An email alert from the DSA advises that the scheduled examiner strike on February 15th has been suspended.
Fossil Command at PCS is no doubt trying to find a better and far more inconvenient time for the strike. Obviously, with the risk of snow cancelling tests at this time of year, PCS officials made a major mistake scheduling industrial action when there is a risk of their little performance clashing.
This is an old story. Note that they stopped doing tests at Clarendon Street in late 2014. Clifton is still used. Watnall is also now on the list – so you have Colwick, Watnall, Beeston, Clifton as valid choices for your test.
I mentioned this in passing a few weeks ago. While registering with the DSA’s new ADI portal I noticed that one of the available Nottingham test venues was listed as Trent University Clifton Campus. At that time there wasn’t any further information available (I suppose if there had, 90% of Nottingham’s ADIs would have been heading over to the Clifton site and causing traffic chaos, just like they did when the Chalfont Drive relocation was mooted).
But now it has been officially announced.
Driving tests are now going to be hosted from Clarendon Street in the City Centre and from the Clifton Campus.
It’s only a trial and tests will only go out two days a week. The trial is expected to last 3 to 6 months, and will commence from March, the report says.
Tests are not restricted to students – they’re a local facility.
I don’t have a problem with either venue and – on paper – this is a great idea. However, I wouldn’t expect the city centre location to end up being very popular with candidates, and with work now technically in progress for the widening of the A453 (and the traffic chaos that will ensue – even above and beyond to continuous chaos that exists due to the A453 not being wider already – I can see the Clifton location faring badly if circumstances on the A453 take a poor turn.
This is one to watch, I think.
A reader provided me with this link, which I hadn’t seen – it’s in today’s Daily Mail.
Readers will be aware that I ran a few articles on the Cassie’s Law E-Petition. The petition closed last November, and I honestly thought that it had failed to gain enough support to be debated in Parliament.
The reader who sent the link referred to MY campaign. I wish I could claim that honour, but all I did was report on it and push it as hard as I could. I was not involved with it beyond that, and did not liaise with Jackie McCord (Cassie’s mother) in any way at all. The story just touched me – as well as hitting a nerve! The only thing I do know is that the stories I posted got quite a few hits and I’d like to think that this led to the petition gaining some extra signatures.
Anyway, as the story reveals, Cassie’s Law is to become LAW.*
For those not aware of the story, Cassie McCord was 16 when she was hit by an 87-year old driver who mixed up his accelerator and brakes, flew on to a pavement, and crushed her against a wall. He had already been involved in an accident days earlier and had refused to surrender his licence. Police were powerless to do anything.
You can read the full story for yourselves, but this was great news to see. And we mustn’t forget the others who lost their lives due to elderly drivers who shouldn’t have been on the road.
* the changes are not actually a change in the Law, but procedures have been put in place to get elderly and medically unfit drivers off the road quicker – something that would have saved Cassie’s life if it had been in place sooner.
A reader sent me this link to a story in The Sun (registered at the Post Office as a comic).
Under an FOI request – the first one of the year, and filling column inches now that 
there’s no snow to talk about – The Sun has discovered that around 5 tests a day during 2011/12 involved someone cheating or trying to cheat on one of the driving tests – by getting someone to do it for them, attempting to bribe the examiner, or even threatening physical violence. The majority were impersonations, however.
I do like some of the comments at the bottom of the story. The average Sun reader seems to be under the impression that showing a photo at the time of taking the test would solve all these problems.
Actually, candidates already do that: there’s a picture on their driving licence. But one huge problem with this is that not many people look anything like their photos to start with – even while the photo is still damp out of the instant-snap machine in the Co-op (those damned things must have a setting inside called “criminal”, because everyone looks like they were waiting to be put in a police cell overnight in them). Some were maybe going through a goth phase, or had just come out of one when they had the photo taken (I get loads of them), and the absence or otherwise of face metalwork, or the kaleidoscope range of hair colours and styles really puts a cat among the pigeons. And what if little Jonny or Kylie suddenly had a growth spurt a few weeks after sending off for their provisional?
