This article was originally published in December 2013, and the changes are now in effect. Please look at the update at the bottom of the article for information on how to pay by direct debit.
From 1 October 2014, tax discs will no longer be issued or be required to be displayed on vehicles. Also from that date, it will be possible to pay your road tax annually, every six months, or monthly by direct debit.
There is more information available here. It’s also been covered in much of today’s media. The changes do not negatively impact motorists in any way – the surcharge for paying six-monthly or monthly, for example, will actually be half of what it currently is when you pay six-monthly.
The tax disc first appeared in 1921. According to the article, over 99% of motorists pay their road tax on time.
The only question I would have is what happens if someone’s monthly direct debit is refused? Are they then untaxed? Since enforcement is by ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Readers/Recognition) systems there could be a rise in the numbers of those being stopped for having no tax – yet they might not be aware that they aren’t taxed.
NOTE: As a reader has pointed out, the term “road tax” is technically a misnomer, and the correct term is “vehicle tax” or “vehicle excise duty”. However, I should point out myself that the term “road tax” is almost universal, even to the point of being in the OED. You can read more about the debate surrounding the term on Wikipedia.
A lot of people are finding the blog on search terms associated with “how do I pay by direct debit?” The short answer is that I don’t know – not in detail, anyway. My own tax is paid automatically by my lease agent, so I don’t have to sort it out myself.
However, my understanding is that if you go to a Post Office to renew your tax, you can sign up for direct debit there any time after 5 October 2014. From 1 November 2014 you will also have that option if you renew online. You will be able to pay annually, biannually (every six months), or monthly. More information is given on the GOV.UK website here.
This article was first published in September 2014 when the recall first appeared in the media, and before DVSA had responded. Note the two updates at the bottom of this article. The recall date has now been extended back to February 2014.
No word from the DVSA yet (see addendum below), but Vauxhall has said that any Corsa or Adam registered since May 2014should not be driven until it has been inspected and repaired if necessary.
Apparently, a component in the steering system “falls below Vauxhall’s quality standards”. You can interpret that any way you want, but what it really means is that a faulty part has been used. From tomorrow (Saturday, 27 September 2014) – and they probably mean sometime during the day, and not at 1 minute after midnight – you will be able to check to see if your vehicle is one of those affected by going to Vauxhall’s website and clicking the relevant link. In the meantime, their advice is not to drive it.
It is likely that DVSA will refuse to conduct driving tests in affected vehicles without proof of inspection and/or appropriate remedial work. Any ADI conducting lessons needs to be aware of the interim warning not to drive the car.
DVSA has issued the anticipated response to the recall notice as of Monday 29 September 2014, which can be read here. In a nutshell, they say:
If your vehicle is affected, you won’t be able to take it on test without written proof that the vehicle has been checked by the manufacturer and remedial work carried out if needed.
DVSA examiners will accept documents from the vehicle manufacturer or the manufacturer’s appointed representative or dealership.
They also point out that any tests taking place within the next 5 working days can be cancelled and rearranged free of charge. Outside of that, normal rules apply.
There is an update from the DVSA here (which was updated a few hours later to clarify the cut-off point for cancellations). The original notice mentioned above referred to cars registered from May 2014. This appears to have been extended backwards to February 2014. So Corsas and Adams registered from February this year – not just from May. The source information can be seen here.
DVSA is still offering a grace period if you need to cancel and rearrange.
Cameras fitted for insurance purposes will be allowed providing they:
are external facing and do not film the inside of the vehicle
do not record audio from inside the vehicle
DVSA will under no circumstances accept, comment on, or review audio or video footage provided by a test candidate or third party to facilitate a challenge to the conduct of any theory or practical test or its result. Any footage received in connection with an allegation of criminal activity or intent will be referred to the police.
I notice that certain individuals are claiming that this is evidence of the DVSA back-pedalling. It isn’t. You couldn’t record tests before and you can’t record them now. Nor would any attempt to retrospectively influence a test decision be given any consideration by the DVSA. Anyone stupid enough to try and take things that far would have to go through the courts using private and very expensive routes. Mind you, some people are that stupid.
It should also be noted that DVSA has stated:
If an examiner believes a test is being filmed they will ask the candidate to switch off the camera, if it can’t be switched off or the candidate refuses, the examiner will terminate the test.
