The Guardian reports that UK police have seized their millionth uninsured vehicle (it was in the West Midlands). The report mentions that out of 34 million drivers in the UK, around 1.2 million are uninsured.
Since 2005, when police gained powers to seize uninsured vehicles, an average of 500 a day have been nabbed! About a third of those have ended up being crushed.
The article says that uninsured drivers kill 160 and injure 23,000 people a year. That’s quite frightening when you think about it.
This Motor Insurers’ Bureau (MIB) “research” (it’s actually just a survey-cum-press release) says:
New research* undertaken amongst communities in the West Midlands and West Yorkshire highlights that a third of people still do not understand the current laws on car insurance, so are risking fines of up to £5,000; points on their licence and having their cars seized by police. Some of the reasons cited by motorists living in these hotspot areas, include: the cost of motor insurance, not understanding the law and penalties, and a belief that they’ll get away with it.
I love the way they completely avoid mentioning the extremely significant cultural issues which are involved here. Even so, they contradict themselves in that paragraph.
On the one hand, they say people “do not understand” the law. Then, in the next sentence they say that those questioned say insurance in “too high” and believe “that they’ll get away with it”. So which is it, MIB?
The postcode areas in question have very significant demographics in terms of ethnicity and poverty, and it is clear that people are anxious to protect that aspect and avoid identifying it. Of course, if you are hit and killed by an uninsured driver, it doesn’t matter to you or your family who the driver was – you’re still dead, and the he was still uninsured.
But the police – and any other authority wanting to change things – should be very concerned about the obvious common denominators.
As I’ve said before, driving is a privilege, not a right. Of the people who drive uninsured, 95% of them KNOW that they are driving uninsured, and they know it is illegal.
This BBC article points out that 200,000 fewer people took driving tests last year compared with 5 years ago. It then goes on to quote a 20-year old who “can’t afford lessons” and so is finding it “a lot harder to get a job”. Echoes of that American learner I mentioned a few days ago.
We need to put things into perspective here. There’s a recession on, and there are a lot of things that a lot of people can’t afford anymore. Now, that doesn’t mean that all those people can’t afford all of the same things – they each have different priorities.
But the learner they are quoting – Emma Radwanski – says:
…she can’t afford driving lessons.
“It makes it a lot harder to get a job,” [s]he said.
“It makes it harder to go and see my friends.
“It makes it harder just to go and do anything like the cinema, or shopping or just to go out.”
It sounds to me like she wants to have her cake and eat it. Standard practice used to be that when you wanted something badly, then you cut back on other things so you could save up and afford it. If you couldn’t do that, you went without.
But todays teenagers want everything. There’s no such thing as going without or – heaven forbid – waiting. They want it now. And if they can’t have it, then it must be someone else’s fault.
The BBC plays right into her hands by saying:
The cost of getting a licence and taking the theory and practical driving tests is £143.
That is a relatively small amount compared to the rising cost of lessons, fuel, MoT and insurance.
Lesson prices are NOT RISING. Whoever wrote that is a complete prat. They are falling to stupid levels because of all the idiot cheapos doing their level best to bankrupt themselves. And insurance is rising precisely because of the “I want it now” attitude many teenagers exude. MSN doesn’t make the same amateurish mistakes as the BBC in its version of the same news (minus Radwanski), but even it refers to lesson prices without engaging its brain.
I can tell both MSN and the BBC that back in 2005 I was charging the top end going rate, which was £22 an hour. Today – in 2012 – I am charging £23 an hour (also the top end going rate in my area). That’s a rise of 5%. Lord knows where they get their figures from.
Radwanski is then quoted in the BBC article:
…having to rely on friends and relatives leaves her feeling guilty and has given up trying to get a licence.
She said: “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get a licence or save enough money to do lessons, to buy a car, to afford lessons, to pay insurance or to pay tax.
“That makes me feel awful.”
So even if she had a driving licence she couldn’t afford to buy a car, insure it, tax it, or run it? It would be hard to find any more things she (or the BBC) could blame in one short article.
I think Radwanski needs to grow up a little before she’s allowed anywhere near a car. After all, I had to when I learnt to drive. I couldn’t afford a car for over a year after I passed, and running it in the early days was a huge struggle.
Only a total loser writes off their entire life at 20. Everyone else finds a way forward.
This story says that changes are proposed to the Australian driving test. A couple of comments in the story caught my eye.
It proposes fewer chances for error, and recommends focus on manoeuvres such as right-hand turns and merging, which carry a much higher crash risk than things like reverse parks.
Why do people always seem to think that only things likely to directly involve accidents should be tested? Being able to carry out basic exercises and routines is a way of testing car control and manoeuvring skills – both of which are building blocks for driving safely.
