The DSA has sent one of its periodic reminders about the Highway Code. This one is to do with Waiting and Parking.
Parking on hills.
If you park on a hill you should:
- park close to the kerb and apply the handbrake firmly
- select a forward gear and turn your steering wheel away from the kerb when facing uphill
- select reverse gear and turn your steering wheel towards the kerb when facing downhill
- use ‘park’ if your car has an automatic gearbox
Rule 252
The DSA has circulated an email advising on how you can receive text alerts on your phone when its systems are unavailable.
You need to be on Orange, Vodafone, O2, 3, or Sure (CWC) to use this facility.
The DSA has sent out an email alert advising of changes to it’s website services.
From 17 October 2012, GOV.UK will replace Directgov and Business Link. In other words, there will be one website instead of several, and the DSA will be part of that single site.
You can play around with the test version here. It isn’t complete, and is just for browsing.
For instructors and learners, all the relevant stuff is under the first option on the homepage >> Driving, transport, and travel.
First impressions are that it is much easier and clearer than the existing sites. Hopefully, the existing DSA stuff will have been rewritten to fit in and won’t just be the old stuff from new links.
An email alert from the DSA, with timely advice about taking care around schools:
Near schools. Drive slowly and be particularly aware of young cyclists and pedestrians. In some places, there may be a flashing amber signal below the ‘School’ warning sign which tells you that there may be children crossing the road ahead. Drive very slowly until you are clear of the area.
Rule 208
I was reading something recently and was struck by the shallowness in the way some people think. It’s a simple fact that just about anyone can learn to drive – the real question that no one seems to consider is should they?
Thinking of my own previous pupils for a minute, my quickest went from absolute zero (never driven before) to test pass in just 17½ hours – passing her test first time. My slowest one to date took around 160 hours and passed on his third attempt (which wasn’t bad, considering). Both were in the 17-24 age group, but I privately despaired at ever being able to get that second one up to test standard – and even then I worried about how he’d drive once he’d passed.
He was an unbelievably slow learner, even though he was holding down a good job in IT. There was absolutely nothing wrong with him except when he was behind the wheel of a car, and he was a really nice young chap. Every single aspect of learning to drive – how to use the clutch, how to brake, how to steer, etc. – had to be dealt with laboriously over months of lessons. And even when he could do them, he simply couldn’t apply them in real situations, and this took even more time to develop.
He wasn’t what you’d call wealthy, but he had no problem paying for lessons. I still felt terrible about the fact that he was paying me thousands of pounds (over £3,700 in the end) to teach him. I’d suggested a couple of times that he might want to consider learning in an automatic, but he was absolutely adamant that he wanted to pass in a manual car. In the end, I think the important thing was that we both knew that he had a problem, and that it wasn’t the tuition that was to blame.
That’s why those who try to suggest that the instructor is specifically the problem, offering epithets like “don’t be ashamed if you can’t do it – pass them over to someone who can”, are talking out of their backsides. I covered everything with this guy, in every way imaginable, in order to teach him how to drive. In the end we both succeeded and I doubt that anyone else could have done it any more quickly than I did.
However, one question I cannot answer is should he be driving?
When you travel the roads every day, you see dozens of people out there who – one way or another – are not good drivers. You get boy racers who think they’re good, but aren’t. You have older drivers whose faculties are declining. You get the white-knuckle matrons who are terrified of being on the roads at all, but go on them anyway. You get the diminutive 4×4 drivers who couldn’t handle a Tonka truck, let alone a 2½ tonne tank (especially near schools and in supermarket car parks). You get people who simply can’t do roundabouts, and who negotiate the same ones every day and do them wrong every time. The list goes on and on.
Should any of those be driving?
Far too many ADIs these days – and it is a fairly recent malady – seem to forget that teaching people how to drive is just a job, and the purpose of that job is to earn money by doing it well. In other words, as with most jobs, there is a balance to be found between purely financial concerns on the one hand, and professional and moral responsibilities on the other. You cannot take things to extremes.
