ADI - Diary Of An ADI

Theory, Schmeery!

12/04/2012

I was listening to a discussion in the test centre waiting room last week about the merits – or otherwise – of the Driving Theory Test (introduced in the mid-90s) over the previous method of testing driving knowledge.

For anyone who doesn’t know, in the “olden days” when you took your driving test, the examiner would ask you a couple of questions at the end. I can remember one of mine being the blue “keep left” sign, and vaguely another sign, produced from a ring-bound set of laminated cards. There might have been a question about parking – but it was a long time ago.

If you believe some people, the previous method guaranteed 100% God-like knowledge of the Highway Code for the entire lifespan of every person who passed their driving test back then. The current method, on the other hand, is apparently responsible for every road accident, the global warming problem, and possibly several major natural disasters since its inception. The Hazard Perception Test (introduced in 2002) just added knobs on to this.

It’s worth setting the record straight on this subject.

One of the main reasons the previous method was replaced was that it most definitely did not ensure God-like knowledge. Nor did what little knowledge was gained stick for more than about 5 minutes after someone passed their test. Far from it.

People generally don’t set out to not know the Highway Code (HC). Even for those who have ever bothered to read it all the way through somewhere in the distant past, the memory fades unless there is a valid reason to keep remembering it or updating it. They’ll remember things like what a big “30” in the middle of a red and white circular sign means (whether they choose to obey it or not is a different matter). They see it every day. But ask them how far away from a junction they should park, or what they should or shouldn’t do at a humpbacked bridge, or even how big a gap they should leave between themselves and the car in front, and most will have only the vaguest of ideas at best.

Driving instructors have a better reason to know the HC in detail, but even then not all of them do (it’s arguable that none do – certainly when you start bringing interpretation into things). That’s because anything other than a very basic understanding requires effort – considerable continued effort – in order to maintain knowledge at a current and correct level. Often, the only stimulus to refresh knowledge for an instructor comes as a result of being asked a question by a pupil, followed by thumbing through the HC (and there’s nothing wrong with that).

Knowledge of the HC has always been a problem, though. I suppose the big difference is that 20 or 30 years ago, more people would have considered learning it as something worthwhile than you’re likely to find today. Hell, 30 years ago, more people could actually read, and had attention spans measured in the hours rather than the seconds.

But humour aside, comprehension is a major issue. It always has been for a significant portion of society. I’m not talking about people with special needs; I’m talking about typically-educated, normal people who simply don’t understand what they are reading when they aren’t really interested. Not everyone out there is a Top Gear fanatic, who drools over the latest Audi models and who has wet dreams about being given a Race Day gift voucher at Silverstone.

Put simply, the old method was probably worse than the current test simply because it only asked a few questions. It was certainly no better, for precisely the same reason. People could afford to gamble on not knowing it in detail, and they certainly didn’t need to understand it, because the questions asked were not all that varied – a lot less varied than with the modern-day Theory Test.

Much is made of the suggestion that current learners can memorise the answers, and this is the official reason why the DSA has recently stopped publishing the actual test questions.

I’ve mentioned before that this is total bollocks (not in those words). Anyone who could memorise nearly 1,000 questions with numerous and varied multiple choice answer combinations would have people queuing up to pickle their brains after they died. They would be rather unique.

The typical (note that: I said typical) learner today probably knows more about the HC at the time they sit their test than their counterpart of 20 years ago did when they were asked their handful of questions. The problem is that two weeks later, both of them would probably have forgotten most of it.

The only way of maintaining any kind of knowledge is, as I have said, to have a reason to refresh it. There are only three ways that is going to happen:

do it purely out of interest
do it for direct monetary reward (i.e. a bribe)
do it because you have to

The first one would only catch a small number of people. The second isn’t going to happen. So, if there is genuinely a major problem with HC knowledge, the only one of those things which will catch everyone is the one involving force!

In other words, periodic re-testing.

It still wouldn’t help with the comprehension issues. But then again, what would?

Instructors Signing Off Their Own Pupils?

12/04/2012

DOAADI

ADI, DSA, News, Training

This is an old post and the ideas discussed never came to anything.

One of the possible changes to the driving test, mooted a while back and exhumed periodically, was that instructors might be allowed to sign off their own pupils for competence in the manoeuvres. I commented briefly on the idea back in 2009 when it was last aired. I should also point out that it is fortunately unlikely to ever happen.

I have never thought that it would be a good idea. But I have always though that it would be suicidal to let ADIs have a direct say in the outcome of a driving test other than through the normal training they provide, and doubly so if they could do it without anyone seeing what they were up to.

