph to 30, I noticed a silver Corsa (blacked out windows, of course) come flying up behind me. He came right up to tailgate me, then decided to overtake – which meant he had to go around one of those pedestrian islands – right outside West Bridgford school – on the opposite side of the road. There was a car coming the opposite way.
As usual, the little moron got away with it. But I bet mummy and daddy don’t know he drives like that. But if they did know, would they care? They’re probably out telling everyone how good he is.
You see, this is where the problem lies. It isn’t the driving instructor’s fault that little Johnny or Laurie drive like prats. It’s the parents who are to blame – for never having said “no”, and for buying their little darlings pratmobiles to try and kill themselves in.
You see it time and time again. There is no way some greasy-faced little chav can afford a brand new Corsa (certainly not as many of them as you see driving the damned things). It’s mummy and daddy again. It’s also mummy and daddy who are to blame for letting little Johnny get the sports model, fit a noisy exhaust, stick blue LEDs all over it, get a dodgy licence plate, and get the windows blacked out. In fact, all the things that say “I’m going to drive this like I’m at the Monaco Grand Prix, even though the ink is still wet on my licence”.
I recently got the urge (again) to get my motorcycle licence. I remember when I was 17, my dad told me that if I ever got a motorbike he’d kick me out of the house. When I told him I was planning to do it this time, he said if I did it while he was still alive he’d disown me. He meant it, too.
My, how things have changed.
But back to this crap about “coaching” people. The implication is always that by coaching someone on driving lessons, you can turn a pot-smoking hoodie into a prime minister. This is total bollocks.
As the example from tonight shows (and this is something I see every day – it isn’t just a one-off), these prats drive the way they want to . The only input an ADI can have is to make sure they at least know how to drive properly. That they have been given the right tools and taught to use them.
But whether they choose to use them is not going to be influenced by their driving instructor, with whom they spend around 40 hours in total. Over the 20 weeks or so that they have those 40 hours of driving lessons, they spend another 3,300 hours with mummy and daddy and their idiot friends. That’s 1% of their time on lessons, 99% with mummy and daddy and primates similar to themselves.
It isn’t hard to see where the responsibility for them driving like prats really lies.
Over on one of the forums they’re having another go at the DSA (in relation to asking the candidate if they want their instructor on the debrief). One “expert” says:
Some people in the DSA get a bit above themselves at times and give the rest a bad name.
On the same forum, in another currently active thread, another “expert” posts (in relation to coaching):
Interesting discussion.
I myself am an expert – but what is an expert?
It’s a good job certain ADIs don’t get “a bit above themselves” isn’t it?
Please Note: This applies to the pre-2012/13 Focus model. The latest one doesn’t have the problem based on my own experience.
Request: If anyone actually benefits from this advice, please let me know so I can update the article. I’d like to identify if the problems I had were the same as those being experienced by others.
My last two instructor cars have been Ford Focuses (pre-2012 models), and both have had the same fault:
when idling, car sounds like it is gasping for air
sometimes makes whistling noises when idling (like a fan going fast)
sometimes makes clicking sounds when idling (like a switch operating repeatedly)
revs falling on idle, lights dimming when it happens
sometimes spontaneously stalling if rev count falls too much
with learners, can stall on a bend if they coast – and the power steering stops working (very dangerous)
with me, can stall when braking to a stop at junctions and lights (annoying)
starts up again easily
it might be playing up badly, it’ll stall, but after you restart it it will behave (more or less) until the problem gets bad again
tends to do it most when warmed up – but not always
occasionally, when decelerating, you can feel the loss of power in the background
sometimes when moving off, shudders as if not enough gas is applied
The dealer couldn’t find a fault with the last one (they just plug a laptop into it and if no fault is shown, as far as they’re concerned there isn’t one).
They told me last time that there was definitely no fault, and that learner cars aren’t driven very hard so they clog up and it is necessary to run them at high revs for about 10 seconds (when coming off a motorway, slip it into 2nd, for example) to “blow it out”. They told me there wasn’t a known issue, and they even said that it is normal for cars to fluctuate a little.
Frankly, all of this was utter bollocks. But when my new one started playing up after I’d traded the old one in before the warranty ran out, I tried what they had suggested about “blowing it out” – if anything, it made it worse.
