News - Diary Of An ADI

DVSA: Abolition Of Licence Counterpart – Update

12/06/2015

Updated.

This was first flagged (officially) back in December 2014, and the initial email warned that from 8 June 2015 the paper counterpart of the licence would no longer be valid. Licence counterpart - RIP

DVSA has issued an update now that the deadline is imminent (as of this update, it is now in force) – and this is aimed at ADIs.

As an approved driving instructor, this will mean the following for you and your pupils:

When presenting for lessons

You can check your pupil’s photo card licence for ID purposes. However if you want to carry out further entitlement checks you can do so by using either of the following:

‘Share Driving Licence’, DVLA’s new online driving licence enquiry service

DVLA’s existing telephone, post and intermediary enquiry services

This user guide gives further information about how you can carry out further entitlement checks.

This user guide tells your pupils how they can share their driving licence with you.

Several things are apparent from this. Firstly, ADIs only really need to check the photo card for ID purposes (which is precisely what I said in ~~the latest issue of ADI News~~ (June 2015)). But if they still want to do the James Bond bit and find pupils’ inside leg measurements, those two links in the above quote provide the means and the explanation for doing so, because it turns out that the new Show Licence system allows temporary sharing of the information. I’ve given step by step instructions on the Information page.

The DVSA email makes it clear that entitlement checks will have been carried out at the time their test was booked. Examiners will not be doing any additional checks on the day of the test other than looking at the photo card. I suppose that ADIs come in earlier in the learning process and have slightly (and I mean “slightly”) more reason to want to check entitlement – the View Licence service shows penalty points and disqualifications. However, it is not necessary for an ADI to routinely carry out this check – 99 times out of a hundred all they need to do is check the photo card.

One significant change is the fact that pupils are going to have to send off their licences on their own when they pass if they have switched addresses at any point. Fortunately, they won’t have to pay for it and they can do it online or by post – I’ve given more details on the Information page.

Pupils with EU/EEA licences will need to apply for a D91 form before they can book their tests. At the moment, I cannot find any reference to D91 other than in this DVSA email. That must be on its way.

You should destroy your counterpart after 8 June 2015 (I’d wait until 9 June if I were you).

Edit: I noticed someone on a forum complaining that pupils wouldn’t be comfortable entering their National Insurance number in front of the ADI on a laptop in the car. Erm! I don’t think that’s how it works.

What happens is that the licence holder (pupil) generates a code at home, or wherever they would normally access the system, using the View Licence feature. They send this code to their instructor, who then uses the separate Check Licence feature to redeem the code (the ADI also needs the last 8 digits of the pupil’s licence, which they should have anyway). The code is valid for 72 hours and can only be used once.

The system is designed such that non-essential confidential information is not compromised. The pupil shouldn’t be doing it in the car with the instructor present, and the instructor shouldn’t be requesting that they do so.

Edit: I noticed on another forum – and in spite of DVSA setting out clearly how to do it – someone complaining about having to handle NI numbers or obtain “printouts” from pupils.

Look, people! The pupil logs into a special site and obtains a share code. They give this share code to their instructor, who then logs on to a totally separate site using the code – not their NI number – and is then able to see their licence details.

Yes, the pupil could print the code out. But they could also text or email it – the email option in particular allows cut-and-paste of their share code. It really isn’t rocket science.

I’ve given step by step instructions on the Information page.

Edit: I’ve had several tests since 8 June and examiners are definitely not asking for the paper counterpart. You can dispose of yours without any worries.

Edit: Just a reminder that the vast majority of ADIs do not need to access online licence details for the vast majority of their pupils. Unless specific entitlement details are required which are not shown on the photo card, ADIs do not need the other information. They just think they do, and are creating needless extra work for themselves and pointless embarrassment for their pupils by requesting access.

Exam Time Tears

05/06/2015

DOAADI

Education, News

I caught this story on the BBC website earlier today. It concerns a mathematics exam which was taken yesterday, and which has apparently turned half of the teenage population suicidal as a result of one of the questions. Here’s the question which has caused all the fuss:

The BBC quotes a pupil:

There was one person in the exam hall who was crying their eyes out during the exam.