Pass Plus is a perfect example of my concerns. It is a post-test course which was intended to provide additional training and experience to new drivers after they acquired their licences. It’s content already acknowledged that many newly-qualified drivers may never have driven on rural roads, or at night, or in bad weather, or even on fast dual carriageways. Even at this stage of the discussion you have to wonder how so many learners manage to go through the entire learning process without encountering at least some of those things, but they do.

With hindsight, Pass Plus made a few mistakes. It simply didn’t allow for stupidity, greed, and dishonesty – traits which are far more widespread than many would like to believe – and ended up by:

offering reduced Insurance
allowing any ADI to register to deliver it
allowing ADIs to sign it off
allowing any module to be carried out in theory rather than practice

Reduced insurance became the only reason for 95% or more of candidates to do the course in the first place. Allowing all ADIs to sign it off (there are around 45,000 of them, remember) introduced the possibility of fraud. And allowing modules to be completed in theory merely made such fraud more likely.

The Pass Plus course brief makes it clear that any training must be done after the driving test. You cannot use what you covered with pupils on learner lessons as Pass Plus material. And yet you see instructors openly admitting to doing precisely this, presumably because they just don’t understand the instructions (or haven’t read them). There are even more examples of candidates revealing the same thing (usually by implying some clandestine agreement), and in those cases one can presume that whoever signed the course as being complete knew exactly what they were doing. After all, Pass Plus – if done properly – requires many more miles of driving per session than most instructors’ lessons would.

The Pass Plus brief also clearly says that all modules must be delivered as practical sessions wherever possible. Realistically, for most instructors this means the bad weather module is the one most likely to be covered theoretically, since one cannot guarantee bad weather. But again, you see instructors openly arguing that they don’t live near a motorway or fast dual carriageway, or that they don’t work nights. As a result, they end up covering around half of the course in theory only – and even then, I doubt very much that they spend the equivalent number of hours talking “in the classroom”, as they like to call it. The Pass Plus course has to last a minimum of 6 hours, so even if you had to catch two ferries to get to a motorway on the mainland it would still be technically possible in 99% of cases. As for not working evenings… well, you really shouldn’t be offering Pass Plus if you’re that half-hearted about your responsibilities.

I remember once seeing someone write that the nearest motorway was “over half an hour away”, and this was why they covered it in theory only. Well, I live quite close to the M1 – and it would take me half an hour to get to it with most pupils. The motorway module on the course is by far the most important one for most candidates. I don’t consider it to be “inaccessible”.

At the extreme end of the spectrum there are even people who sign off Pass Plus without doing any training at all. They pocket the money in exchange for a signature or two – and it would appear that those signatures are sometimes not even on official Pass Plus stationery, but on photocopies of it (another topic you see being discussed from time to time), thus avoiding paying for Pass Plus refill packs.

I’m sure the majority of instructors deliver Pass Plus correctly. However, those who don’t have effectively destroyed the validity of the course which – if done properly – is extremely useful to new drivers.

So I was interested to read an article from an Australian driving instructor (link now dead) about the testing system over there. I have obtained his permission to link to his website article.

Until March this year, it seems, Australian driving instructors (in the Northern Territory) were allowed to sign off pupils for driving licences. This has been stopped, and everyone now has to take a proper driving test. The instructor says that he is glad and explains why.

He received frequent calls from people saying that friends had taken lessons and got the required certificate “after 3 hours” with another instructor, so could he do the same.

He explains that the mechanism for delivering certificated courses under the Australian Quality Framework is merely paperwork-based and does not assess how people in the field actually perform. He gives an example of how trainers with skills in one discipline would be asked to deliver training in another.

He cites another example of how an organisation delivering driving courses produced training packages that said everyone would be ready to be signed off after only 8 hours practical tuition.

He says that some instructors took to the idea like ducks to water, and cars started appearing saying “NOW WE TEST YOU”.

He mentions a case he knew of where an instructor completed the written part of the test for a candidate and simply got him to sign it, and he also suggests that such dishonesty is not confined to this one incident.

He gives other examples of people be signed off after doing even fewer hours of practical training. He says that some schools specialised in “get a licence quick” programmes, whereas he and one of his colleagues were only prepared to sign off a maximum of five candidates in a one year period (i.e. the standards of driving were extremely low, so if what he was seeing were typical of drivers, how could anyone else sign them off more quickly without some compromise?)

His article is definitely worth a read. It could almost be a prediction of what would happen in the UK if such a great responsibility were ever passed to ADIs.

But to be honest, I think the authorities over here know that – which is why, as I said at the start, it will never happen.

