ADI - Diary Of An ADI

Roadworks In Ruddington

13/04/2010

I’m getting a lot of hits on this search term at the moment. Not a big surprise, really, given the total hash the Councils are making of all roadworks in Nottingham since the start of the year.

In Ruddington, along the A60, they decided that all the bus stops needed the kerb raising by a few centimetres. No doubt, this is so that the thousands upon thousands of wheelchairs and pushchairs who use the buses in Ruddington each day can get on and off more easily. Naturally, it was a case of “sod the motorist” over the months it took them to modify the dozen or so stops, with idiotic road closures and whole weeks with little or no attempt to complete the work – and which, naturally, overran by weeks.

I would point out that the average bus driver is incapable of stopping within 2 metres of a specific target even under test conditions, and when you have people pratting about with shopping and pushchairs on board it is even less likely. Around here, they also frequently stop wherever they bloody well want (picking up their mates outside one of the City depots at traffic lights, or dropping people off “nearer to home” – even if it IS blocking the road when they do it).

Also in Ruddington, they are due to commence – or I should say “re-commence” – work near to the Wilford Road/Clifton Road junction. So far, they have widened a footpath (just in case any passing 747s might need it to do an emergency landing), erected a load of posts with those segregated pedestrian and cycle route signs for the local residents to park in between (half on the pavement and half off), and for cyclists to ignore totally in their ongoing quest to cause hold ups to traffic during rush hour, and partially dug up the existing pedestrian islands at the end of Clifton Road. A big yellow sign warns of impending chaos starting on Monday, I think.

And then – at the moment – there is yet another gas leak at the end of Kirk Lane, where it crosses the A60 on to Flawforth Lane. This must be the fourth or fifth leak in as many years in that exact same spot. It is slap in the middle of the crossroads – ironically, resulting in the same four-way traffic control the councils had in for a week when they recently repainted about 10 metres of lines along the A60. The gas people appear to be ex-Council workers, because once they’d erected the lights yesterday, then stood around in groups of three (tch! Health & Safety, eh?) holding those electronic gas sniffers (they’d identified the gas leak last week and put cones up, and been down a manhole), they packed up and went home well before 2.30pm and left the chaos (and traffic lights) behind.

EDIT 13/04/2010: I drove down the A60 early this afternoon and it is bloody gridlocked on all four roads. So much so that rather than come back that way, I took a detour through Gotham. Surely there must be some legislation that says these people have to fix faults quickly? Because there should be.

EDIT 15/04/2010: They’ve still got the 4-way lights in as of 2pm this afternoon, and a small digger – so it looks like it won’t be fixed this week. This has been going on for the whole week already (the leak was first ‘visited’ this time last week).

I went to pick a pupil up from Tollerton this evening and the knock-on effect is that the junction of Main Road in Plumtree with the A606 is also virtually gridlocked – it’s not easy to get out of there at the best of times, especially to turn right towards Cotgrave, and people were taking big risks. Basically, the only way to avoid the roadworks is to take a very long detour or just get stuck in heavier traffic (actually, both those things). And at 8pm tonight they were not doing any work, but the lights are still up.

It’s appalling that National Grid are allowed to get away with this.

EDIT 18/04/2010: Went that way tonight and they are finished. At last.

EDIT 29/04/2010: I’m still getting a lot of hits for this. There are still roadworks in Ruddington around Wilford Road, but these are to do with resurfacing the road and farting about with the pavements (putting in “pedestrian peninsulas” – I just made that term up – and widening them so that cyclists of the prattus spandexius variety will have more space to ignore as they cause hold-ups during rush hour). To be fair, the delays due to the works are minimal, so I wouldn’t worry about them. They aren’t far away from finishing, by the looks of things.