Naturally, being 2015, the whole affair warranted numerous tweets and Facebook posts. These showed fairly conclusively that modern pupils’ sense of humour is as bad as their maths skills.

The Beeb quotes another one:

I found the exam bearable at the beginning but then it took a sharp turn to maths that was way too hard.

I can’t remember the numbers, but the one about Hannah’s sweets in particular made me want to cry.

And Georgina (another pupil) is quoted:

The question involving Hannah’s sweets was the most annoying question I have ever seen in a GCSE paper.

I think Edexcel want us to be like Einstein. It’s crazy, and I hope the exam board lower the grade boundaries because most of the people who took that exam did not know what that question meant.

I think it’s fairly obvious that someone somewhere has screwed up if pupils hadn’t effectively been given the answers before they went in. That’s how it works these days, isn’t it? The exam people reckon it was deliberate, but with so many unhappy boys and girls crying to mummy and daddy… well, let’s see who backs down first.

Georgina and her friends might want to consider the kind of questions we used to have to answer when O Levels were still around. Here’s the first one from a maths paper (syllabus 1) from way back (the first question on any paper was always the easiest):

Or this one from syllabus 2:

I passed my maths O Level with questions like this. As I’ve said before, modern kids don’t know they are born.

The question about Hannah and her sweets is funny, because it’s all typically baby-like (as you’d expect of a 21st century exam paper), then you are smacked in the face by a proper equation and asked something in terms modern pupils have most likely never had to deal with (i.e. “show that… etc.”). But what’s even more surprising is the depth of knowledge of probability theory needed to answer it – the key is that you have to multiply probabilities to solve it. I ought to add that if this sort of thing really is being taught to school kids these days, I’ll happily take back some of what I’ve said about exams getting easier.

Like I say, someone somewhere – and we’re talking about Edexcel here – has cocked up. If not now, they will have once enough complaints have been made.

Is The Backlash Against Cyclists Finally Starting?

05/06/2015

DOAADI

Cyclists, News

Regular readers will know how I feel about cyclists. This year looks like it is going to be the worst yet – there’s already a plague of the damned things which is rivalling even the most alarmist newspaper predictions about other plagues we can expect this summer.

There was an incident this week where a cyclist was hit by a bus, and the video of passers by lifting the 12-tonne vehicle off him went viral. Whilst news reports concentrate on the “amazing” actions of the public, much less (almost nothing, actually) is being made of the fact that the “cyclist” was riding a unicycle, that he:

…looked like he was wobbling a bit…

Or that:

…a dreadlocked man on a unicycle – circus performer Anthony Shields – crossing from the semi-pedestrianised street to his left. “Then he went behind the bus and came round so he was on the right of it, on the inside behind the driver’s window.”

It would appear that in London alone, five cyclists died up until 9 April this year – all of them involving collisions with HGVs. Even half way through January, the country-wide tally stood at 13 fatalities. Year on year, deaths and injuries are on the rise – but the problem no one seems to want to identify, other than by giving it a brief mention now and then, is that the numbers of people cycling on the roads are also increasing at an alarming rate – a rise of 240% over the last five years.

It’s no wonder more people are dying.

Politicians seem blind to the risks and continue to push cycling as some sort of panacea, encouraging more and more people to take it up. Local councils are opening more and more rental hubs so that people in suits and poorly fitting crash hats (they’re always crooked, aren’t they?) can get a piece of the action.

Anyway, I noticed in todays Sun that columnist Rod Liddle was having a right go at them. Mind you, he’s been having a go in different places for a couple of years – it’s just that his column in The Sun is mainstream, and maybe represents some sort of sea change. I certainly hope so.

He starts by referring to a current viral video, where a motorist is seen threatening to punch a cyclist’s teeth down his throat. The cyclist in question had been riding in the road causing a hold up when there was apparently a cycle path right alongside. He finishes by listing five rules he believes should be introduced/ enforced:

If there’s a cycle lane available, cyclists should be compelled to use it. Otherwise they get fined. Simples
Cyclists who ignore red traffic lights should be dealt with in exactly the same way as car drivers who ignore red traffic lights
The police should enforce the law about cycling on pavements. It’s illegal and carries a £500 fine. I wonder how many cyclists have actually been charged?
Cycling two abreast on a two-lane [single carriageway] road should be made illegal
Single cyclists on narrow roads should pull in to let cars overtake.