The reality is that much of this attempted fraud is among people from countries where bribery and corruption is official government policy, and where identification from the data transferred to the UK is unreliable at best (some people change their identity in their home country, then that new persona is the only one they’re known by when they arrive in the UK). In many cases, the citizens of some of these countries have photos where they have black hair and long beards (even if that has changed since they moved to the UK).
So, a grainy photo is NOT going to resolve anything when someone dishonest decides to capitalise on this confusion.
Sorry, “crazy woman from Manchester” (the weirdo who wrote to me a while back), but this is exactly why the impersonators get away with it:
THEY LOOK ENOUGH LIKE WHAT THE PERSON THEY’RE IMPERSONATING USED TO LOOK LIKE FOR THE EXAMINERS TO GO AHEAD WITH THE TEST.
They know this, and they utilise the fact in their fraudulent endeavours. They know that the examiner daren’t raise issues for fear of being labelled racist, because unfortunately there are enough “crazy woman of Manchester” types around for this accusation to be made at the drop of a hat.
Examiners often stand back and do a double-take when they look at photos of my pupils. Much of the time they also consider who has brought the candidate to test – is it an ADI they know, or is the candidate unaccompanied? But if examiners put a block on just because someone looked a bit different from their photo, about 95% of all tests would get cancelled.
Biometric ID is the only way – and some people would even find a way around that.
The fossils in the PCS union have got yet more strikes on the way – three in quick succession, this time (it’s like when children get more and more naughty until someone takes notice of them).
Planned dates are 1st and 15th of February and 1st March – all in the afternoon. This time, though, the first date covers England, Scotland, and Wales, the second date just England and Scotland, and the last date just Wales (I bet the flip charts were steaming when they worked that one out).
In the link above, the DSA is correctly advising candidates to attend tests as they normally would. That’s because not all examiners are stupid enough to be in the union in the first place, and of those who are not all are THAT stupid that they will get involved in strike action. I should also point out that the further north you travel within the UK, the more stupid people apparently get (based on the statistics for test cancellations the last few strikes).
UPDATE: The one on 1st February has been cancelled. No doubt so it can be rearranged for a more inconvenient time for candidates.
This is an old story. As of September 2014, tests are conducted at Colwick, Beeston (near the train station), Clifton (on the Trent University campus), and Watnall (the old LGV testing station).
Chalfont Drive stopped doing tests in 2013. Clarendon Street (the Trent University campus in the city centre) ceased conducting tests in late August 2014 a few weeks prior to Watnall commencing operations.
UPDATE: From 1st March 2013 tests will be conducted from two temporary addresses – NOT FROM CHALFONT DRIVE.
UPDATE: From 27 June 2013 tests will be conducted from the new Beeston Test Centre. This is the new and permanent location.
The story below is from the archives.
I can’t say I’m surprised. It was reported in November last year that Chalfont Drive Test Centre was closing and moving to Beeston from the start of February 2013. A move had been on the cards for several years.
I reported earlier this month how the manager at Chalfont Drive had had to request that ADIs keep away from the proposed new site, as these idiots had been gridlocking the place in their desire to conduct lessons less than half a mile from whichever test centre their pupils will be taking their tests at. This was apparently jeopardising the deal, for which planning permission was not yet granted.
This email alert from the DSA notes that the move is now postponed. The test centre has been given leave to remain at Chalfont Drive “throughout February”.
The second section of the email is interesting. It says:
Longer term plan
Our longer term plan is still to open a new centre in the Nottingham area. We’ll let you know as soon as we’re able to confirm the operational date and details of the new test centre.
Reading between the lines, the new test centre ISN’T going to be in Beeston. I wonder if those prats who kept going down there are pleased with themselves. Even if it wasn’t they who contributed to the proposed deal in Beeston falling through, their lessons down there were an absolute waste of their pupils’ time (based on their own reasons for going there in the first place).
If the DSA has any sense at all, they won’t announce where the test centre is going to be this time around. Just move it, then tell people where it is and let them whine about it afterwards.
When (and where) will the new centre open?
We don’t know. This time, the DSA probably won’t tell anyone until the deal is done. And who can blame them?