One In Seven Drivers Are “Fronters”

11/04/2012

DOAADI

ADI, News

This story reports that 14% of drivers admit to “fronting” for their children, and another 13% will as soon as they get the chance. The one thing the article omits is a suitable definition of what “fronting” is.

I wrote about this last year. Some insurers might simply regard it as a parent insuring a car in their own name, when the car is owned, maintained, and kept by the child at a different address. It’s all nice and clean like that, isn’t it?

But as I pointed out, the borders become somewhat blurred when the child lives at the same address, or shares a parent’s car (well, it’s the parent’s car in name, but that’s part of the deception), yet uses it more than they do.

Tesco views it far more sensibly, and says if someone uses the car to get to work or college, uses it daily, or maintains it, then they must be the main driver. The other insurers who can only comment on black and white scenarios are simply playing catch-up.

In actual fact, the present article is simply a regurgitation of previous reports – this one from Zurich, for example, from last August.

Taking Pupils’ Children On Lessons

09/04/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, Training

I noticed a discussion on a forum about whether or not you should take pupils’ children out with you when you take the parent for a driving lesson.

Well, it isn’t technically illegal. But I’d advise anyone thinking of doing it to check with their insurer first. There could easily be a clause that prohibits it – and even if there isn’t, then in the event of an accident there could be problems.

Apart from the matter of whether or not the car and occupants are covered, there is also the matter of public liability. I’m not going to try and argue one way or the other – I’ll leave that to the “legal experts” who moonlight as instructors. But I just won’t take pupils’ kids out, and that’s that. It’s my personal stance.

When it comes down to it, the main reason many instructors do take pupils’ kids out on lessons with them is that they can’t afford to lose the lesson! They then try to argue that it’s not a risk, but it is.

There was a story a few years ago in Horse & Hound, where an instructor was giving a lesson to a pupil who’d taken his/her child along. The 6-month old appeared to choke in the back seat, whereupon the instructor – and, no doubt, the learner who was being taught – turned around. The car veered across the road and hit a horse being ridden in the opposite direction.

The horse required £5,000 of veterinary treatment. The instructor was fined over £1,000 and given three points on his licence.

It would be useful to know if the instructor’s insurer met the costs of veterinary bills, etc., because as he was found guilty of driving without due care and attention, it does raise some doubt.

No one can pretend that this isn’t a genuine risk. Distraction is a known problem for parents:

Parents travelling with children in the back are statistically at even higher risk of being distracted and causing a car accident. There have been many cases where drivers have glanced in the rear-view mirror or even turned their head for a split-second to see what their kids are up to and caused a car accident as a result.

I think that sometimes driving instructors need to take a step back, put away their Big Book Of Coaching, and acknowledge where their responsibilities end. Even if they’re desperate for work or blinded by The Light, they’re driving instructors and not child-minders.

There are plenty of ways of getting learners used to distractions without risking the lives of children or other road users.

One of mine needed to learn to drive just so she could ferry her kids around. She was worried about them distracting her, and she definitely WAS very easily distracted. One time she asked if we could try driving with the radio on to see how it affected her. The instant it went on she was unable to negotiate even the simplest of junctions. She therefore learnt how distraction would be dangerous – just like it is for anyone. Some months later we tried the same exercise and things were much improved, but still not perfect.

But no matter how good a driver someone is, if a kid starts playing up in back then anyone could be distracted to a dangerous degree at one time or another.

As for whether it is allowed on test, I doubt the examiners have much choice on the matter – they’d be hung out to dry if they refused to take a mummy out if she decided she wanted to take her sprog with her, though I still wonder at the insurance implications. I can’t imagine that every driving instructor’s insurance automatically allows it.

It’s all a bit like allowing breast-feeding in public – it’s not something you want to see when you’re eating or drinking, but there’s sod all you can do about the Earth Mothers who insist on doing it.

Let’s face facts here. Knowing that you have a driving test coming up in a month or two’s time gives you plenty of time to arrange not to have the additional pressure of your kids in the back. Ending up taking your test with them there – even planning it deliberately for whatever reason – is just evidence of the ignorance and stupidity that increasingly pervades our society.

It reminds me of something that happened years ago in France when I was on a skiing trip. On the table next to us there was a French family having a full-on raclette/fondue meal, and they had a baby in a high-chair with them. We’d just had our meal served, when we were assailed by a God-awful smell. The baby has messed in its nappy. They eventually took it to the toilets to change it (after our obvious comments and glances), but the smell didn’t go with them. It screwed up our meal, that’s for sure.

Unfortunately, some rules and practices just don’t make sense. And nor do some people’s manners and ethics.