Personally, I think the only people who have it in for reverse parking are those who find it difficult themselves. And advocating dropping it is their insidious way of trying to dumb down the test (that applies whatever country we’re talking about).
Under the changes, drivers are permitted to exceed the speed limit by up to 4km/h on three occasions before being automatically failed.
Mr Emerson said he would seek public feedback on the review, which represented the first significant overhaul of the driving test in 14 years.
What precisely do they think “the public” will say? This is a “public” that wants to go faster, and which can’t reverse park properly in the first place! In any case, if an idea is that good it doesn’t need “the public” to agree to it. After all, they wouldn’t consult the public about cutting speed limits, so why consult them about effectively increasing the limit – unless they already have doubts about it?
Ask the “man in the street” over here, and you’d immediately be talking to “the best driver in the world” (in his own opinion). He’d have all kinds of suggestions for “improving” the test, most of which would be utter rubbish if heard by anyone who knew what they were talking about. However, ministers and the media would take them seriously – and in our most notable case, if the “man in the street” turned out to be the daughter of The Transport Minister, then many of the changes could be rushed through Parliament without any form of additional “consultation”.
He [Paul Turner] said although reverse parking did not carry a high crash risk it was still a “technical skill” that deserved a place in the driving test.
“We don’t believe it should be a matter of replacing things in the test,” Mr Turner said.
At least someone has a sensible outlook.
One final comment in the story. The article says:
Statistics released by Transport and Main Roads show pass rates for driving tests in Queensland averaged 64 per cent last year. The rate has remained virtually unchanged despite the introduction in 2007 of the 100-hour logbook system for learners.
How would the logbook system change pass rates? And especially so when you already have a very high figure of two-thirds passing!
What it would do is affect the number of people taking the test (if they actually used it), or perhaps the number having accidents in the first few years following their tests (if it worked as intended). The percentage of people taking tests may well have changed as a result, but why should it have anything but a minor impact on the already high actual pass rate? All people do, more or less, is turn up for test now with a bit of paper they didn’t have before – it’s getting the paper which is the new bit.
This is an interesting story in the Hindustan Times about lane discipline.
One of my biggest headaches as a driving instructor is that some pupils have real problems with lane discipline. Indeed, in the course of any normal day, my own observations confirm that a huge number of supposedly competent drivers have the same problems, too.
Only the other day I had a pupil fail her test for crossing into the path of another car on a roundabout (drifting into the right hand lane). It was on what is known as the Virgin Roundabout and it’s on several of the Colwick test routes. In the debrief the examiner told her that she’d done it both going out and coming back, and on the second occasion there was a car just behind her who had to brake. She only got three faults in total.
This particular pupil is from India, and she has a full licence from there. She has done a lot of driving in her home city.
Among her “habits” that I’d had to address – apart from a total lack of awareness of road markings in some situations – was the knee-jerk reaction to literally anything she could see moving as we approached minor roads or from the left on roundabouts. When I first started teaching her, she’d happily stop dead in the middle of a roundabout if she saw anyone approaching on her left. She’d do the same if anyone approached a give way line at the end of a minor road as she was passing it. We’d addressed this, but in times of stress she could easily revert without thinking. That’s the trouble with bad habits – they can come back.
I’ve got another pupil who holds a full Sri Lankan licence. He will slam on the brakes when we’re on any roundabout if he detects an approaching vehicle on any entry road. He has no concept of “staying in lane”. He’s an older guy, and breaking this habit is very slow going.
These two are not isolated cases. Over the years I have noticed that people who have experience driving in India – particularly in big cities – often exhibit the same weaknesses.
In talking with them (and having driven in Pakistan myself) it is understandable why they have trouble. In many countries it is a free-for-all, where giving way anywhere simply doesn’t exist as a rule of the road. Certainly when I was in Pakistan, people just piled into roundabouts, hands pumping their car horns, and meandered their way around all the other traffic to forge a path in the direction they wanted. Lanes simply did not exist in their minds on roundabouts. And it was similar at junctions – people were liable to just emerge, so everyone was always on their guard.
In a way it was quite elegant. There were no accidents – well, certainly not as many as you’d expect from such behaviour, though I’m sure that bumps and scrapes must have been quite common. But it explains why drivers from overseas react the way they do when they drive in the UK. They’re reacting to what could happen based on their experiences at home.
The story in the Hindustan Times implies that lane discipline was officially non-existent – and I mean that was the way you were supposed to drive – until the recent change in the Law. The article says that “lane-driving” has been introduced “on a trial basis”:
DSP (traffic) Vijay Kumar said, “Even a fortnight after the introduction of lane-driving on Jan Marg on a trial basis, motorists are not following the guidelines. The concept can never be a success till motorists support the police endeavour and follow rules diligently.”