EDIT: See the two updates at the top of this archived story.
This came through on the newsfeeds. A complete twat in an Audi – what else – was pictured on the M4 in Wales driving at around 70mph with a foot of snow on his car, and only a narrow slot on the front window to see out of.
It compares well with what I saw today: a BMW with private plates (reg. no. P19 RMW) doing similar speeds with a geometrically perfect half of the rear window – the driver’s side – covered in at least 6 inches of snow. He must have thought it was brilliantly funny to be doing that. He shot off down the ring road, and I could tell he’d passed because of the huge pile of snow half way down which had blown off – creating a skid hazard for everyone else.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Audi drivers and people with private plates shouldn’t be allowed to breed.
That report above was a result of the prat with the Audi being posted all over the internet – and police are now investigating. God! They’re SO clever, these idiots.
An email alert advises that the CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) check is now known as the DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) check. Read more here.
Note that this link applies to England and Wales only – it’s a different process in Scotland and Northern Ireland (links for those are in the link above).
Note that ADIs are required to get one of these – the enhanced one – each time they renew their licence, and one is required to become a PDI.
How do I know if my DBS check is OK?
When it comes back, if it doesn’t say anything about you being wanted by Interpol or any other authority, you’re probably good to go.
It’s best if it is completely “blank” (like mine is). If there is ANYTHING in ANY of the sections – and especially if it is related to driving, drugs, violence, or children – you’ll need to check with DVSA to see if it’s a problem. It could be, and even if it isn’t, it probably should be – DVSA is dumbing down at the moment and you might get lucky even if you are still stealing cars and engaging in high-speed police pursuits (as the “pursuiee”) for a living.
You won’t find the answer on the internet, so don’t go spending any money on training until you have been accepted on to the Register.
This email alert just came in. From 11 January 2013 (four days ago), the law has changed such that foreign drivers wishing to exchange their overseas licence for a UK one will have to prove that they have passed a test of comparable standard to the UK one.
This is a DVLA issue and nothing to do with the DSA.
Anyone from any EU member state can drive here and exchange their licence without having to take a test. There are also a number of ‘designated’ countries outside the EU which the UK has an arrangement with (typically, Commonwealth or former-Commonwealth countries, but not exclusively so – Korea is in there, and Switzerland).
But it seems that some of those countries allow foreign nationals from places where driving standards are poor to exchange their licences, and those people then have a shiny licence from a designated country to exchange over here. That’s the loophole that has been stopped by having to provide proof of having completed a test.
The only thing that’s niggling me is how they are going to police and enforce this.
Lying and fraud is second nature to some people and I don’t doubt for a moment that they will use such tactics to get the necessary “proof”. And how will the DVLA check?
Your guess is as good as mine.
I received an email via the Contact Form a little earlier. It reads:
I’d like to bring to your attention some comments about this photo. I find it shocking so called professionals can make fun of this and suggest it is right or deserving of the driver or learner…
…As a Bill Plant instructor I cannot believe the comments suggesting that it isnt surprising ect…
>>Photograph removed at the request of the parents of the learner involved<<
Take my word for it, in the full-size picture the young girl looks highly traumatised, and it is quite likely that they are waiting for an ambulance to arrive. In the absence of any further information, you can just see a car on the opposite side of the road, and the school car has obviously hit something head-on – but there’s no way of knowing which way it was heading and whether it spun round. If it was heading away in the picture, it is on the correct side of the road, so who is to say what happened or who was to blame? Well, ADIs, of course, because they know everything.
As an aside, one of the most popular pages on this blog is the one that shows a BSM car upside down. I monitor search terms used to get here, and you wouldn’t believe what people ask to find that particular story. There really are some very, very nasty pieces of work around, and the word “schadenfreude” doesn’t cover them by half. Since I doubt that the general public has such a major fetish about other driving schools, it’s not hard to imagine who and what these visitors are.