EDIT 04/05/2010: Still getting a lot of hits for this, which makes me think I must be missing something! The resurfacing work around the Wilford Road/Clifton Road is almost finished and isn’t causing too many delays (far fewer than those elderly drivers – or the mentally impaired owner of that mini-supermarket – who insist on parking on yellow lines right on the corner of Easthorpe Street/Church Street and causing a total blockage). There are also roadworks on the A60 in Bunny during the day, with delays dependent on the volume of traffic (these are down to Le Cirque Du Nottingham County Council putting in a driveway to a field they appear to have given planning permission for building on. As usual for them, a task which ought to take a couple of days has “at least three weeks” written all over it). Thankfully, since it is the council handling it, work starts late mornings and ceases very early in the afternoon, so disruption is minimal.

EDIT 05/05/2010: They’re also doing some resurfacing work on the A60 between the Nottingham Knight island and Kirk Lane – but only in the evenings. This is scheduled to last two weeks. Was there tonight and you need to be careful coming off the roundabout because the way it is being managed is resulting in congestion back on to it.

EDIT 17/05/2010: Still getting hits for this. The resurfacing between the Nottingham Knight and Kirk Lane appears to be over and done with. Not a bad job, either, with congestion restricted to evenings and weekends.

They still appear to have some lines to paint (and some footpaths to put chicanes into) on Wilford Road towards the Golf Club, but this isn’t causing any congestion at all during the day – and I go through there quite a lot.

The gateway they were installing in Bunny appears almost complete, and no sign of the totally unnecessary (it was Le Cirque du County Council, after all) temporary lights and lane closures for the last week. God help us when they start doing whatever it is they’re going to do on that field, though.

EDIT 19/05/2010: Spoke too soon! The bloody road is up outside the petrol station, and temporary lights are installed. Absolute chaos coming towards Nottingham from Bunny at 4.30pm this afternoon. And they were doing something at the Kirk Lane lights (again) yesterday (down to one lane). Looked like something to do with the light sensors, but no doubt it will disturb the gas line under there, and we’ll have another leak before long.

Barbie’s Car

02/04/2010

DOAADI

ADI

Please note this is an old post and BSM is switching back to Corsas in 2011.

I was looking at where some of my traffic had come from and one of them tracked back to another driving instructor’s blog ( Martin’s Driving). Martin appears to be a Scottish ADI operating under the BSM franchise.

As I think I have said in more than one post on here, I quite like the FIAT 500 – I think it’s cute, and I like the retro styling.

FIAT 500 - Old and New

One of the criticisms levelled at the FIAT is that it is a “girlie” car – indeed, BSM made it clear that the majority of its pupils were young females and that it would target this group specifically. You can’t blame it (well, you can if you are a fossil, masquerading as an ADI and working under the BSM franchise and used to using Corsas).

Barbie's FIAT 500

But this made me smile.

On Martin’s website, he has this photograph… a Barbie accessory, and unmistakably a FIAT 500!

Martin suggests that people have stopped calling the 500 a “Noddy car” and are now calling it a “Barbie car” – but he says they are wrong, because Barbie’s is white.

Actually, a hell of a lot of BSM’s 500s are white. Even the picture showing the old and new models side by side confirms that white is definitely in the range (personally, I hate the muddy brown one).

Something else I have mentioned before is the hypocrisy of some ADIs. They revel in criticising the 500 – and yet they teach in Yarises, Matizes, and all manner of joke cars you’d expect to see a clown climbing out of.

DSA’s National Driving and Riding Standards

02/04/2010

DOAADI

ADI, DSA

Another email alert from the DSA linking to this part of their website .

Our aim in publishing these Standards is to contribute to DSA’s overall objective of reducing the number of people who are killed and seriously injured on our roads by describing good practice in the field of driver training as well as providing a benchmark for performance in underpinning lifelong driver development.

I think there is more to it than just this, though. I am pretty certain that this is going to be used – at least in part – for the driving test at some point in the not too distant future.

If you look at the Safe And Responsible Driving (Cat B) section, then look at Role 1, and then (for example), Unit 1.3 Plan A Journey, you will see:

Unit 1.3 - Plan A Journey

Trust me – this is remarkably like the documentation which covers TEC awards, so you can see where it might lead. The word they have used that gives it away is “underpinning” – it was much beloved by the TEC administrators I had to deal with in my previous employment.