Lane-driving basically requires earmarking a given road for different categories of traffic, including emergency and heavy vehicles, normal and slow-moving vehicles.
This further quote clearly suggests that the concept of using left and right hand lanes for turning left and right was not the usual method for drivers over there:
Vijay Kumar said, “When you reach 50 to 100 metres from an intersection or rotary, the central lane is to be used for going straight, and left and right lane for turning left and right, respectively. The driver can switch indicator for right and left movement and turn accordingly.”
India has various other modes of transport, such as rickshaws and animal-drawn carts, which are not often seen in the West, and much of this new lane emphasis is designed to make it safer for those road users.
Roundabouts and lane discipline can be a problem for any learner, of course.
What is meant by “lane discipline”?
It means choosing the correct lane at the appropriate time and – to a certain extent – staying in that lane.
If road markings or road signs indicate which lanes to use to head off in certain directions and you wait until the last moment to change, then you are guilty of poor lane discipline. If you straddle lanes or wander out of your own lane then you are also guilty. You could also be marked for poor planning, normal driving position, observation/safety (if you don’t realise you’re doing it), response to traffic signs/markings, and so on.
I wrote a few days ago about a pile of uninformed and dangerously misleading nonsense published in the Daily Mail telling how it is easier to pass your driving test if you move north. As is usual with these stories which I get via the newsfeeds, other people latch on to them and embellish them.
A lot of people think it is an easy place to learn as there is only one set of traffic lights and it’s less variable…
“There are not as many hazards – just the odd farm animal – but learning to drive in rural areas is much more dangerous as some of the roads are quite bad.”
So there you have it. One set of traffic lights! Just as I said in the previous article, these places ARE easier. But most of them still have significant failure rates. However, that’s not my point this time.
This next bit has to rate as one of the most ill-informed comments imaginable:
Neil Greig, from the Institute of Advanced Motorists, said: “In rural areas, the need to pass is paramount. Candidates make sure they are well-prepared.”
Even by this particular organisation’s standards that is an idiotic thing to say. Greig is clearly suggesting that the reason Scottish test centres have higher pass rates is that candidates are better prepared than elsewhere – in spite of obvious other factors, like only having one set of traffic lights. He really needs to take some lessons on how to avoid amateurish rhetoric if he’s going to keep pushing this organisation’s propaganda into the public’s faces!
The AA makes a far more sensible assessment of the results:
The AA’s Driving School warned against only learning in remote areas.
They added: “There is no long-term benefit in only being able to drive on a certain type of road. We would not recommend learners booking their tests in remote areas on the off-chance they may find it easier to pass there.”
As I said in the last article, if you can drive then you stand a good chance of passing your test (the pass rate in my area is about 45% but my own pass rate is much higher than that – because my pupils can drive).
If you’re a rubbish driver trying to avoid spending money on lessons, choosing cheapo instructors, and absolutely desperate for a licence for cultural (in the broadest sense) reasons, you will not miraculously pass by taking a test out in the sticks.
When the new law was introduced, it required that teenage drivers complete a mandatory 12 hours behind the wheel (increased from 6 – you have to remember that America has always had a different approach to learner drivers when compared with the UK, and allows learners to drive unsupervised), and 40 hours of logged accompanied driving with a parent or guardian. The accompanying driver had to complete a 2 hour course before they could supervise, and there were also restrictions placed on driving at night and driving with other teenagers in the car.
In fact, if you look up the full details, the overall requirements are more numerous (this is from Wikipedia):
Learner must complete driver’s education, hold their permit for six months incident free (no accidents, no citations, no warnings), and log 40 practice hours with a licensed driver over 21. Junior operators cannot drive between 12:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. unless accompanied by their parent or legal guardian and Massachusetts law provides no exceptions for employment, education, or medical reasons. Additionally, junior operators cannot drive with passengers under the age of 18 (except immediate family members) unless accompanied by a licensed driver over 21 within the first six months of obtaining a License. The Massachusetts JOL law also takes a zero-tolerance stance towards speeding, drivers under 18 caught speeding are subject to a mandatory 90 day suspension for the first offense accompanied by a mandatory road rage education class and a mandatory retake of the both permit and road tests. A one year revocation is mandatory for the second and each subsequent offense.
Reading the article I mentioned at the start would also seem to suggest that if a teenager violates certain of the conditions, then they basically go back to the start and have to begin the whole process again. So, in other words, it takes an effort to get a full licence (again, bear in mind that in America learners can drive unsupervised, so changes like this involve significant changes to people’s expectations and lifestyles).