Personally, I think DVSA is being too lenient and has merely bowed to pressure from the National Clown Associations. On the other hand, for all practical purposes DVSA has made no real concessions, yet the Associations appear to be well chuffed with their “victory”.
I just hope DVSA realises how far some of the Chief Clowns might be prepared to go if they get hold of video footage of contested tests from any angle.
Incidentally, in 2016 I began using a camera which turns on automatically as soon as the engine starts unless I remove it. I have audio disabled on it, and I have clarified with several examiners that it is not intended to scrutinise them.
It proved its worth a few weeks ago when a pupil failed her test and didn’t know where it had happened (as I often point out, if they knew what they’d done and where they’d done it, they probably wouldn’t have done it to start with). The examiner told me where, and all I had to do was fast forward to the location and send her a link to the HD footage I placed online. It showed her merrily crossing over two lanes on a roundabout – which she wasn’t aware of having done.
Unlike many other ADIs with cameras, I did not for one moment consider that the examiner had made a mistake. If the examiner said she did it, she did it. The footage showed her where.
A new series of The Undriveables started on ITV this week. You can catch it for the usual limited period on the ITV Player (you’ll have to put up with the adverts).
This first episode featured an older guy who was actually pretty much typical of his age group, and who responded well to instruction once his faults were corrected. He passed his test after the week-long session. The episode also featured a middle-aged woman who was a different matter altogether.
Just the act of driving a car induced fits of severe trembling (and I mean she was in absolute panic). At one point, and for almost no apparent reason, she had to stop and be physically sick. In another segment she was driving perfectly well, then suddenly panicked and had to stop again. When she took her test it was abandoned. It appears that she hit a kerb hard, then went to pieces again.
As an aside, I once had a middle-aged pupil who simply couldn’t coordinate the clutch, brake, and gas pedals. She couldn’t steer a straight line and change gear at the same time. And whenever traffic lights changed suddenly in front of us she’d slam on the brake and stall the car. She had the attention span and spatial awareness of a gnat! I had tried to persuade her to switch to automatic lessons quite early on because of finances and these pedal issues – and it was clear that they weren’t going to easily go away – but she had bought a manual car already and was adamant that she wanted to pass a manual test. As a result, she was with me for over two years and took over 100 hours of lessons. However, near the end of that time I discovered that she’d sold the car and so I started on at her again about learning in an automatic, explaining that she was still a long way from test standard. I enlisted the help of her son, and we finally persuaded her. She took a further two years, another 100 hours, and 7 driving tests before she eventually passed (she’d still be taking lessons now if she’d stuck with manual). I calculate that she had spent over £5,000 by the time she passed.
I have to admit that I was worried about her. She’d always stayed in touch, and credited me with having taught her to drive. But the thought of her driving alone filled me with horror. I advised her to get a car as soon as possible because she really didn’t want to let her driving get stale (actually, we got on well enough for me to be much more frank about it than that, but this is the general gist).
More than a year later she called me out of the blue. She’d bought a car and wanted some refresher lessons in it. She wanted me to provide them.
I remember that I was just about as scared as I’d ever been each time I took her out. Even with just the brake and gas pedals to worry about she frequently got them mixed up, and on one occasion we arrived back at her house, drove slowly up her driveway, and almost went through the fence and into the the back yard. Within a fortnight of buying the car and driving to work in it, she’d hit her wrought iron gates while reversing out three times (the resulting garage repairs amounted to 70% of the car’s value). She had to get a neighbour to put it in her driveway each evening, and work colleagues to back it out of wherever she’d parked it when she finished work. I subsequently heard from someone who knew her that she’d got rid of the car because she couldn’t afford to run it.
My point here is that there are some people who simply should not – ever – drive, and they are a danger to themselves and everyone around them when they do. Passing a driving test is no guarantee that someone is a good or capable driver. In fact, there are many thousands of people out there who have passed tests, but who are not competent drivers. They’re the ones you see driving slowly, or at a constant 40mph through 30, 40, 50, and NSL zones. They’re the ones who habitually switch lanes at the last minute, or who drift between lanes on roundabouts. They have virtually no awareness or understanding of lane divisions or direction arrows. And they do not learn from their mistakes because they are in a complete and terrified daze most of the time. Unfortunately, there is no law preventing them from driving – and nothing that says an ADI should tell them the truth.