For all my dislike of TEC certification in my previous job (it wasn’t worth the paper it was written on, and failure was impossible), if the DSA use this properly – and if they make sure failure is recognised as such – then it could have a positive effect on driving standards in future. Of course, it would also have to be compulsory – but I can’t see anyone having the guts to do that.

This is definitely one to watch.

Independent Driving – Is This Why?

26/03/2010

DOAADI

ADI, Driving Tests, DSA, Funny

One of my pupils gave me a laugh the other day. She’s a good driver (passed her test a while ago, but not with me), and she’s doing a Pass Plus course with me at the moment.

What A Detour

One of the routes I use when doing Pass Plus is down the M1 to Leicester Forest East Services (J21), then back up to J23, through Loughborough, then back to Nottingham via the A60 and some unclassified rural roads. When we were in Loughborough, she asked “Are we anywhere near Derby? “. Then a little later when we were in Keyworth, she asked “Are we near Colwick? “

OK. I suppose it depends how you define the word near. Loughborough is near Derby (20 miles) – as long as you work on the basis that the moon is a long way away, and compare other distances with that. And Keyworth definitely is quite near Colwick (10 miles) – certainly when compared with the Loughborough/Derby thing.

But while we were talking about that she told me what had happened when she and her boyfriend had set out to go to the Meadowhall Shopping Centre from Nottingham.

You can see from the map on the left that Meadowhall (the red dot) is north of Nottingham. About 41 miles north, to be a little more precise.

Apparently, after some time they found themselves at Watford Gap Services (the blue dot). Watford Gap is 51 miles south of Nottingham.

I told her that that was definitely going on my List Of Things To Tell Pupils in future. Like I said, she’s a good driver – but simple navigation (or lack thereof) is a real problem for many new drivers.

But it does probably highlight why the DSA plan to introduce an independent driving section to the test from October 2010 is a very good idea – only opposed by fossils who are just anti-DSA, no matter what.

I’ve already mentioned one of my current learners, who insisted she couldn’t drive and look at the signs as well. Although we fixed that, if we hadn’t have done then she would have gone out on her own after passing still with the same inability to navigate in the most basic of ways.

Merging

And it’s the same with a lot of others. I was explaining to one today (not that far off test standard) that when he sees a road sign it has to speak to him in words. We were joining a dual carriageway from a slip road, and the merging sign was clearly there warning of the merge – but he didn’t respond to it, even though he saw it.

And it was the same a few miles later when we came to a roundabout. I asked him to turn right, 3rd exit (and stressed the road name so he could follow the signs and road markings). Apart from the big roundabout sign there were lane signs telling you which lane to use – but again, he just didn’t respond.

In fact, I often find that those doing Pass Plus don’t actually know what many road signs mean. Once they pass their Theory Test many of them just seem to forget the Highway Code completely.

It would certainly explain the standard of driving you see on the roads each day.

Driving Lesson Prices

25/03/2010

DOAADI

ADI

I’ve been looking at a few threads on various forums – this topic crops up with monotonous regularity.

Here’s the scenario: “someone” (i.e. the resident shit stirrer on the forum), has “seen” a car (i.e. knows full well the school car and the person who owns it, or considers the franchise to be a local competitor), which has ” 5 lessons for £25 ” written on it (or some other offer). He starts a new thread and everyone else pitches in with their “opinions”.

The latest incarnation of this is funny. As usual, it is running to multiple pages, and if you look at the school’s website (I’m not providing it here – they will be getting enough traffic from the site which is bad-mouthing them) their normal hourly rate is £21. Since they are based in Yorkshire, this is actually a decent going rate for a lot of towns and cities up there.

So what we have is a driving school (franchise) which charges £21 an hour when a lot of the local independents will be charging £17-20 (or sometimes less). They offer an introductory 5 lessons for £25 as a marketing thing.