I agree completely with the reader’s assessment. Any comments implying that this accident is in some way “good” or in any way typifies Bill Plant instructors or the school isn’t fit to be an instructor themselves. Some of them seem happy to give the ADI’s name out on forums, when it is absolutely none of their damned business – I mean, the only reason for doing that would be to take a swipe at the Bill Plant School.
I would hope that those involved in this childish gloating remember it the next time they’re rear-ended or are hit by another car, and some prat with a camera takes a photo and plasters it all over the internet.
For myself, I hope that both the pupil and the instructor involved in the above accident are all right. I hope that the instructor in question gets back to work as soon as possible, and that the pupil gets back to learning. The simple fact is that being a Bill Plant franchisee doesn’t make anyone a bad instructor.
A little more information is available now. The accident happened in Leeds, and it is the Topic Of The Moment on Bill Plant’s Facebook page. The Bill Plant (BP) car “crashed into a house” – though we still don’t know why.
The timeline appears to be that the accident happened on Christmas Eve. The instructor was taken to hospital. Bill Plant Ltd was unaware of the incident until 8th January, when they “received an abusive call from the householder”. The house, pupil, and instructor all survived and the police are investigating. A public apology has been issued. As I say, no one knows exactly what happened yet – the BP car didn’t just do a 90 degree turn into a house without some trigger.
As another aside, the only criticism I would have of BP is that they have a Facebook page and allow so many retards to post on it. Some of them are ADIs who aren’t franchised to BP, and BP’s reputation among many of these instructors means that they’re just there to cause trouble. BP has a proper website, but Facebook is how most pond life attempts to communicate these days.
The strata of society that these idiots occupy can be clearly gleaned from some of the comments on the BP Facebook page.
Examples:
Jessica-jayne Turbyjess Farnham
Been reading a post of a picture of one of your cars crashing into the wall of a mans home earlier n to hear that you havent even apologised also your company is a disgrace! They say young drivers are to blame theese days for accidents to me it looks like the driving instructors are to blame! Give your head a shake n apologise to the poor man your getting really bad pr at from his post if I owned my own company I no id apologise without him having to phone to ask you to do so utter disgrace
Clearly illiterate, she later attempts to back pedal after being pulled up by others over this bullshit:
Jessica-jayne Turbyjess Farnham
Look I didn’t mean to offend anyone on here, I dont use the internet for that sort of thing
Oh, you do, Turbyjess. You do. You’re one of the vilest types of troll – the kind that doesn’t know it is doing it because it’s just the kind of person you are.
Then there was:
Matthew Johnson
Oh dear…
He got two “likes” for that piece of deep thinking. See what I mean about the level of intelligence on Facebook?
Then this one, from the General Manager of a technology company:
Sarah Ward
What a bunch of cowboys u seem to be totally out of order
I hope she carries out her General Manager affairs using better grammar than that, deals with her staff less confrontationally, and is less prone to jumping to conclusions without having a clue.
Most of the primates on BP’s Facebook page seem obsessed with the concept of “an apology”. It’s ironic that most Facebook users have never apologised to anyone in their entire lives – and they probably will never do so. It’s the kind of people they are. This one, for example, seems to like the sound of his own keyboard (shame about the grammar, even though he’s allegedly a graduate) and answers himself repeatedly. Still, at least he can spell “apologise” after having repeated it so many times:
Graham Marshall
You wanna go apologise to that dude that had one of your instructors cars hit his house,, proper harsh
Yes we know the stdent n guy are fine. It was the guys irst concern befre saving u embarresment by blanking your r eg out on hs photos. a statement to the press s not the same as a personal apology to an nocent party in all this go do whats right, stop making excuses
i asume the fact the driver is fine will mean a visit from him to apologise. The pupil and his ather have been to apologise
Then there’s this guy who looks about 10 in his photo. And behaves like it, all baseball cap and walking with arms akimbo:
Scott Craigie
Shocked to read about your car crashing into a friends house, definitely wouldn’t recommend you.
This guy claims to be a managing director (of his own company):
Sir-Ian Mccaffrey
ooh ooh ooh . i have drove one of theeese [referring to the Audis] lol . strait in to a wall . please improve your breaking system
Obviously, not a very professional company with childish comments and poor spelling/grammar like that.
