I saw a funny topic on a web forum recently where someone said that they frequently see other ADIs driving badly. I can concur with that – I see it a lot of the time, too. Mostly, exceeding speed limits and stopping in inappropriate places (and don’t get me started on trying to do manoeuvres 10 feet away from where you’re doing one already).
Then, someone else said they’d seen an AA instructor driving badly, and in their infinite wisdom concluded that this is a good reason never to take driving lessons from the AA! Have you ever heard such nonsense, and from an ADI at that?
Oh, wait. What am I saying.? Some ADIs specialise in spouting such nonsense – I go on about it all the time!
Every ADI is self-employed (well, except perhaps for a handful lah-dee-dah types in London, catering for Hooray Henrys and Henriettas). An ADI can choose to work in their own name (referred to as “solo”) or franchised to someone else’s. They can go from franchise to solo, or solo to franchise – and in the current climate many appear to be taking the latter route.
The simple act of taking on a franchise (or of shedding one) does not alter the DNA of the ADI in question. If they’re a prat to begin with, they’ll be a prat whatever name they work under.
You could easily get a bad ADI whoever you go to if you’re unlucky. I might be the local solo fossil whose reputation far exceeds his abilities, the new solo kid on the block selling lessons for a fiver, or yes – even one from BSM, the AA, Red, Bill Plant, and so on.
Since the crap solo instructor struggling for work could join any one of these franchises within hours if he so chose (and many are doing just that at the moment), the problem isn’t with the Name On The Headboard.
This story came through last week. It tells how a lorry driver has been jailed for killing a 97-year old woman on a pedestrian crossing in London.
Joao Correia-Lopes had already killed cyclist, Eilidh Cairns, by driving into the back of her in 2009. At that time he was told to wear glasses to correct his defective vision – I can’t understand why he wasn’t serving a full jail term for that, but the advice to wear glasses seems to have been all that he got!
‘He was never charged with an offence of causing her [Eilidhs’s] death. Investigations found that his eyesight was poor and he should have been wearing spectacles,’ said the prosecutor.
‘His licence was endorsed with three points and a condition added that he should wear spectacles.’
After Correia-Lopes was through with his latest killing spree, police found a magnet fitted to his HGV instruments to prevent him being logged as working too many hours (lorry drivers have to take breaks by law). Apparently, he had been involved in “numerous incidents” between killing his first victim and Nora Gutman (the 97-year old in this case). Only the week before he rear-ended another vehicle.
Correia-Lopes was NOT wearing spectacles this time, either. He was jailed for 4 years – and also prosecuted for tampering with his driving log.
It’s not so much the story, but one of the details that made this one stand out. It’s from New South Wales, Australia.
The man police arrested had already been banned from driving for 56 years! Given that he is 42 years old, that amounts to a lifetime ban.
Now that’s the way to do it. However, the fact that the man was again caught behind the wheel – this time in a stolen car – proves that some people are just assholes.
The Australian courts agreed, and refused him bail.
Of course, if this was in the UK he would probably have been released on bail and then the charges dropped due to “insufficient evidence”. And if he’d been female the courts would have apologised, freeing him/her to sue them for “stress”.
Warwickshire police breath tested nearly 800 drivers and the results show that of the 142 who were under 25, 8.5% blew positive. This compares to 5.4% for the over-25s (presumably the other 650 tested).
I won’t go into the statistical errors being committed by the Courier here, but I will ask why it is such a big surprise that young people are more likely to do it? But what makes the whole thing even worse is the comment by Superintendent Adrian McGee:
It is obvious that increased education for younger drivers about the dangers of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs is vital.
Well, it might be “obvious” to Supt McGee, but the results do not lead logically to that conclusion at all.
Young people know full well that they shouldn’t drink and drive. They also know that they shouldn’t do a lot of other things, too. They know what constitutes breaking the Law in most cases – particularly when it comes to drink driving.
But they just go ahead and do whatever they want, because they know they stand a good chance of getting away with it, and that makes for a good adrenalin rush to boast about to their mates.
That’s where the problem is. It isn’t “educating” that they need. It’s discipline.
Can you believe this story? Emma Robertson was banned for 2 years and given a 12-month prison sentence suspended for 2 years in January (link now dead, and the internet apparently wiped of any reference to the case). Here’s what she did to get that:
drove off without paying for £20 of fuel
tried to evade police by “speeding off”
drove through 3 sets of red traffic lights
rammed a police car as she was boxed in
Now, she should have been put away there and then. But she’s a woman, and no doubt had a handbag-full of mitigating circumstances that the court fell for hook, line, and sinker.