I think the lady in this first episode of The Undriveables is a prime example of this. She simply should not go anywhere near a car if she is going to react the way she does – not unless she gets some serious medical or psychiatric help. You see, if she had passed her test, she is almost certainly still going to react in the same extreme way to situations when she is out on her own (or with her two boys in the car). The possible outcomes don’t bear thinking about.
On the programme itself, you have to accept that it is heavily edited for TV purposes. However, there was a lot of evidence of parking on yellow lines and pavements from what I saw. Apart from that, the ADIs featured didn’t do themselves any great disservice. It will be interesting to see subsequent episodes, because the trailers I’ve seen suggest that some of the later featured drivers are typical examples of people who failed the Big Brother auditions.
This article from 2013 has also started attracting a lot of hits.
The article I wrote about how to reverse around a corner is very popular. I note that many people find it using search terms like “which way should I steer” or “I get confused which way to steer when reversing”.
I find that the majority of people have a problem with which way to steer – at least to begin with – and for some it remains a problem for them. The last two weeks alone, I’ve had this conversation with about half a dozen pupils. Maybe this explanation I’ve been using will help you work out how to overcome any problems.
I’m not going to give a lesson on psychology, but the diagram above represents how your brain has a conscious and a sub-conscious part. The sub-conscious part is programmed with habits and instincts, and it kicks in when you’re stressed or under pressure. You can think of it as the little voice in your head that makes you do things without you realising.
If you play football or tennis, the way you dribble the ball or strike it with the racquet is something you don’t really have to think about. However, when you first started out you had to think about it a lot until you’d got it nailed down. What you had to do was use your conscious mind to develop new habits in the sub-conscious part. Once you had installed your new skills as habits in your sub-conscious, playing the game became a formality.
It’s exactly the same when learning to drive, and especially when reversing. Somehow or other – and it happens for different reasons for different people – your brain will have acquired the sub-conscious habit of steering the wrong way when you reverse. When carrying out a reverse around a corner you’ll already be a little stressed, so your sub-conscious usually takes over and makes you steer the wrong way. It can be incredibly frustrating, especially when your conscious side knows which way you should steer – but that’s where the answer lies, and you have to try and make use of it.
The trick is to keep stopping, which cuts the stress right down, and consciously working out which way you should steer. Or in other words, trying to prevent your sub-conscious from assuming control. If you can do that, there’s no real magic involved from there onwards: you steer left if you want to move the car closer to the kerb; and you steer right if you want to move away from it. You have to be careful not to think too much, though, because that means your sub-conscious will be arguing with your conscious – you have to simplify the decision-making process as much as possible. As soon as you allow your sub-conscious to chime in with “ah, yes. But…” the whole thing is likely to go wrong again.
For some people it’s still a huge challenge. I had one this week who was even arguing with me over which way to steer, and another who has big problems preventing her sub-conscious from interfering (even when I ask her “which side is the kerb”? So which way will you steer?” there is a pause while she tries to weigh up her conscious saying “left with her sub-conscious screaming “but you’re reversing, so it must be the other way”).
So remember. Keep stopping. Steer towards the kerb to get closer to it, and steer away from the kerb to move away from it.
I saw this story on the BBC website. It shows a video, which has been released by Norfolk police, of a motorcyclist travelling at 97mph on the A47. He had a helmet camera fitted. The rider, David Holmes, died after he rode into a car which was turning right. The BBC has edited out the impact, which is apparently in the full version – which can be seen on the Suffolk police website (I haven’t watched it here, and have no desire to do so).
Apparently, the car driver was prosecuted for causing death by careless driving. I suppose that the charge of “careless driving” sends something of a message – it wasn’t classed as “dangerous” – but I can’t for the life of me see what the driver could have done to anticipate some Neanderthal halfwit coming at them out of the blue at almost twice the speed limit. Not unless we are to assume that all motorcyclists are the same and they could be behaving like this at each and every junction. Or that the fault always lies with the motorist, and not the rider.
The Norfolk police quite rightly make no apologies for releasing the video, in spite of the negative comments it may attract. I make no apologies for my opinion on the matter, either.
Holmes’ family have allowed the video to be released.
Mr Holmes’ mother, Brenda, is shown on the video talking about the heartache of losing a child and makes a plea for people to be more careful on the roads.