However, the real eye opener is this graph, which shows the number of fatalities in the different learner age groups:
The article states that in considering figures covering the period 1986 to 2007, there were 1,348 fewer fatal crashes involving 16-year olds after the new law was introduced, but 1,086 more for 18-year olds.
That might lead you to conclude that the graduated licence hasn’t worked, but the article also points out that older teenagers aren’t completing driver education or gaining sufficient experience as solo drivers. It points out that the number of teens completing the driver education course has fallen by 20% since the law came into force. Some commentators also believe that the stringent requirements – such as the mandatory course that parents have to take – has also had an impact on take-up rates. One person says it is “a pain” to follow, even though it has had a very positive impact on teen deaths.
Mind you, America seems to have the same problem with driving instructors interfering with things that we do over here. You see, the article starts by quoting a learner driver (also a student) who is bemoaning the cost of learning to drive. She had to “get a job” to pay for it, and she wonders how those on low incomes manage.
Perhaps a driving licence is a right in America, not a privilege? I don’t know.
But the owner of the driving school she is learning with chimes in:
…the law’s impact on cost has been a hurdle for many teens and may be part of the reason they’re waiting until they’re 18 to get their license.
“The driving portion of driver education is about 95 percent of our cost,” he said. “The price has gone way up.”
Before the graduated license law, the 30 hours of classroom and six hours of behind-the-wheel training cost about $300 to $400, Mr. Gilmore said. Now, with double the behind-the-wheel time, it’s $600 to more than $900, depending on the auto school.
Mr. Gilmore said that 12 hours of behind-the-wheel time with an instructor may be unnecessarily high. “Most of the kids plateau in skill level at eight to 10 hours,” he said. “More kids would take driver’s ed if it was cheaper.”
I’ll mention again that the American way is different to ours, and their view is obviously going to be based on the premise of unsupervised driving being the norm. But why do instructors have to persistently try to put themselves across as philanthropists?
Just because someone can’t afford something doesn’t mean the price should be cut so they can. That’s only one step removed from allowing them to steal it!
But if the American driving instructors really do fancy their chances of a Carnegie Medal, perhaps they should look at dropping the price of their lessons. Because if increasing driving time from 6 to 12 hours has added over $500 to the overall cost, that must mean they’re charging close to $100 per hour (that’s nearly £65).
It doesn’t take a genius to realise that if something is working well – and the graduated licence system has slashed fatalities among teen drivers in this case – changing it to make it cheaper is going to screw it up.
More importantly, I wonder if such a system would work if it were introduced here? I don’t mean allowing unsupervised driving, but rigorous control of the learning process and restrictions on carrying passengers and night driving.
I noticed on a forum frequented by students (and learner drivers) someone asked the following questions:
Do all motorways have 3 lanes?
No. Two lanes is quite common, and if you’re on the M1, the A1M, or M25 (that I can remember off the top of my head) then four or more lanes is also possible. And slip roads joining the actual motorway still come under motorway regulations, so you could say that one lane motorway sections are also common.
Bear in mind that the number of lanes can change, and you might pass through two, three, and four-lane stretches over a relatively short distance. It depends on how busy the general area and its associated junctions are.
On a motorway, the national speed limit is 70 mph… So all cars in the left hand lane move at this speed.
No. It would be great if they did, but they don’t for all kinds of reasons. To start with, cars towing caravans and trailers are limited to 60mph, as are articulated lorries and goods vehicles above 7.5 tonnes maximum laden weight. This alone is sufficient to ensure that the average car driver cannot remain in the left hand lane and maintain a steady speed of 70mph.
On top of all that, people going faster than 70mph and those going much slower for other reasons all result in the left hand lane being a very busy and often slow-moving place.
The centre and right-hand lane are used for overtaking.
Yes – or rather, the left hand lane is for normal driving and the other lanes (there could be more than three in total, remember) are used for overtaking.
So surely if a car (that is in the left hand lane) wants to overtake a car in front (whose driving at 70 mph), they have to travel faster than 70mph (by overtaking to the right) but by doing this they are breaking the law?
Yes. If you exceed 70mph then you are… breaking the Law! Of course, there are people who think they’re clever who will start telling you about how the police won’t prosecute you unless you are clocked at over 90mph, but I wouldn’t rely on that. If you were driving badly, they could prosecute you for being clocked at anything over the limit. It’s up to them, not you whether they do or not – so try not to go there.
Also, what is a contraflow system exactly.. I tried Googling it but its complicated, and what is the difference between contraflow and with flow?