And I wonder if this Tech Guy’s (hint) employers know what a dickhead he is, whilst using their name in his tag on Facebook:
Jack Chopra
Is this the replacement for the car you smashed in a house?
And now there’s one from an ADI – sorry, a super-ADI, who thinks she knows it all – who reckons it should never have happened with dual controls. I’m trying hard to figure out how dual controls can prevent all accidents, but then I don’t live in the same world some people do.
You can read the rest for yourself.
It’s important to maintain the balance here, and the house owner has contacted me and explained it from his perspective. Here’s his message in full:
I’m the home-owner whose photo that is / was.
It’s genuine. The car crashed into my house and it’s crumpled where it has bounced back off our side wall. My 4 year old daughter and one year old son were in the front room the other side of that wall and got a massive scare as it made a mighty bang having hit it with enough force to write the car off.
The original post I made on their page was a comment about Bill Plant’s terrible Customer Service rather than the accident per se, learner drivers or the instructor. Obviously like most things that go viral it got OTT and hijacked by all sorts of trolls and lunatics as your rightly highlight.
After no contact from the SoM at the scene or for 15 days after the accident, I rang them, ostensibly to get their insurer’s details (which naturally my insurer’s would require).
I was dealt with by a woman who intially wouldnt identify herself, nor give me their insurer’s details (finally got them out of her) and only the first name of her manager and no email or phone number as it was ‘against company policy’.
Having asked them whether it was appropriate for me to be doing all the leg work when ‘they’ had crashed into my house I got a rather useful ‘I didnt crash into your house’ from the woman on the phone. Nice to see someone taking ownership of the issue within the company.
I said ‘bloody’ once such was my frustration, which resulted in her hanging up (though she continued the conversation when I rang back about 90s later) and they’re now are making massive schtick about me being abusive!).
Their company statement is a joke and full of inaccuracies but I simply can’t be bothered anymore.
I’ve made my point.
As you correctly point out, if they understood social media or had a proper web manager, they could have controlled and sorted this themselves.
As I said in my reply to him, my own insurance company would forbid me from becoming directly involved if a claim or police investigation was in progress. I also pointed out that the matter is really between him and BP, and that BP is reviled in the industry for complex reasons associated almost wholly with their start-up deal of “5 for £56”, and it was that which fuelled much of the ridiculous venom that was seen on Facebook and in other places.
I think this is one of those things which shouldn’t really have got into the public domain in the first place and – as is becoming increasingly obvious – involving Facebook in any way with a reputable business or genuine issue is just asking for trouble.
In the situation here, if an outsider really found it necessary to poke their nose in, the only thing they could possibly conclude is that – assuming all the information is completely accurate – perhaps BP could have handled it better. Unfortunately, any large company is likely to have difficulty in that department, and especially so if they try to do it through Facebook.
How BP handled it is simply none of the business of other ADIs. It is between the house owner and BP themselves. Other people don’t know the circumstances which led to the accident – the universal assumption that the BP car just drove into a house without any reason is typical of these idiots.
This post is attracting a lot of hits, and it seems that the concept that who is to blame, or who is liable, is between the parties directly involved is proving a little difficult for some to grasp. It is not the duty of a bunch of venomous ADI to deal with it.
I’ve written about it fairly objectively. I have not judged anyone (other than the morons who have made those idiotic comments), and especially not BP. However, the sad fact is that plenty of other ADIs are eager to be judge, jury, and executioner simply because they hate BP. Frighteningly, they actually believe the bile that comes from their own mouths!
An ADI who is franchised to Bill Plant is not automatically at fault for anything which happens on the roads. Please try to understand that!
One more thing – and I’ve explained it before for the morons who keep bringing it up – this is MY blog and comments are turned off because I’m not interested in any abuse from these bottom dwellers. Live with it.
Incidentally, as of 2017 I can find absolutely no reference to this on Google at all. I was interested in what had happened, but the news has disappeared.
As well as no information of any kind being available, even this blog article is completely absent – even if I use the exact article title. I normally appear in searches very quickly. Very curious.