Of course, Mr Liddle probably now has a warrant out for his arrest as you are not allowed to say anything bad about cyclists. Nonetheless, his five rules make absolute sense. And one day they will have to be introduced.

Driving Test Turns 80

01/06/2015

DOAADI

Driving Tests, DVSA, News

An email alert from DVSA reports that the driving test is 80 years old. Compulsory testing began 1 June 1935.

As you can imagine, the media has picked up the story, and this report by the BBC is interesting. I mean, there’s only so many words you can write around the premise of the test being 80 years old, so they’ve somehow managed to bring up the slightly negative issue of pass rates.

It’s not as if this is new – it was in the news in 2011, and I wrote about it then (Mallaig was still the “easiest” place to pass your test even then). The same topic has been in the news several times since, but the Beeb has obviously decided to dig it up once again.

The story is pretty mundane, but the comments made by driving instructors make it much more interesting. In the article, Belvedere in Bexley is identified as having a pass rate 15% below the average. A local instructor offers his wisdom on why this might be… no wait: on why it most definitely is:

…Mark Hewitt, who stopped taking pupils to the Belvedere test centre a year ago because of its reputation, said it was not the busy roads that make it tough.

“I don’t think it’s the test centre, it’s the examiners,” he said.

“A few of them are all right, the rest just don’t chat. They are so dead quiet. Pupils need to see that the examiners are human as well.”

Oh dear. Not again. How do these people ever become instructors? And why?

Examiners are supposed to be quiet, and the majority conduct themselves accordingly. The chattier ones soon shut up when they have their supervisor in the back assessing them, and they also know when to shut up during the test. Every test centre has a mix of quiet and not-so-quiet examiners. However, it amuses me that no matter how an examiner conducts his or her tests, there’s always someone ready to blame them for their (or their pupil’s) failure.

At one of our centres there is an examiner who you could legitimately describe as “a lovely woman”, in the sense that she is like everyone’s mum or auntie. She’s always friendly, always tries to put the candidate at ease, and always ready to have a chat about holidays or work with the pupil. But believe me when I tell you that she is the devil incarnate as far as some candidates are concerned… if she fails them. Those dreaded words “I’m sorry, but you haven’t passed” are a potent magic spell that Gandalf or Harry Potter would die for to possess. In roughly the 10 seconds it takes to say them, then have them sink in, the nicest examiner becomes an ogre. Examiners simply cannot win.

The instructor quoted in the BBC story reckons Belvedere has a lower than average pass rate because the examiners “don’t chat”. That’s just complete crap. Far more relevant is the fact that the non-UK born population in Bexley has risen by 73% in the last decade, and in some of the surrounding areas it has gone up by even more. If you look at pass rates in Barking you see a similar trend – higher immigrant population, lower pass rate compared to the national average. That – and the busy roads and frantic junctions – are bound to affect test outcomes.

It doesn’t matter that a particular test centre has a higher or lower rate, nor does the candidates’ nationality or ethnicity. The two pieces of data are merely facts which show a reasonable degree of correlation. What’s more important is that pass rate is not a probability – something I’ve written about before. A pupil who can drive well has as much chance of passing at a test centre with a 20% pass rate as they do at one with 70%, because it is bad drivers who pull the figures down.

A14 Rubberneckers To Get Points And Fine

29/05/2015

DOAADI

Bad Drivers, News

There was a major crash on the A14 in Cambridgeshire yesterday involving four lorries. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured – though one driver had to be cut free from his cab.

The best part of the story by far is that a police officer on the scene saw drivers using their mobiles to photograph and film the carnage as they drove by. Several were observed to swerve as they lost control. So he noted their registration numbers, and twenty of them will now receive 3 points and a £100 fine through the post. If any of the cases go to court – if the drivers contested the fines, for example – then they could face up to 9 points and a £5,000 fine.