Of the people to wade in with their opinions on this shocking and unprofessional advertising is one guy who has introduced a ” 6 lessons for £99 ” offer for his own school due to falling enquiries. Another one (based not far from me, as it happens) works for a school which advertises ” 3 hours for £29 “, and which charges £1.50 below the national franchise rate for this area.

Let’s just do a quick comparison, based on the assumption that a new pupil is going to end up doing 40 hours with a school before passing their test.

The original school would take £760 from the pupil for this course of lessons – including the Special Offer. And their lessons are priced at the local going rate.

The school near me would take £843 (its hourly rate is £1 more than the school from Yorkshire). Even if you leave it at this, it is hardly an end of the world situation, is it? I mean: one school brings in £83 less than another per pupil over a 3-4 month period (a normal and typical learning period)?

But apply the fact that the “superior” school is charging £1.50 below the national franchise rate for its area, and that same school would be only taking in £750.50 if it was in direct competition with the northern school. Slightly less, but – for all practical purposes – the same.

Once again, we see that most ADIs are incapable of seeing the world through anything other than their own vari-tinted, internally-mirrored varifocals!

Note: Let’s not confuse special offers with just permanently charging stupid prices that damage the industry.

Lorry Pushes Car On A1

21/03/2010

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers

This one is doing the rounds on the forums at the moment. It happened back in January on the A1 near Wetherby, just outside Leeds, and although it appears that the Police treated it simply as a normal RTA (road traffic accident) at the time, the emergence of this footage seems to have reopened the case. Not surprising, really – that lorry driver does not deserve to be out alone on foot, let alone in something that size.

It’s funny some of the comments being made on those forums. Apparently, it is a ‘hoax’ – I’d just draw your attention to the BBC story to answer that one (not to mention the other news channels which have picked it up)

One ‘expert’ insists that the lorry is in the 3rd lane – it’s clearly in the 2nd (they’re not supposed to use the third lane in the UK, so no doubt this was intended to be an attack on the lorry driver. Just a shame it was incorrect).

On another forum, another ‘expert’ points out that it is illegal to use your mobile phone when you are driving (driving instructors love this one – whenever footage appears online they always start showing how clever they are by asking how it was filmed). It is clear from the blurred view we have of the driver as the lorry passes that the passenger is doing the filming.

Only two things are certain: the lorry driver is going rather fast, and he has a car stuck in his front.

EDIT 28/05/2010: It just goes to show that you can’t make assumptions about anything. There is a story in the Daily Mirror today – the driver of the lorry, John Tomlinson, has actually been hailed a hero instead of being banned. It turns out that the woman, Rona Williams, in the car he is pushing had undertaken dangerously and had admitted this is statements to the police at the time.

The traffic commissioner, Beverley Bell, said:

“It is absolutely clear that you could not see the Clio as you were driving…

“You showed, in my view, coolness and a clear head. I feel it is entirely inappropriate for me to take away your licence.”

Modernising Driver Training

18/03/2010

DOAADI

ADI, DSA

I got an email alert from the DSA today containing the minutes of a meeting held to discuss the ongoing Modernising Driver Training (MDT) Project.

What I found interesting was how the chairman opened the meeting and

…encouraged members to be open and constructive and welcomed input from all.

but in the next paragraph, there was the concern raised that

…misleading information about modernisation proposals was starting to appear in the public domain, which could cause complications in the coming months. It was agreed that the only information to be published should be the formal notes which would be circulated following the meeting and possibly published in a future edition of Despatch.

I can’t help but think that some of the people and groups involved in this are frequently anti-DSA, so is it any surprise that negative reports are perhaps leaking out? The public has to get hold of information from somewhere if it is going to twist it into still more anti-DSA ranting.

But the minutes do give an insight into what is being considered and proposed for instructor training in the future.