This time, they tried to suggest it was my foot mats under the pedals. They also told me I needed to put high-grade fuel in it! Yeah, I’m definitely going to pay 10p a litre more for 97 RON, when 95 RON is what the car is supposed to run on as a minimum – especially when I am filling up every other day sometimes.
But I looked into it this time. It turns out that there is a huge number of people who have this exact problem with their Focuses. All kinds of suggestions are offered, but it is common that the service centres cannot find anything wrong, when there clearly IS something wrong.
Now, I knew this new car would develop the same fault as the last one from the moment I took delivery. It was gasping and clicking even with just delivery mileage on the clock. And true to form, after about 8k it started to fluctuate noticeably, and by 12k it was stalling sporadically. A couple of weeks ago a pupil who has a habit of coasting (many years driving experience overseas) put the clutch down going round a tight corner and we nearly ended up in railings as the power steering cut out!
Armed with what I’d found, I confronted the local Ford dealer.
To cut a long story short, they replaced the “throttle case” (don’t blame me – I’m not a mechanic, but that’s what the dealer told me) and it has fixed the problem completely. The car now idles constantly.
Don’t be fobbed off. Make a nuisance of yourself if your Focus is playing up.
What is the normal idle speed of a Ford Focus?
Someone found the blog on that term (for a 2010 model). The normal idle is about 750rpm going by the rev counter. I’m sure it has a much more technical and detailed value, but it should be a steady 750 on the internal rev counter based on my own experiences with several Focuses.
If it moves around visibly (or audibly) without touching anything then you have a problem.
Note that certainly on older models, moving the steering wheel, braking, or doing anything which puts an increased load on the engine triggered the engine management system to attempt to compensate and you’d get a small rev counter movement.
My Focus ran out of diesel. Can that cause a problem?
I’ve added this one as of February 2016, after someone found the blog with that question.
Late last year I noticed that my Focus (which is now a diesel) was pulling back when I accelerated (over 40,000 miles on the clock). There were no idling problems like those mentioned above, but I took it to the garage and they replaced the fuel filter. That sorted it out completely.
I know that it isn’t recommended by some garages that you run your tank too low, as deposits which fall the bottom can get into the fuel system. I guess that’s why there is a fuel filter in the first place. So running out of fuel is the best way of sucking all that rubbish into the system (or on to the fuel filter).
I am not a mechanic, and I’m only surmising based on my fuel filter obviously being gunged up, but if you ran out of fuel and are now experiencing problems with idling or acceleration, maybe you should have your fuel filter checked.
Someone should do a proper scientific study, but there seems to be a correlation between hot summer weather and the incidence of “food poisoning”. Because you can be bloody sure that as soon as it gets hot, people start looking for reasons not to have the lesson they booked as recently as last week.
I don’t mind too much, because it’s only a handful, and the last month or so I’ve not had a moment free or slots to spare for anyone wanting a lesson.
So, having acquired a free afternoon and evening, I came home and turned on the TV. Now, even with several hundred channels through the Sky dish, it is impressive that there can be almost nothing of interest shown on any of them for such long periods of time. And this afternoon is no exception.
After much channel-hopping, I caught the end of “Adolf Hitler – My Part In His Downfall” (one of Spike Milligan’s autobiography books, turned into a film). It occurred to me after only a couple of minutes how badly I would have coped with the Second World War or anything to do with the British Army anytime before the 60s. It reminded me of another war film that drove me nuts - “The Password Is Courage”; oh yes, and “The Great Escape”. And “Bridge On The River Kwai”. Come to think of it, all British war films (or films about the British during the war).
All the British ever seemed to do was sing bloody 30s and 40s songs and whistle idiotic tunes, and behave in obscenely stereoptypical ways straight out of Enid Blyton books. It would have driven me insane (assuming the reality was even close to the way the films portray it).
Someone used the search term “colwick test centre test times” to find the blog.
For the life of me, I cannot understand why this matters – tests are held in the early morning, daytime, and late afternoon – unless you are just trying to fit it in with work or something.
The earliest one they do is 08.10, then there is an 08.20 and an 08.40. From tests in this year’s diary, I know there is an 09.07, an 09.17, a 10.14, and a 10.44. Then there’s an 11.11, an 11.41, and a 12.38. In the afternoon there is a 14.32 and a 15.30. I believe the latest one (barring evening overtime slots) is 16.30.
I’m not saying this is an exhaustive list, but these times are definitely on the cards (maybe give or take a couple of minutes if I have rounded them up occasionally).