She said if the video could save one life, it would be worth it.
Although I have sympathy for her, I hope she is referring to insane motorcyclists and not just car drivers. But I don’t think she is, because on the Suffolk police site she is quoted:
I know he rode fast that day, he loved speed but he also loved life. This hasn’t been an easy thing to do but I just hope that somebody benefits from the warning; that people slow down and take time to look for bikes.
Holmes was travelling at nearly 100mph, for God’s sake – that’s almost 50 metres per second! From his perspective, the chance of someone turning right at a right-turn junction was a damn sight more likely than that of someone bearing down on you at 100mph – which is how would have seemed for the motorist. I don’t see anyone loudly proclaiming that Holmes should have anticipated things better, do you? It’s bloody obvious who was at fault. If he’d been travelling within the speed limit the accident almost certainly wouldn’t have happened, and the comments by the “expert” rider in the video miss that point entirely. Looking at the footage, if Holmes had been driving at the speed limit (or around 25 metres per second) the issue of whether he could have avoided the accident or not would have been moot – the car driver would probably have seen him, or would have had time to turn safely if he was farther back. At 60mph, it would take about 4 seconds to stop, whereas it would take around 6 seconds at 100mph – and this is for a car (not a bike) under theoretically ideal conditions. The distance travelled in those additional two seconds would be huge, and don’t forget that if you double your speed, your braking distance is about four times longer.
You simply don’t expect some prat to be coming down a hill at that kind of speed. The most frightening thing is that if they are, most drivers wouldn’t stand a chance of anticipating it. And quite frankly, they shouldn’t have to.
Just for the record, any car driver who drives dangerously (or carelessly), or who breaks the speed limit, deserves to be prosecuted. But so does any motorcyclist who does similar.
Not so much a “two pinter”, as a kegmeister this time. Nicholas Ward, 47, was found to be three and a half times over the limit after he had crashed his car. Ward, a consultant doctor, was avoiding police and refusing medical treatment in an attempt to escape detection.
Ward was banned for nearly three years, fined £1,000, and given 200 hours of community service. Frighteningly:
Michael Oerton, defending, said Ward had ‘self imposed’ a disqualification on himself since the collision and now cycled to work.
He said the collision was a ‘wake up call’ and he had now sought medical help for his alcohol problems.
Let’s hope this “help” ensures he doesn’t ride his bicycle whilst put of his skull on booze. After all, not having to worry about losing your licence anymore does open up possibilities for a few extra snifters now and then, doesn’t it? Cyclists already manage to go under the radar on this and many other matters which motorists don’t.
They come in groups. This story tells how another drink-driver blew a relatively low reading of 56mg when stopped by police. However, his “couple of pints” prompted him to drive at 110mph in heavy rain, past a police car, in a high performance vehicle (the make isn’t specified).
Rhys Fisher, 26, Is (or, most likely, was) an estate agent. He was put in prison for 5 months, banned for three years, fined £500, and ordered to take an extended test when his ban finishes.
John Dowlman, defending, said Fisher had no previous convictions and on the night of the offence had been out for dinner.
Mr Dowlman said: “He has messed up and he accepts it is his own fault. He struggles to understand why he did it.”
Actually, understanding why he did it is easy. He was already an idiot who thought that a couple of drinks would be “all right”, and drinking had simply amplified these qualities.
An interesting story from Cumbria. Rory George Amos had only drunk “a couple of pints”, but he registered 53mg of alcohol in a breath test, against the legal limit of 35mg.
He was drink-driving, it’s as simple as that. But comments from the defence lawyer, John Cooper, are worth mentioning:
“It still seems to be a common belief that if you drink only two pints you will be okay.”
He went on to say that the sooner people know and realise this is not the case, the better.
If you’re going to drive, you shouldn’t drink. The old story about two pints being safe only applies to the average male, and it assumes that the beer is 3.5% ABV – many beers are stronger than this these days, and even a pint and a half of Stella Artois is well into danger territory. Most people don’t know what ‘%’ means to begin with, and they’re hardly likely to be able to do the maths necessary to adjust their intake pro rata.
I was involved in an accident a few years ago (not my fault) and had to take the mandatory roadside breath test. I blew 0mg, and the police officer who administered it said:
You’ve restored my faith in driving instructors.