Unfortunately, the exceptional ability of many ADIs to use “doublethink” clouds this distinction quite significantly. For example, specialising in teaching people who have health or age issues, but overlooking the obvious safety implications of letting them loose on the roads – where the moral implications are not even considered – might come across as very philanthropic. But it is a definite selling point which allows a premium price to be charged for the service, so the financial arguments are obviously highly significant.
Is it a sin to advise someone to learn in an automatic car when they have obvious issues controlling clutch and gears? Well, some might argue that the “inferior” ADI who can’t handle such difficult learners would do well to pass them over to someone who can. As I said above, this is utter crap – it is merely a covert marketing ploy by the “specialists”.
Sure, there are some ADIs who can’t even handle normal learners very well, let alone the tricky ones, but that isn’t the issue. What these experts always ignore is the fact that most pupils want to learn quickly and often cannot afford 150 hours or more of lessons. If I get someone who is open about having a budget that they cannot exceed, then I’m open with them about whether I think they can do it or not – and especially if I discover that their left and right feet can’t work the pedals, and still refuse to do so even after hours of trying. Indeed, it’s got to the stage where I make a point of mentioning the automatic option to some new budget-focused pupils once I’ve seen how they are likely to develop.
I’ve got one at the moment. Really nice lady who – on her first lesson – showed a lot of promise. She’d mentioned how she had a budget and had already considered learning in an automatic, but would prefer a manual licence if possible. However, about 7 hours in and it has become clear that her left foot has a mind of its own which isn’t likely to change overnight. I’ve explained clearly that I am absolutely certain she could learn in a manual car, but probably not as quickly as she’d like and she might want to reconsider the automatic option in light of that. The coordination problems that she experiences with the clutch and gears simply wouldn’t exist in an automatic. She is grateful that I have told her this, and although I will lose a pupil she’ll leave happy.
One I’ve mentioned before finally passed her test in an automatic on her 7th (I think) attempt. It took her two years of automatic lessons – and that’s on top of the two she spent with me, determined to succeed in a manual transmission car. Even after 100 hours it was a 50:50 bet on whether she’d put the clutch down before stopping. After her first automatic lesson she phoned me and beamed “it’s great! When I stop at traffic lights all I have to do is brake, and then let go when I want to move again.” That was exactly what she kept doing in the manual car, of course, which resulted in frequent stalls.
There is absolutely no way any “expert” could have made any difference. She simply had a problem with driving, and the fact that it took seven test attempts even with an auto instructor bears testimony to this. If she’d have stayed with me she could still easily have not been test ready even now. I estimate that she has spent in excess of £7,000 to get her licence. And yes, I worry about how she’ll cope when she gets her own car. An instructor’s moral concerns don’t just end with the public.
Anyone who is struggling to learn to drive in a manual car, and who has limited funds on which to draw, should seriously consider learning in an automatic. It’s no sign of weakness to advise them on that – in fact, it is potentially irresponsible and unprofessional not to advise them of that option.
This news story on the BBC reports that insurers are calling for an overhaul of the learner system. The changes they suggest include:
I agree with all of these except the one about reducing the age limit. Drivers are already often too immature to handle a car properly and allowing them to get in one 6 months earlier is just stupid. It would put us on a par with certain American states, where you can drive from the moment you’re born, and where you’re also usually allowed to marry farm animals. All you have to do is trawl through the news stories from those backwoods places to see what the effect of allowing children to drive is on accident figures.
The insurers only want a lower age because it would make them more money. There’s no sense in the idea in terms of statistics, yet it would unquestionably increase the number of people requiring insurance.
If anything, the minimum driving age should be increased – certainly for males.
There’s no escaping the actual statistics, though. Young drivers DO have a disproportionately large number of fatal accidents, and a large number of those fall into the “more-than-one-occupant-late-night-rural-road-on-a-bend-no-other-car-involved” category. It’s fairly obvious that immaturity and attitude have to play a significant part in this – I wish someone would produce the statistics that compare young/new with older/new drivers (not all learners are still in nappies).
Note: Even if this were approved today, it wouldn’t become law for several years – and it would probably be defeated before it became law because British politicians after votes are lower down the evolutionary ladder than those animals you’re allowed to marry in some American states I mentioned above!