For some people who are worried about test times, it depends what it is they are afraid of, of course. If you convince yourself you are scared of traffic, then you might want to avoid the early morning or late afternoon ones – and throw away the opportunity not to have to drive very far. Likewise, avoid midday or afternoon to miss the schools, and you miss relatively clear roads and will probably end up travelling farther to larger roundabouts and the city centre.
If you are going to drive on your own you need to be able to drive in all kinds of traffic.
Worth bearing this in mind, but the old-style £20 note will be withdrawn from circulation on 30 June 2010. You can read more/see confirmation on the Bank Of England website.
Official Withdrawal Leaflet
It’s worth also noting that you won’t suddenly be left with a load of useless money, because banks and building societies will still exchange/cash them for you for some time after the withdrawal date. But it is at their discretion, so be careful – they don’t have a good track record on being helpful of late. The Bank Of England will always exchange them, though.
But from that withdrawal date, the notes cease to be legal tender , and you won’t be able to use them to buy anything in shops. That also applies to your pupils, so be careful not to take them in payment for lessons unless you want to risk your bank or building society being arsey over it. At some point, they will.
I’ve noticed a huge increase in the old-style notes coming my way as people try to get rid of them.
I wrote a little while ago aboutthe ridiculous behaviour you get from some people on web forums. That last story concerned a forum know-it-all who likes to dissect posts claiming everyone loved him and respected him – even after he’s wound one of them up with his behaviour.
Well, the fun and games never stop! On the same forum recently, the administrator removed a thread completely (which they rarely do) because a certain person was trying to prove that every single instructor working for a large National School – which he repeatedly named - was incompetent and purposely employed to be that way (this is known as “libel”). The libel was based on this person’s extremely limited experience and intellect, and his inability to realise that the “half dozen or so” cars from that school he sees over a week are probably the same car most of the time, and represent perhaps 0.2% of the cars that that school operates nationwide.
That same poster has now gone off on one about how other motorists park and block the road. He said (punctuation – or lack thereof - is real):
I can add to this I parked in safe place at end of lesson with pupils first drive home we parked in safe place another car comes and parks opposite us. then 4 minutes later another car a peers beeping trying to get through. I did not get pupil to move the car or make any attempt to move the car myself I was in the middle of a serious conversation and lesson planning. he had to wait and right fully so was not our fault someone parked opposite us.
Isn’t that strange coming from someone who thinks that what he thinks he sees another school car doing applies to all cars from that school throughout the know universe? What does it say about his school, deliberately causing obstructions and annoying residents and passers-by?
You really do have to wonder how these idiots manage to stay on the Register of Approved Driving Instructors.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve got a pupil to pull over so we can do a turn in the road or discuss something, and another driving school car has stopped directly opposite us on largely empty roads. So there must be a lot of people like this guy around.
GMTV did a skit on the problems of speeding drivers. The organisation, Brake , which conducted the research says via the article:
Almost three quarters (72%) drivers surveyed by the road safety charity and motor insurer admitted driving at 35mph or faster in a 30mph zone.
Half of these offenders (36%) admitted doing this daily or at least once a week.
I was on a Pass Plus session with someone last week, and we were on the M1 heading towards Leicester Forest East Services at about 8.30pm. She commented on how many people were going faster than us, which prompted me to switch on my camera. You need to bear in mind that we were doing a steady 70mph (and before anyone says it, yes, we seemed to stay in the middle lane for quite a long time – that was because someone was hanging just behind us on the nearside AND she’d never been on a motorway before, so I was explaining how to make sure it was safe to move over, IF you should, and WHEN). This video covers a four-minute section of the drive.
Just look how many people go past us, and at what speed (again, I emphasise that we were doing a steady 70mph). It was like this all the way down, and all the way back.
On normal lessons, virtually no one adheres to the speed limit. Some are just idiots, others are dangerously bad drivers – my pet hate is the older driver who drives just a little bit faster than you when it is a lower speed limit (i.e. is speeding in a 50mph zone), pulls in just in front, then continues at that same speed (so slows you down) when the limit increases to 70mph. They just like to drive at 35mph on urban roads, 45mph on wider roads, and 55mph on big roads… irrespective of the limit that’s set.
Someone told me this morning that an instructor had been wheel clamped for parking on one of the roads near to the Colwick driving test centre. It was one of those licensed cowboy companies who charge £150 or more for unlocking you.