You see, any amount of alcohol in your bloodstream has an effect on your body. Drink ten pints and you’re pissed out of your skull. Drink five and you’re probably loud and showing off. Drink two and you are STILL affected – even if you are still “legal” according to a breath test. I remember when I was at Uni and then when I first started work, and being tired in the afternoon after a couple at lunchtimes – one of the reasons I never drink during the day, even when I’m not working. But just think how it would look if driving instructors were doing their jobs with alcohol in their bloodstream, knowing that these side-effects were likely.
Note:I stopped using this after iZettle let me down EXTREMELY badly, almost destroyed my business overnight (and that is no exaggeration at all), and just said “too bad” (that’s not, either). They subsequently apologised and admitted they were wrong, but it was too late. I now use the PayPal card reader option. As of October 2018, I notice this article is popular again, and this may have something to do with an article in Intelligent Instructor, where they only mention iZettle by name when talking about taking card payments. Trust me: iZettle is not the way to go. Go with PayPal – at least until PayPal (which now owns iZettle) assimilates it fully and replaces it’s internal staff with one that works.
I should also now add that I have stopped using PayPal (as of 2023), because instead of assimilating the iZettle reader, the iZettle reader actually assimilated the PayPal one! PayPal effectively turned off all PayPal Here readers overnight in early April. And I refuse to ever deal with iZettle again.
Note: This article was originally written in September 2013 (sub-note: it’s now nearly 5 years as of October 2018). I’ve updated it after using the device for nearly six months now, and following interest from other people. This review is based on my experience at the time, and doesn’t included the extremely damaging experience which caused me to turn to PayPal.
The iZettle website is here – you can sign up instantly and order your reader from there. Believe me when I say that card payments are the way to go for driving instructors. Many are still stuck in the 19th Century – so bypass the 20th Century altogether and move straight to the 21st! If you can’t take card payments then you’re missing a trick, and it’s amazing that people who were umming and ahing about being able to take card payments last year are still at it! Just get one of the damned things and get on with your proper job!
My iZettle finally arrived, and it’s a nice solid piece of kit. It sits easily in the palm of your hand, as the picture here shows, and yet it weighs in at about 120g and doesn’t feel like it is going to blow away in a draught or anything.
Cards with a chip (requiring a pin) go into a slot at the bottom, and there is a swipe slot at the top for non-chipped cards (which are becoming a rarity in the UK).
I set up my account with iZettle at the time I ordered the reader, so it was verified and ready to go when I opened the box. Likewise, I had downloaded the iZettle app for my smartphone and all that remained was to link the two together.
Pairing them is done by enabling Bluetooth on your phone (mine’s always on anyway), and holding the green tick button on the reader for a few seconds. You’re then prompted to enter the last three digits of the reader’s serial number, and that’s it. It connects immediately and announces that you’re ready to insert or swipe a card.
I used it for the first time a few hours later, taking a payment of £180 for a block booking from a pupil. Basically, the pupil put their card in the machine, I keyed in the amount on my smartphone and clicked “charge”, the pupil then entered her PIN, and within 15 seconds the transaction was complete. There was the opportunity to email her a receipt, but she didn’t want that. Absolutely painless, and no visit to the bank required. I love it!
Having used theiZettle for several days now (as of September 2013) I can truly say it is a godsend – ordinarily I’d have made at least one and possibly two trips to the bank for the combined amount of money I’ve taken over several days (or I’d walk around with cash and cheques in my pocket until I got time to go in). If I was going to pick a fault, it would be that I now haven’t got any cash in my pocket!
As of the end of April 2014, I’ve taken payments exceeding £10,000 since September last year. Obviously, this is turnover I’m talking about – not profit – but it has prevented me having to go to the bank much at all, and certainly I’ve not taken a single cheque since I got the iZettle (if people can write cheques, they will almost certainly have a debit card, and if they don’t then you won’t want to be taking cheques from them in the first place).
EVERYONE who once wrote cheques (and some who used to pay in cash) is now using this to pay me. Money goes straight into my account a couple of days after the pupils pay, like clockwork. Some pupils still prefer to pay in cash, of course – some even alternate between card and cash depending on the state of their bank balances – but it has worked out brilliantly. And being on 4G now has made reliability of the phone signal that much greater, at least in my area.