A contraflow system is simply where traffic travelling in opposite directions shares the same carriageway – in other words, the same half of the motorway. Contraflow systems are used where road works are taking place on the motorway and usually a lower speed limit is imposed within them for safety reasons.
Contraflow means “against the flow” and with flow means exactly what it says. I must admit that the only time I’ve come across the term “with flow” is where you have a bus or cycle lane – sometimes these can flow “contra” (i.e. towards) traffic on a one-way street, and other times they are “with” the flow (i.e. same direction).
A Norwegian driver swerved to avoid a moose on a remote mountain road – and drove into a bear instead! The bear is being tracked as it appears to have been seriously injured (the driver was OK), but you can see how this could have been much funnier if it was used as the script for, say, a Warner Brothers cartoon, and if the Coyote or Daffy Duck was driving the car. And if the bear got angry…
Apparently, the moose was demonstrating a level of safety awareness typical of its kind by walking in the road at midnight, while the bear was busy going about bear business off to the side somewhere. Incidentally, if you Google images for “moose in road” you’ll be surprised to discover that this animal seems to spend more time walking on tarmac than it does in grass.
Joking aside, moose accidents can be very serious, and often fatal (for the driver as well as the moose). After all, a typical moose can weigh over half a tonne, which is at least half the weight of a normal car.
It reminds me of the time a herd of deer ran out in front of traffic in the Cotswolds, and I saw the engine fall out of a Transit van after it ran into them at 50-60mph. A typical female deer probably weighs in at a tenth of what a moose does.
I always tell this story to my pupils when we cover the Emergency Stop as part of the emphasis on the dangers of speed and lots of mass.
In an article which is even more nonsensical, alarmist, and offering more downright dangerous advice than usual – even by the Mail’s standards – one of their junior hacks is suggesting that since pass rates appear higher for many test centres in areas outside London, people should head north if they want to pass.
What this sorry excuse for a journalist fails to appreciate is that the driving forces behind the statistics are a little bit more complicated than that – indeed, more complicated than she is ever likely to be able to comprehend.
To start with, most of the test centres with low pass rates are in inner city areas with high immigrant populations and little free cash (at the very least, the candidates in question do not want to spend a single penny more than they can get away with, even if they can afford it for cultural reasons). This means that candidates are more than likely looking to pass their tests as quickly as possible by spending as little as possible and so will not be ready for their tests when they take them. Those candidates often also turn out to be too stupid to realise that keep taking – and failing – their tests is at least as expensive in the long run as taking a few quality lessons and fewer tests would be. And so they carry on pulling the area pass rates down.
An additional complication is that a high proportion of instructors in those areas come from similar cultural backgrounds, and share similar attitudes towards passing tests quickly without necessarily being fully road-ready. It comes down to “let’s give it a try to see what happens”.
Conversely, those centres with the highest pass rates are often in middle-class areas, where such factors are less prevalent.
Fair enough, some of the others are out in the sticks where the entire test route covers less than a dozen named roads, and where the traffic density is much lower. Many of these routes don’t even have to negotiate dual carriageways or large roundabouts. But even then, 40% of the locals are still failing.
The typical London learner responsible for those 75% failure rates common down that way is unlikely to miraculously pass merely by travelling 600 miles north! Not without spending more cash on lessons teaching them the local pitfalls – and certainly not without spending even more cash on the real issue: that they simply cannot drive properly.
You see, that’s why people fail tests. Because they aren’t very good drivers – not because of the latitude they live on.
If you are a good driver, you stand almost as much chance of passing first time no matter where you were taught and took your test. Those different pass rates are down to many other factors.
Do not listen to nonsense like that published in the Mail. It is ridiculously misleading.
NOTE: I’ve updated the Jelly link – they removed the clip after I linked to it. The image below is a still from the video clip used on Jelly’s site.
In January I reported on the early cgi clips the DSA is planning to use in the future for the Hazard Perception Test in place of real clips. These were impressive enough – although in spite of them being clearly cited as “early demos”, it didn’t stop certain individuals picking them apart.
A few weeks ago I mentioned that the contract for producing these clips had been awarded to Jelly, a London-based design agency. Jelly now has a demo of what the clips will look like (edit: the clip has been taken down for some reason). They’re light years ahead of the early demos.
I don’t suppose it’s worth stressing the “initial test” label – the usual crowd of agitators are dead set against HPT in any form – and we can expect a nit-picking frenzy once the clip becomes circulated more.
The article states that in considering figures covering the period 1986 to 2007, there were 1,348 fewer fatal crashes involving 16-year olds after the new law was introduced, but 1,086 more for 18-year olds.
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