ADHD And Learner Drivers

31/03/2012

DOAADI

ADI, News, Training

An interesting American story about special needs and learner drivers. It says that young drivers with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) are between two and four times more likely to have a crash than those without the condition – which makes them more likely to crash than an adult who is legally drunk.

Researchers say that many teenagers with attention or other learning problems can become good drivers, but not easily or quickly, and that some will be better off not driving till they are older — or not at all.

It makes you wonder why they are allowed to drive at all, doesn’t it, with comments like that? And I don’t just mean American learners.

I agree with the article that inattention is an absolute major problem for this group. I’m teaching several at the moment, and the other day one of them kept looking down at the gearstick when changing up or down (something that had just cropped up on this particular lesson – he hadn’t done it before). I’d addressed it as far as I could at that point – driving at 50mph on a winding rural road – but then he did it again just as he was going into a bend. I had to bark “Dave! Mind the kerb”, to which he replied “I see what you mean” (referring to my earlier explanation of why it was important to stay alert).

The thing is, we would have hit the kerb and gone into a ditch – possibly rolling – if I hadn’t intervened. He admitted the same himself.

Imagine that (if he was a full licence holder) and did this on his own, or with friends in the car: 18 years old, rural road, on a bend, roll the car off the road, no other vehicle involved.

Does that script sound familiar? My blood runs cold at what might happen to people who can pass the test, but over whom inattention hangs as a Sword of Damocles!

American statistics suggest that ADHD affects at least 3-5% of the young population, though some studies suggest much higher figures. ADHD is apparently on the increase, and the American Society of Pediatrics says 12% of children are affected.

As that original quote suggests, those with ADHD can learn to handle it with time – sometimes. But as juveniles it is not easy to overcome.

It makes you wonder if the problem with young drivers having such a high accident rate might be something more to do with ADHD than it is to do with the instruction they received, or just their “inexperience” – as is usually trotted out. Perhaps those things exacerbate the problem, but what matters is the underlying cause and not just the easy targets.

DSA Spends £4.3m To Trap Test Cheats

31/03/2012

DOAADI

ADI, DSA

This is an old, old story and all references to ‘DSA’ should be read as ‘DVSA’. Also, being almost ten years old, it is not likely to be numerically accurate any more.

When you look around the “instructorsphere” (new word), one thing that strikes you is how everything is always DSA’s fault. Too many instructors? Blame DSA. Instructors charging stupid low prices? Blame DSA. Pupil fails their test? Blame DSA. And so it continues.

One topic that keeps cropping up is test cheats and bogus instructors – particularly when the alleged culprit is of, shall we say, non-UK origin. But instructors are definitely not discriminatory in any way – we know that because they always say so before they launch in with both Doc Martens.

Another freedom of information (FOI) request reveals that DSA has spent “at least” £4.3m over 18 months on private detectives using covert surveillance techniques to catch impersonators and “other cheats”.

Of course, this distilled version will be enough to have certain people snapping the ropes in anger as they hoist their English flags up their garden flagpoles of a morning because of the amount of money involved. However, they will conveniently ignore the fact that there were around 5,000 notifications of suspected criminal behaviour in the same period.

That works out at around £860 per investigation. Which is absolute peanuts.

Overall, there were 511 arrests (so 10% of investigations came up trumps), leading to 141 convictions (2.8%) and 163 police cautions (3.3%). Not every accusation is either true or can be proven, but 60% of those arrested were nailed. If DSA had pursued cases it wasn’t likely to win, the spend would have been much, much higher and the success rate much, much lower.

According to the article, DSA said it will continue to spend in the region of £270,000 a month to try to catch cheats. At one of my test centres alone, there would be not far off 1,000 tests conducted each month, and if the rate of cheating is even as low as 0.1%, that would work out to one investigation (at around £860, remember). There are over 320 test centres in the UK mainland, which would add up to around £275,000 per month.

So, bingo! The numbers add up.

Yes, yes, we all know that some areas are worse than others, but since we aren’t seers (well, some ADIs think they are) we – and DSA – have to play the odds.

The bottom line is that £4.3m isn’t that much when you consider the scale of both the operation and the problem.

More Panic Buying

30/03/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, General, Transport

Well, two of my local garages got fuel in again today – and there were queues at them all day. Fortunately, they weren’t as large as yesterday – although it WAS bad around midday-mid-afternoon.

I finally went in one of them tonight after my last lesson, and when the queues had almost gone. I thought I’d be in and out reasonably quickly, but when I got to the pay desk there was a stupid bitch with a credit card that the attendant was having to phone up someone about. Judging from his rolled eyes and repeated attempts, he couldn’t get through. In the end, we all heard clearly that she’d bought just over £12 of fuel! What was the bloody point?