The HERMES report is complete (I’m going to do an article on this shortly)
There is general agreement on the CPD proposals, e.g. a minimum of 7 hours CPD will be required from ADIs each year; at least half of that must be focused on the core competencies every four year period; there is concern over what sanctions would be imposed for failure to comply
The longer-term aim is to introduce a vocational qualification for future PDIs, and the current proposals are a step in that direction – those at the meeting felt that this should be prioritised
It appears that the group would like to see PDIs hold “a basic preparing to teach qualification before starting the DSA qualifying process”
This would be optional for existing ADIs
Case studies will be tested from March onwards for the ADI qualification (Theory Test), but this will not affect the outcome of the test
The group feels that there should be a limit of three attempts at the Theory Test in any two year window (at the moment there is no limit)
Some sort of commentary drive will become part of the qualifying process – the group appeared to be confused over this and requested an example (unanswered)
PSTs to be replaced with some kind of themed lesson – the group debated whether PDIs should be warned in advance to allow them to prepare (unanswered)
The ‘Pink’ trainee license will be scrapped in its current form – PDIs will have to be accompanied by an ADI at all times if they teach real pupils. It may even become mandatory to train this way
In future, Check Test booking is likely to become more the responsibility of the ADI instead of the DSA (50% of CTs are rebooked at present)
The group agreed that ADI grading needed clear descriptors of what the grades meant; was linked in with CPD; should focus on ADIs who are not performing well; should be realistic in describing competency; includes and element of self-assessment and performance on the day (the group appeared confused over “self-assessment”)

The response to the group’s concern with “self-assessment” was

Reflection and self assessment form the basis of modern learning and teaching and therefore is a skill that ADIs need to be able to develop in trainees and themselves to maximise the benefits of the new learning to drive syllabus.

This made me both cringe and break out into a cold sweat at the same time! I’ve had to live through crap like this before – it’s part of Teamworking® (read the About Me section), and it is not pleasant. In a nutshell, you have to be able to say bad things about yourself no matter how incorrect those things are just to satisfy someone you are worthy of a pay rise instead of a pay cut (or in this case, potentially keeping your green badge or not). Only saying good things about yourself is classed as negative, because whoever you are saying them to will already have negative opinions he wants you to agree with. This is just about the only part of the proposals I don’t like.

Fortunately, this is going to be discussed further – the group is obviously not happy, either.

Public information will enable people to find out information (and leave feedback) about an ADI. The group is not in agreement about whether ADI grades should be made available to the public

You can read the full minutes here .

The Strike: Funny!

09/03/2010

DOAADI

ADI, Funny, News

This cartoon appeared in today’s Daily Mail Online:

EDIT: Please note that this was posted in early 2010. Obviously, the unions (including PCS) are still intent on having their little strike, no matter what concessions are made.

Online Booking Services

07/03/2010

DOAADI

ADI, Driving Tests, DSA

The Theory Test for learners learning to drive a car costs £31.00, and the Practical Test £62.00 (or £75.00 for a weekend or evening slot, where available). The current prices are always shown on the Direct.gov website.

You can book online directly through the DSA’s website, or by telephoning them on 0300 200 1122 .

It stands to reason that these prices are the lowest possible, since anyone booking through the DSA will have to pay exactly the current price in order to book a test!

So beware any online service which says it will do this for you. At the very least you will have to pay more – unnecessarily. In the worst case, you may not get anything at all except lost money and a compromised credit card. If they are charging less than the DSA prices then you have only got yourself to blame if things go belly up.

There is a warning being circulated at the moment about two online service urls – www.booktheorytestonline.co.uk and www.bookpracticaltestonline.co.uk. It is suggested that you do not use these, even if you are still daft enough to want to get someone else to do it for you.

EDIT 5/4/2010: Can I just emphasise that you do not need to use a booking service to book either your theory or practical tests. It is the easiest thing in the world to do via the DSA’s own website or by telephone.

I have noticed a number of booking services in the Google ads which appear on the right hand side of this blog (I cannot prevent individual company ads from appearing). I don’t know if they are legitimate or not, but one thing is certain: if you pay more than the DSA’s price to book your test – and all you want to do IS book your test – then you are definitely being ripped off.

It is insane not to just book directly with the DSA. I wish someone could explain to me what the attraction is for using one of these services – assuming people do it knowingly. What are you trying to avoid?