Even the 3 points could take some of them over the limit and into a ban if they already have points on their licences.

Sometimes the Law almost gets it right. Mind you, even if the points take some of them over the limit for a ban, I bet some will avoid losing their licences because “their jobs depend on it”.

Addil Haroon Jailed For 6 Years

29/05/2015

DOAADI

Bad Drivers, News

A contender for the 2015 Darwin Awards, Addil Haroon, 18, had no licence, no insurance, and no car (the Audi he was in was hired in someone else’s name). He had photographed the speedo while he was driving at 140mph the day before he sped through a red traffic light at high speed and ploughed into another Audi. This picture shows what he achieved.

He boasted on social media about his speed:

Leeds to Rochdale in 11 minutes. Catch me.

Beat this Leeds to Rochdale in 11 minutes. I beat the f****** s*** out of that last night. No mercy.

He was seen doing 80mph in a 20mph zone just before the accident, in which he sliced another Audi in two killing Joseph Brown-Lartey, 24, instantly.

Scumbag, Haroon, was jailed for six years and also banned from driving for six years (though knowing British Law, those two probably run concurrently, so when he gets out in four years he’ll only have to wait for two more before he is legally allowed back on the road). Everything that was said in court points to him being a stereotypical prick.

Unfortunately, the wrong man was removed from the gene pool.

Judging from the number of hits this has received in less than 24 hours – and where they are from – it seems Haroon has a lot of friends out there.

Tyne Police Foil Bovine Terror Plot

20/05/2015

DOAADI

Funny, News

Sometimes you couldn’t make it up. Three cows “escaped” from a country park in North Tyneside. Two were recaptured, but one – Bessie – was shot “in the interests of public safety” after apparently attempting to rob several local banks and then going on the run.

John Millard, a photographer, witnessed the scene:

…there was a “massive police presence” with more than 15 police vehicles, a helicopter hovering overhead, and three or four officers in sniper gear.

Northumbria police were anxious to talk it up into the serious threat that it wasn’t, though:

…[the cow] was destroyed after becoming “increasingly distressed” and “causing dangerous and severe obstructions” on a major road.

I wonder why the cow was becoming “distressed”, Mr Police Spokesman? I mean, it couldn’t have had anything to do with dozens of people chasing it (i.e. at least two officers in each of the 15+ vehicles) and no doubt shouting and pretending to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a helicopter, could it?

The local residents are keeping the surrealness alive by organising a candle-lit vigil for the dead cow.

More Legal Gobbledegook

19/05/2015

DOAADI

Movies & TV, News

Following on from that last story, here’s an example of more legal gobbledegook – this time, quite possibly with a virtual death sentence for someone.

To begin with, just consider what those retards did at Charlie Hebdo back in January 2015, and why. Then consider what the cretins in Isis are doing to people almost daily. With such a suitable backdrop, now consider what that first story is all about.

An American film called “Innocence of Muslims” was banned from YouTube on the orders of a federal court. Actress, Cindy Lee Garcia, had received death threats as a result of her involvement – which she was tricked into, as she had not acted specifically for that film or that role. The editing made it look as if she was accusing the Prophet Muhammad of being a child molester. You can imagine the incendiary nature of such a suggestion when you consider the brittle mental state of those people who start issuing death threats over things like this.

Enter: Google. As most people will be aware, Google is a company which seems to believe that pretty much anything and everything should be allowed under the auspices of free speech on the internet solely in order for Google to reap obscene profits from it all. Oh, it will sometimes ban things – especially if it looks like not doing so could impact earnings – but otherwise it is essentially a clone of the British Press as far as demands for the freedom to publish anything about anyone go. Except that it is about a million times bigger.

This behemoth has been seeking to overturn the original judgement on the basis that it was “a misapplication of copyright law”. It has now got its way, and is free to put the film back on YouTube (which it owns). No decision has yet been taken over whether or when that will happen but Google is no doubt wetting its trousers over the victory now that such a decision lies with it and not with someone above it (i.e. the Law).

If they do (and even because they originally did) reinstate it, it will obviously be open season on Ms Garcia as far as some idiots out there are concerned. I hope Google is proud.