When I got outside, they were queuing up the road again because no one else had been able to pay quickly and drive away.

Nice one, Victoria Mott. A nominee for the Darwin Awards 2012.

Meanwhile, the BBC reports that panic buying by people like Ms Mott is hitting small businesses hard. People are cancelling holidays and such like. It’s not surprising – yesterday I was seriously worried that I would have to cancel lessons, even though I had half a tank left.

Half a tank lasts me a day if I’m busy. The same amount would keep idiots like Ms Mott and her kind going for a bloody week.

Panic Buying Petrol – Woman Badly Burned In York

30/03/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, General, Transport

I heard this on the radio a few minutes ago and it hasn’t filtered through properly into the news channels yet. Also on Sky News. More stories coming in from Yorkshire, and the BBC. Keep an eye on these as they will expand the story when more information comes in.

A woman in York has suffered 40% burns as the petrol she was transferring into different containers in her kitchen burst into flames.

This is entirely the fault of the “government’s” advice to panic buy.

Contrary to what it said, it did NOT withdraw the advice. It diluted it in an attempt to protect the moron who said it. The fact is, it WAS said. In just the same way that someone in court who says they “didn’t mean” to do something is still guilty of it, the “government” is guilty of advising people to panic buy.

Incoming stories suggest the woman had the gas cooker alight while she was doing it!

Cameron is totally out of touch with reality (and the electorate) if he thinks people aren’t this stupid. They are. And they are simply following the advice of HIS government.

Panic Buyers

30/03/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, General, Transport

It made me laugh listening to news yesterday. Plenty of talk about garage forecourts “running low” or seeing “increased sales”. What planet does the BBC live on, where the entire surface of the earth appears to consist only of London and the Home Counties, and nowhere else.

In Nottingham, Asda at West Bridgford had a queue outside as I drove past on a lesson at around mid-afternoon. A glance in showed the garage was shut. There was a BBC van with big satellite dish on top parked in the pub next door, so it’s not like they didn’t know.

Around the same time, Bunny service station was closed with “No Fuel” signs outside.

All day, the Esso service Station in Ruddington had had long queues outside. By evening it was empty – and there isn’t a delivery scheduled until tonight at the earliest, so I’m told.

The garage on Meadow Lane only had diesel left.

This morning, I noticed the Crusader garage had “no fuel” signs up.

I’ve noticed that 90% of the panic buyers are old people and women with kids – those with nothing else to do all day. I’m sure their adventures in the queues are the sole topic around the dinner table or outside the school gates that day. All of them will happily back up into main roads, on to roundabouts, or anywhere else they fancy, without the slightest consideration for the obstruction they are causing. Let’s be honest, who but old people and women with kids could think as one-dimensionally as that?

Fuel should be rationed. And the ANPR system ought to be able to recognise regular customers and kick out those parasites who travel around.

And the police should get off their arses and do what the forces have been doing in other counties – moving people on who block roads.

I was really worried last night. With only about half a tank of fuel, I would only have had enough to get me through today (probably) and then I’d be screwed. Fortunately, on a lesson last night I took a pupil into a garage and we managed to fill up there – it was good experience, of course. but I prefer to do this when I think they’re ready, and not because I have to.

I use a tank of fuel every two days, and that’s only fits into my week if I have unrestricted access to fuel when I get low. Because of panic buying, I dare not stick to my schedule – I cannot, otherwise I’d simply end up out of gas. I’ve just got to bite the bullet and top up when I can – and keep my fingers crossed that even that is enough.

Panic buyers haven’t made me use more fuel, but they’ve forced me to have to fill up every day instead of every other day. I will be out of work if I don’t.

Panic buyers are imbeciles. Anyone reading this who has panic bought fuel when they don’t need it is an imbecile. Anyone thinking of panic buying is an imbecile.

Morons Panic Buying Fuel

28/03/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, General, Transport

After that idiot Francis Maude told everyone to go out an panic buy fuel today – and after his so-called boss made matters worse by implying that people should only panic buy sensibly – that’s exactly what they were doing tonight (minus the “sensible” part).

There were huge queues at the garages.

They weren’t putting much in, either. A stupid bitch in a white BMW X6 attempted to barge her way in front of me (and failed), and then spent literally less than 30 seconds putting diesel in the damned thing after she’d pushed in front of someone else. She must have spent less than a tenner!

If they can’t afford to run the damned things properly they shouldn’t have them. As I often tell my pupils, not all of the jackasses who have these big cars actually own them. They technically belong to the finance company.

Category - ADI