I can use Paypal to take payments, so why do I need this?
Look, no one is saying you can’t use Paypal. Sometimes, that is a perfectly sensible method. The problem is that you can’t easily get people to do it in the car – and if you do, it is long-winded and time-consuming. It isn’t possible if you can’t get a reliable internet connection. Even getting people to do it from home often involves chasing them up because they “forgot”.
There are a lot of things in life you don’t actually need to survive – you can use an abacus to work out your accounts, but a calculator or a computer is far better; you can stick with your old 26″ glass tube TV and still watch movies, but a 40″+ flat screen TV is better; you can make do with just the terrestrial channels, but if you have cable or satellite you get a lot more choice. 21st Century people will always choose the latter option in all these examples.
It’s the same with this. By all means, carry on taking cash and cheques, and making time-consuming trips to the bank. Try and coerce people into transferring money to you via Paypal or direct bank transfer. But the 21st Century ADI will be wanting to make life a lot simpler for himself and his clients by being able to take direct payments in the car.
For the record, over the last month (April) about 70% of my pupils have paid by card, 29% in cash, and 1% by direct bank transfer (because his new debit card PIN hadn’t arrived from the bank).
How much does it all cost?
You buy the card reader outright. It costs £59.00 at the time of writing. Then, there is a 2.75% charge levied on each transaction, so if you sell something for £1.00, you pay 2.75p. If you sell something for £100 you pay £2.75. And so on. The transaction fee is on a sliding scale, and if you take more than £2,000 I any month then the rate goes down – to as low as 1.5% if you take £15,000 or more. iZettle calls it the Smart Rate, and any savings are credited back to you periodically.
Every time you make a transaction, iZettle deducts the percentage fee and then credits the balance to your bank account. It takes about 24 hours for iZettle to process it, then about 1-2 days for it to appear in your account. However, on weekends, iZettle credits it on the Monday. Yes, it would be nice if there was no transaction fee, and the money went into your account immediately, but in the business world things usually don’t work like that.
What does it look like when you use it?
Well, you can see the reader, above. There is an app that you install on your phone, and through it – and your online account area, which you can also access via a PC – you can set up a product catalogue, or take ad hoc payments by just typing in the amount on your phone, and then letting the customer type their PIN into the reader. The system logs the location where payment was taken, and you can send a receipt via email (though you can get receipt printers if your business is in a fixed location). The system keeps a full log so you can monitor your sales, and you can download the data in spreadsheet-friendly formats. You can also issue refunds through the app. It’s all very easy to use.
How long does it take for payments to clear?
Assuming you’re using chip & pin (in the UK, there’s no reason not to be) if you take a payment on a Monday, iZettle pays it to your nominated bank on Tuesday, and it appears in your account within three working days. Mine usually takes one or two working days. If you take a payment on a Friday or over the weekend, iZettle pays it to your account on Monday. If Monday is a bank holiday then the payment may delay until Tuesday.
If these small delays are a problem for you then you perhaps ought to stick with cash.
Do you need an internet connection to use it?
Yes. If you can’t get a mobile phone signal it won’t take payments. Quite honestly, though, that’s not an issue unless you live in an area where you are effectively cut off. I’ve found that even when the signal drops, moving a few metres can often restore it.
How do you get logs?
Or, how to extract data for your accounts. You log into your iZettle account and go to Sales. There, you can either select individual days, or months, and view the receipts for that period. Then you point at Export in the top left and download either a PDF file or an XLS worksheet with the data inside.
Alternatively, you can go into Transactions, choose your time period, then export the data in a single file.
Does iZettle make payments on Bank Holidays?
iZettle is not a UK company. When I used it, apart from the several days delay being paid in the first place, they didn’t pay at weekends or Bank/public Holidays in THEIR country (Sweden). I should point out that PayPal pays same day on ANY day – even on Christmas Day, if your bank allows it – and payment occurs almost instantly. PayPal says to allow “up to two hours”, but mine goes in usually before I can log out of PayPal and into my account.
tax annually, every six months, or monthly by direct debit.
My iZettle finally arrived, and it’s a nice solid piece of kit. It sits easily in the palm of your hand, as the picture here shows, and yet it weighs in at about 120g and doesn’t feel like it is going to blow away in a draught or anything.