But – only six months later – Robertson, from Havant in Portsmouth, has been caught behind the wheel while banned (so she was also uninsured). She has “admitted” – that’s court-speak, because it doesn’t matter if she “admits” it or not, she’s still guilty – to the following:
driving while disqualified
driving without insurance
breaching the suspended sentence handed down last time
You really would think that this would be enough to see her serve that prison sentence, wouldn’t you? But no. Our courts are so soft on chav drivers – and the female version in particular – that the hearing “was adjourned until August” and she was “released on bail”.
She should be on remand, awaiting a longer sentence on top of the original one. Chances are that she won’t see a day inside a prison – but the inside of another car from the driver’s seat is a distinct possibility. She simply doesn’t care and is taking the piss.
The best thing you can say about her is that she is a thief. It goes downhill from there.
I’ve mentioned before how the car parks in West Bridgford seem to attract people with all the social conscience of a dog on a croquet lawn. If it’s not old people blocking the entire car park whilst waiting by the entrance (in the Nursery Car Park) to avoid having to actually park and buy a ticket, it’s women waiting for someone to vacate a space near to the pedestrian exit instead of driving around the other side to where all the empty spaces are. And don’t get me started on women with children who – when there is a queue for the ticket machine – lift their 4-year old darling up to put the money in (in small change) and press the button. It’s like a day out for some of them.
I went in mid-afternoon a couple of days ago to go to the bank. There was only one free space, and this was it. In the bay the other side was a Porsche – he was parked properly, but Porsches are quite wide, so he came close to the line. The idiot in the green Focus (reg. no. FG04 KJK) had left their car like this with people queuing to get in!
Now, I could have just squeezed into the space. But then I would have had to get out without my door hitting the Porsche (if I parked forwards) or this clown’s car if I reversed. And then there was the likelihood of this idiot having kids who would gladly fling the door into the side of my car (or maybe mummy just do it herself out of spite). Whoever was driving couldn’t possibly have got into their car if I’d have parked next to them.
There was a ticket inspector doing the rounds. They used to take photos of this sort of thing and issue penalty charges. I hope they still do.
Fortunately, as I drove round the back to leave someone left at that precise moment and I managed to get a place. When I came back I watched an old woman drive partially into and out of another space at least four times while traffic queued out of the entrance. Some days it’s like a geriatric Day Of The Dead movie in that car park.
Interesting story from The Star, a Canadian online news paper, which tells of a judge’s ruling that merely holding a phone whilst driving should not get you a ticket under their new distracted driving law.
A female 4×4 driver had allegedly bent down whilst stopped at lights to pick up her mobile, which had fallen on to the floor. A police officer close by saw her eyes flick up and down several times while the lights were on red, and when he walked over she had an opened clam-shell phone in her hand.
This is what they call a smoking gun scenario everywhere else except in Canada.
The ruling has started the usual legal mumbo-jumbo that seems to prevail in North America.
Andrew Dekany, the lawyer who conducted Kazemi’s appeal without charge, called it a sensible decision. “When a law is too, too rigid, almost absurd, people don’t follow it.”
The wording of Canada’s new law is:
…you cannot drive “while holding or using a hand-held wireless communication device.”
When I’m out with pupils I see people’s eyes flicking up and down at lights all the time. I know for an absolute fact that they are using their mobile phones. You hold one because you intend to use it – or, in a small number of cases, because you’re a prat who just can’t put it down.
But in Canada it’s different, apparently.
In the case of this woman, having the mobile on the seat, sending it flying to the floor when stopping, and having it open in her hand speaks volumes about what her normal behaviour when driving must be like. And the upshot is that the Canadian Police have now got virtually no chance of enforcing the law, so they won’t try unless it is on camera.
I mentioned two cases recently of idiotic driving. In one case, the culprit was removed from the gene pool as a result of his own behaviour – fortunately, before he removed anyone else – and the other had the book (admittedly, a paperback rather than a hardbound encyclopaedia) thrown at him.
In that second case, Christopher Jones was jailed for 25 months, banned for two years, and ordered to take an extended re-test.
So it is hard to work out how they arrived at what this moron was stung with.
Leigh Brennan was already banned as a result of failing to provide a breath specimen on an earlier escapade. He did the same again this time – but not before he’d smashed into a Mini and then demolished a pub wall – which collapsed on top of the landlord.
All he got was a 12 month sentence and banned for 2 years. Arguably, he came closer to killing someone than Jones did in the other story.
Philip Miles, defending, said Brennan now recognises he has a problem with drink and has sought help.
He said: “He has made great strides since this incident and is changing his life around.
He deserves credit for his plea of guilty.”
Bullshit! He deserves to be put away for a long time and banned from driving permanently.
The mother in question is Jackie McCord, whose daughter Cassie was killed by an elderly driver who had already had an accident a few days earlier.