But if it is just these sites misleading people into booking using a 3rd party premium service, then it IS a scam. So be warned!

Independent Driving – Change To Driving Test

01/03/2010

DOAADI

ADI, Driving Tests, DSA, Training

This is a very old post. Sat nav devices are used now.

EDIT: Please use the blog search function to look for more recent posts on independent driving. This one was posted months ahead of the launch.

From 4th October 2010 a new stage will be included in the driving test, where the candidate is expected to drive to a specific destination as directed by the examiner. The new stage will only last about 10 minutes, so we’re not talking about finding your way from Lands End to John O’Groats or anything. It will be quite simple and over with quickly.

According to the DSA, the directions could be given in a number of ways (and the following is paraphrased from an official document).

In one case, the examiner might ask the candidate to drive to a specific place using traffic signs. Or, the examiner could give a series of verbal instructions to get to a specific location. Or it could be using a combination of both the above methods. The purpose of this exercise is to allow the candidate to demonstrate to the examiner how they will drive when they are out on their own – which is exactly what they will have to do when they have passed their test and no one is there to prompt them.

The DSA is currently putting together appropriate test routes for this part of the driving test. I can imagine that this isn’t as easy as it sounds, because they aren’t going to produce routes akin to Hampton Court Maze or choose ones where there are missing road traffic signs.

When it comes to this part of the driving test the examiner will have diagrams like simplified route maps to support the verbal instructions they give to candidates. These diagrams will be similar to the two shown here – though the DSA points out the final design isn’t yet agreed.

Much is being made of this change by the usual crowd of agitators.

It is actually very simple, although to listen to some people you’d think it was advanced calculus or something. The examiner will merely ask the candidate to drive from the current location (let’s say the road outside the Colwick Test Centre in Nottingham) to (let’s say) West Bridgford, using the road signs (and before anyone says anything, I don’t know if West Bridgford is signposted from that location without looking – but it doesn’t matter: it’s just an example). It’s a journey of about 3½ miles, and one which is covered by existing test routes. It involves two roundabouts and some traffic lights, and most candidates will have done the route plenty of times during their lessons anyway. The examiner may show a simplified road map like the ones here of the route, and the candidate can refer to it as many times as they like (safely, of course).

Personally, I think this is a great idea. I also believe that if someone cannot complete what is essentially an extremely simple exercise then they have no right to be on the road, as they are a danger to themselves and everyone else. I believe this applies to anyone who drives on the roads. And that means anyone.

I should point out that I have always taught my pupils to drive properly, not just to pass the test. I was out on such a lesson this afternoon, and I took my pupil (who is close to test standard) on a long drive using roads she’s not been on before.

I asked her to navigate using road signs – first of all to Mansfield via one route, then back to Nottingham via another. She immediately interrupted me and said that she couldn’t possibly look at the signs and drive at the same time!

After we got round that little situation, it did become clear that some signs just didn’t make sense to her at all – the ones on junctions being a particular problem.

She understands them now, but if all she had ever done is drive round and round near the test centre we would never have picked up the problem. And when she passed her test, she’d go straight out on her own without knowing how to drive on anything other than memorised routes. She is no different to most of my other pupils.

Anyone who is worried about this change shouldn’t be. I’ve seen websites (and blogs) where ADIs are advising people to do their tests quickly to avoid the change – this is appalling and alarmist behaviour, and rushing people to test who may not be ready also raises questions about the professionalism of these people.

The bottom line is that you will have to drive like this once you’ve passed your test, so learn how to do it properly now! You couldn’t drive a car at all before you started taking lessons, so a little bit of navigating won’t hurt you. In any case, if your mates arrange to meet you somewhere you’d probably have no trouble finding it on your bike – it’s not much different in a car.

But one last thing to remember: it is a driving test, and you can fail it. If you can’t navigate using the simple method proposed then there is a good chance you will fail the test.

EDIT 1/1/2012: There is an updated article here – you don’t need actual DSA diagrams to teach independent driving to pupils!

Category - ADI