The film should have remained banned. It is simply a crap attempt at shit stirring.

Gay Cake Row – Recipe All Wrong?

19/05/2015

DOAADI

News

I’ve just seen this on the BBC website. I only vaguely remember hearing about the row some time ago.

Ashers is a bakery in Northern Ireland. It is run by devout Christians, and when they were approached by a militantly gay person to make a cake with a gay slogan on it, they refused. The customer, Gareth Lee – who is described as “a gay rights activist”, hence my use of the word “militant” – took them to court.

Well, it seems that the judge has rule against Ashers. Ashers had said before the judgement:

We happily serve everyone but we cannot promote a cause that goes against what the Bible says about marriage.

We have tried to be guided in our actions by our Christian beliefs.

The judge ruled:

[Ashers are] conducting a business for profit, [they are not a religious group,]

They were found to have discriminated against Mr Lee on the grounds of sexual orientation.

Martin McGuinness (Deputy First Minister) tweeted:

Asher’s bakery judgement a good result for equality, Gay people have for far too long been discriminated against. We and the law on their side.

David McIlveen (DUP) tweeted:

Utterly sickened that a Christian owned business has been hauled over the coals for refusing to promote something that is not legal in NI.

Personally, I can see an appeal coming on (if NI allows that sort of thing). Ashers would happily have provided Lee with a cake. They just refused to put a gay slogan on it. It makes you wonder what would have happened if they’d have refused to make one with a pro-jihadist slogan. By the precedent set in this judgement, they would therefore be guilty of racial discrimination.

And what about fast food outlets run by Muslims who only use Halal meat? Since – also by precedent – they are not religious groups either, but profit-making enterprises, shouldn’t they be required by Law to also provide non-Halal meat? Oh, and pork products? Can you imagine the flood of racial discrimination claims that would arise if they were forced to do these things? And who do you think would win?

Note that I am simply commenting on the skewed logic of the judgment. Don’t try and read into my views on any of those involved as far as their beliefs or lifestyle preferences go (though I’m certain that’s exactly what some jackass is bound to do). I’m as much against having other people’s religious beliefs rammed down my throat as I am of having their sexual orientation similarly thrust at me.

Cyclist Killed on Nottingham Ring Road

23/04/2015

DOAADI

Cyclists, News

This BBC story is quite vague, but Nottingham’s ring road was closed for several hours after a cyclist was in collision with a motorcycle on 21 April. The cyclist died. It was chaos on the roads (yet again). In this update, where the cyclist is named, the BBC has a caption which says:

The ring road has some of the heaviest rush hour traffic in Nottingham.

It also has cycle paths either side, to keep cyclists and traffic away from each other for precisely this reason.

There are no details about what actually happened in this case. However, it is worth noting that a lot of cyclists choose to ignore the cycle paths (except at red lights), many opting instead to purposely cause hold ups just to show that they “have a right to use the roads” (and they DO do that – I used to ride with a group of them). The number doing this has increased dramatically this year, and many of the guilty parties appear to be older people, predominantly male, who have just acquired their bikes.

As is typical, in the old monkey-see-monkey-do manner, they will have witnessed those “cool” Spandex Boys with their testosterone issues doing it and – without realising their own lack of skills – have decided they’ll have some of that as well.

The simple fact is that if you stay on a cycle path that was built especially for you to keep you out of traffic, and use crossings properly like other soft-bodied specimens (i.e. pedestrians), your chances of being involved in a collision with a motor vehicle on a major road during rush hour are virtually nil. Of course, pigs might fly, and if you therefore choose to ignore the cycle paths and attempt to ride amongst the traffic during said rush hour, your chances of getting hit rise astronomically.

I really do hope that there’s some sort of afterlife, because I cannot otherwise see how “being right” about cycling on busy roads instead of the adjacent cycle paths is of any use to you at all if you’re lying on a cold slab in a morgue.

These comments are general, by the way, and are in no way intended to address whatever happened in that original tragic incident on the ring road. Judging by the location of the white bicycle that’s been placed there, the cyclist was using the crossing.

Category - News