The story refers to Colin Horsfall – the driver in question – but also to the case of 87-year old Richard Bradley who only got points for driving into a woman suffering from MS. Helen Harrington, who was the woman knocked down, is also calling for re-testing.
Both refer to the e-petition calling for Cassie’s Law to be introduced (the petition is now closed) and I once again urge as many people as possible to sign this before it expires in November. It is vital that someone finally acknowledges that the elderly do not have a right to drive – it’s a privilege, just like it is for everyone else.
I was out on a lesson with a pupil recently and she was driving me mad, indicating for every parked car and stopped bus, all without looking in her mirrors. After we discussed it, it came out that she had been looking at “instructional” videos on the internet and these had told her to indicate every time. This is absolute rubbish, and if what she said was true – if ADIs really are instructing people to signal without thinking – they ought to be taken off the Register of Approved Driving Instructors before they indirectly end up killing someone!
On that same lesson, the pupil also said that she’d been told she only needed to indicate if she “was moving completely into another lane”. That is also totally incorrect.
Pupils can drive you nuts sometimes. You can bang your head against a wall and use every way of explaining something that you can think of, and they’ll still keep doing it wrong. And yet one sniff of a YouTube video or Tweet from a friend who’s just passed their test, and they’ll have a shiny new habit that you’ve got to break them out of!
As an aside on that, I was on a lesson with a guy who worked with one of my recently passed ex-pupils. He’d asked my ex-pupil if he had any advice for the test, and was told “yes, drive slowly”. That same ex-pupil failed his test first time for – you guessed it – driving at 30mph on a NSL dual-carriageway! They’re all experts when they pass!
But anyway. What are the guidelines for indicating when overtaking?
If you’re overtaking a moving vehicle then you should signal to move out (after checking it’s safe, of course). At the very least, the driver you’re overtaking needs to know what your intentions are, as well as those behind you and those coming towards you. Assuming that you’re not cutting anyone up, you don’t need to signal moving back in (but if you do it isn’t the end of the world – just make sure you check that you’re far enough ahead of the vehicle you passed to move in safely).
If you’re overtaking parked vehicles or other obstructions, then you only need to indicate if necessary. You can only decide that by looking around you and assessing the situation, because every one is different.
What does that mean in practice? Well, if you’re on a normal road, driving at a normal speed, with normal traffic following you at a normal distance, and normal traffic doing the same coming towards you, and there’s plenty of space, you don’t normally need to indicate to go past obstructions or parked cars and buses.
However, if you saw that the car behind you was getting closer then you might choose to signal as a reinforcement to your intention to overtake a parked vehicle. An alternative way of dealing with that might be to slow down if it looks like the car behind is going to overtake both you and the obstruction (yes, people can be that stupid). You have to interpret the situation at the time.
Another example. If you had stopped behind a bus or other obstruction to wait for oncoming traffic to pass on a narrower road, as soon as you could see a gap coming you might choose to signal – either for the bus driver (who might be about to pull away) or the waiting cars behind (who might be thinking about overtaking both you and the bus). Again, you’d interpret the situation at the time.
And another example. If you saw a cyclist ahead and knew you were going to have to slow down or deviate to get by, a signal might be useful to drivers behind who may not be able to see the cyclist. Once more, you’d interpret the situation at the time.
You see, that’s the key. If the signal is of use to someone then it is necessary. If it isn’t of use – or is misleading – then it isn’t necessary. Remember that unnecessary signals often are misleading: ask yourself how many times you’ve seen someone signal, you’ve thought that they were going to turn, and they haven’t. That’s why signalling for passing every obstacle is wrong. Signalling for every parked car, bus, cyclist, and road works makes them meaningless. then your signals become meaningless – completely misleading. The people following you wouldn’t know what the hell you were doing if your indicators were going on and off all the time.
Once you’ve passed your test, it’s your choice whether or not you drive like that. But it isn’t the right way. However, if you do it as a learner it could easily affect your chances of passing your test, and this is exactly what my pupil was doing – just mashing the indicator stalk without a thought for other road users.
Learners (and a lot of ADIs) often try to pigeon-hole things as a substitute for understanding them. That’s where silly ideas like roundabout 12 o’clock rule come from. The problem is that there are many things which simply “depend”, and which cannot be conveniently pigeon-holed.
So, in summary, you do not need to signal to go past parked cars and buses unless the signal is necessary. And you have to decide if it’s necessary based on each separate event.
I saw a funny topic on a web forum recently where someone said that they frequently see other ADIs driving badly. I can concur with that – I see it a lot of the time, too. Mostly, exceeding speed limits and stopping in inappropriate places (and don’t get me started on trying to do manoeuvres 10 feet away from where you’re doing one already).
whatever name they work under.
The story refers to Colin Horsfall – the driver in question – but also to the case of 