The DSA is circulating a new early-stage clip of the soon-to-be CGI version of the Hazard Perception Test (HPT) produced by Jelly. Once again, image clarity is superb.
Of course, it remains to be seen what the “experts” have to say on the matter. In spite of being early-stage trials I’m sure that someone will argue the sun is all wrong which gives a misleading impression of the speed because of the shadows, or the pilot car is doing something it shouldn’t, or something like that. Or some crap about it “being even more like a video game” – that’s always a good position to take to show how “expert” you are on the matter.
I did notice someone saying (in derogatory response to this latest clip) that the HPT doesn’t teach pupils to look in the mirrors.
It isn’t supposed to – that’s a service that ADIs are allegedly trained to provide. The HPT is supposed to give them an idea of what hazards to look for and when. It’s supposed to get them thinking – but quite how it can do that effectively if they have negative instructors teaching them is anyone’s guess.
Being able to pass the question part of the Theory Test doesn’t prove someone has perfect understanding of the Highway Code anymore than passing the HPT part means they have perfect hazard awareness skills when they’re out in their car.
But they have to at least think – just a little bit – in order to pass at all, and their instructor should build on that during their lessons.
Any ADI who can’t get this simple relationship past the prejudices that fill their thick skulls shouldn’t be doing this job.
The DSA has sent out a reminder about overtaking on the hard shoulder on motorways:
Motorways
Overtaking
You MUST NOT use the hard shoulder for overtaking.
In areas where an Active Traffic Management (ATM) Scheme is in force, the hard shoulder may be used as a running lane. You will know when you can use this because a speed limit sign will be shown above all open lanes, including the hard shoulder. A red cross or blank sign above the hard shoulder means that you MUST NOT drive on the hard shoulder except in an emergency or breakdown. Emergency refuge areas have also been built into these areas for use in cases of emergency or breakdown.
Rule 269
The latest issue of Despatch has an interesting lead article about CPD – that’s continuing professional development, where ADIs are supposed to continue their professional training and development in their own time. CPD has been a buzzword among the unwashed masses for 
a few years now.
In a nutshell, the DSA has announced that it will NOT make CPD compulsory for the time being. There are a number of interesting threads of thought which lead off from this.
I’m in favour of CPD in general, but 99.9% of what “CPD” courses are (or have been) available out there are useless crap! CPD has been devalued by organisations handing out “CPD certificates” like confetti to people for just turning up to regular meetings, where the only item on the agenda is to have a moan about the DSA and discuss how it could be brought down.
I can assure you that that’s not CPD, anymore than Monopoly money is real money!
Anyway, one interesting thought which occurred to me is how much money some people will have wasted paying for this pointless “CPD” in the past. After all, now that it’s not going to be compulsory – no brownie points, no gold stars, no marks out of ten on the check test – all those meetings or lectures on how to do your tax return by people with no qualifications in the subject matter involved, even though you use an accountant, have effectively been made useless.
Another interesting point is how already the very same people who would have slammed the DSA if CPD had been made compulsory are now criticising them because it hasn’t been! These are the kind of people who would have been first in the queue for those “bring down the DSA” meetings in local pubs, and who are always prattling on about the same subject ad nauseam across various web forums.
I also wonder what some of the larger organisations and franchises will do now? Many have issued “CPD certificates” to their members for attending all sorts of meetings and events. A lot of ADIs have been stupid enough to let pupils down in order to attend these things, but it’s all been devalued – even if those certificates had any value to start with.
I always said that until the DSA issued a list of approved courses I wasn’t going to waste my time attending any that cost me money if there wasn’t a decent qualification at the end of it (and I don’t mean like a BTEC (or any similar vocational qualification), which are impossible to fail and aren’t worth the paper they’re written on).
I wonder if those meetings of the right-on brothers in pubs in Northern towns, bitching about the DSA and looking for ways to criticise it for everything, will still go ahead now?
The latest edition of Despatch (October 2012) is now available for download from the DSA. This month sees articles on voluntary (not compulsory) CPD, marketing advice, information about the new DSA logo, and some odds and ends.