At a guess, I’d say someone with no conscience or morals decided they’d found a way of making some money now that the test centre is located around there, and so attracts learner cars. Inside the test centre, notices warn that the likes of Trent Concrete (Road No. 3) have been bitching about learners using the car park outside their property.
I have to admit, instructors sometimes don’t help themselves. Only yesterday I had gone behind Halfords (to cover bay parking) for the sole reason that there was no one else there. As always, if there had have been anyone else there, I’d have used another area of the park (and there were plenty free yesterday). But that didn’t stop a BSM car (with more than two people in it – looks like he was piggybacking) turning up and getting in the way. He actually prevented us from driving off (we’d finished, anyway), but this is happening time and time again. I hope he can lip read, because his cheerful wave didn’t cut any ice with me!
But they behave this stupidly wherever they go. They do corner reverses when there are cars parked there (illegally, admittedly, but that still doesn’t make it OK to block the corner completely and piss other drivers off). They queue up to use THE corner, or THE bay, or THE car for parallel park. They don’t have the brains to find somewhere else. They are STILL ignoring the test centre manager’s ban on practising bay parking at the test centre itself (and one of them is a BSM car), and holding up tests (including one of mine a couple of weeks ago).
There are quite a few places I use over a very wide area – but many of them only when it is quiet (or out of hours). There’s one girl whose car I often use for parallel park who I surprised at Christmas by taking her a bottle of wine and saying thanks for not kicking up a stink, but I have quiet and reliable places I can use in wide-spaced places such as Sawley, Long Eaton, Bingham, Clifton, West Bridgford, and plenty of others – I just have to plan the lesson accordingly. But some prat who is trying to keep his mileage to a minimum and who only works daytimes/weekdays is bound to try using a private car park when the offices are still open, and so get us all banned. That’s why those bloody notices keep appearing at the test centre. To be honest, some of these idiots only ever seem to do bay parking – it must be because it saves on petrol.
If anyone has any more details about this alleged clamping, please let me know using the Contact Form.
EDIT 20/05/2010: Apparently it has happened again – someone sent me this photo:
BSM Car Clamped
Something has got to be done. There are no signs, no yellow lines… nothing to suggest you cannot park on the road. In fact, fishermen park there for extended periods.
I never leave my car unattended. I can only assume this guy either did it to take his pupil into the test centre for a look round, or went for a walk down by the river in a free period. There’s nothing else down there – no shops or anything.
Mind you, there is one positive that appears to have come out of it – for some people, at least. A few of the forums are full of it – very sad people gloating uncontrollably due to the fact that it is a BSM car.
As I’ve said before: driving instructors, eh? What a bunch of sad cases some of them are!
EDIT 01/06/2010: I was at the test centre yesterday, and noticed a letter pinned to the noticeboard. It is from a company called City Estates , and they advise that for “health & safety reasons” the “landlord” of the Colwick Industrial Estate has introduced wheel-clamping. The urge people to follow the “parking laws”.
City Estates’ website is not particularly dynamic. The one and only link on it is to a company called West One . Interestingly, when you click this link (and compare West One’s address with the one on that letter at the test centre) you find that City Estates and West One co-exist at the same address in Sheffield – and a quick scan of West One’s portfolio of commercial properties it lets out reveals that units and land on the Colwick Industrial Estate features prominently.
Warning Sign
So it looks like the “landlord” City Estates is warning us of, and who has introduced clamping, is… City Estates. Fishy, eh? And who sets the “laws” they are referring to? I guess that would be City Estates, too, seeing as it is a private estate and there are very few yellow lines.
I was talking to someone who works at the test centre and apparently a lot of cars and lorries have also been clamped (so it isn’t just instructors, after all). The move isn’t popular, but as this person said: “what can you do?” I was told that there was a Health & Safety audit carried out and the roads were snarled up with lorries and cars.
I’m still not convinced. It’s a punitive action designed to make money – and I’m pretty certain driving instructors using that area has had more to do with it than the lorries who park(ed) overnight on a regular basis for years.
Oh, yes. And there are now warning signs – they were never there before, and they aren’t very big. Some are placed quite high up.
Someone should do a proper scientific study, but there seems to be a correlation between hot summer weather and the incidence of “food poisoning”. Because you can be bloody sure that as soon as it gets hot, people start looking for reasons not to have the lesson they booked as recently as last week.
I wrote a little while ago about
