Category - News

a2om Classroom Lessons

27/03/2012
DOAADI
ADI, News, Training

I saw this in the newsfeeds about a2om’s DriveIQ course.

It’s worth pointing out that a2om started life as a definitely-for-profit driving school, which employed its instructors, and boasted they were better than anyone else in the known universe. The fallout from this still reverberates with a handful of very vociferous (but usually incoherent) individuals who pop up from time to time in various places.

This business model failed very quickly. So a2om then developed its training software and now touts this as what comes across as the best training system in the entire universe. It is also involved with pushing a BTEC in driving, which is touted as what comes across as virtually the best qualification in the universe.

From a driving instructor’s point of view, “qualifying” to deliver the BTEC using a2om’s software involves little more than half a day in a big meeting room with about a dozen people, many of whom still seem unable to deliver the modules properly at the end because of the complexity involved (when I went on it, at least two had only recently qualified as ADIs and they were barely comfortable with normal lessons). After that you are ready to deliver it and are called “a coach” – and you can boast of the fact as “CPD” if that’s the kind of thing you’re into.

The pricing structure for the course as far as new drivers is concerned is confusing. There is a free element which gives access to the software, and two levels after that which involve actual lessons (arranged with “a coach” on the approved list). Only the second – and more expensive – option gives the BTEC certificate. In effect, you pay for a certificate.

There is absolutely nothing in the DriveIQ syllabus that a good ADI wouldn’t already be covering. The only difference is that the candidate pays extra for it.

Little of that extra money goes to the instructors, and a2om is currently saying that DriveIQ is “not for profit” (how they pay their staff therefore remains a mystery). The only real instructor benefit is extra work. However, take up in anywhere but the most affluent parts of the country is almost non-existent. Indeed, the very places where most accidents seem to happen are the areas least likely to be able to afford – and have the least inclination to do – the BTEC (from what I’ve seen).

The whole thing about BTEC courses is also confusing. It seems like anyone can offer one, and many do. But they’re often not worth the paper the certificates are mass-printed on. They’re virtually impossible to fail and getting one does not in any way influence how a young person is going to drive once they get their black Corsa with wide exhaust pipe and tinted windows.

It sounds negative, I know, but it is going to take a lot more than pseudo-philanthropic ideals from a previously commercial company to sort out the problem of 17-year olds killing themselves. Fair enough, the software they have developed might be good, but it isn’t perfect and it isn’t the only option.

Just my opinion.

And Another One…

21/03/2012
DOAADI
ADI, Bad Drivers, News

Another case of teenage deaths in a car driven by a teenage driver.

There is no suggestion that speed limits were being broken, but going too fast for the conditions is definitely implied – possibly along with juvenile naïvete.

Update: And he (Aaron Simpson) got off with the charge of careless driving. The verdict has the approval of the parents of the deceased teenagers.

I’m in no position to judge, so I won’t. All I will say is that thousands of people drive the same route daily and don’t spin off the road or collide with other vehicles.

Teenagers have somehow got to start accepting – or be forced to accept from their currently ineffectual parents – that speed and bravado are dangerous… even when you’re not technically breaking the law.

This case is just one version of the script which is played out almost daily, and which sends young drivers’ insurance premiums sky-high, as well as wrecking the lives of families and friends.

Young people simply have more accidents because they’re inexperienced drivers who believe  – and are allowed to believe – the exact opposite.

And THIS Is Why Young Drivers Will CONTINUE To Have Accidents

21/03/2012
DOAADI
ADI, Bad Drivers, News

I wrote the other day about Euan Tennant – a learner and student who had only taken 10 lessons, bought a fast sports car, managed to rack up 1,500 miles in “a few weeks”, and who ended up in an accident which killed his girlfriend. The police said that they believed excessive speed was the cause.

I’ve also written somewhere recently about the dubious Scottish justice system – even more dubious than the English one in some cases.

Well, Tennant has been cleared!

This gives an absolutely clear message to anyone else out there with a juvenile mind and inflated sense of masculinity, who feels like buying a pratmobile when they are only just out of nappies.

You should read that most recent article. The words of the dead girl’s family make poignant reading. They can only be congratulated for holding in check the obvious words that any sane person would want to use if they weren’t constrained in some way.

The jury found that the charges of causing death by careless driving and going at excessive speed were not proven.

THIS Is Why Young Drivers Have Accidents

19/03/2012
DOAADI
ADI, Bad Drivers, News

This is an old post. But it is still absolutely true.

In a long-overdue update – I didn’t follow the story at the time, but it was visited by a search in 2022 – Tennant was unbelievably cleared of causing his girlfriend’s death!

This story from Edinburgh illustrates clearly the absolute Number One reason many young drivers have accidents, which are often fatal.

Euan Tennant was a learner driver. He had taken “around ten” driving lessons, but never passed his test. He then went out and bought a two-litre sports car.

It was a calculated decision on his part to do this. It wasn’t like he forgot to pass his test. That he overlooked it. He knew full well what he was doing.

He had driven around 1,500 miles in the car with his 22-year old girlfriend as his supervising driver (allegedly – we must assume that she had passed her test more than 3 years previously, and that Tennant was always accompanied when he went out). He reckons she’d never told him to slow down in all that time. This version of the story says that Tennant had only owned the car “for a few weeks”, so he did well to rack up 1,500 miles in such a short time – it can take me 2-3 weeks to do that, and I’m a very heavy user!

On this one trip, Tennant lost control on a bend (the old story), Laura Campbell had to be cut from the wreckage and died a few hours later in hospital.

CCTV footage shows a speeding car, which Tennant admitted “could have been him”. He also admits overtaking another car shortly before the accident. He claims he was not speeding on the bend and that there was “something on the road surface” that made him lose control.

Just for the record, if you’re driving at a safe speed on a bend, you do not lose control and have to have your passengers cut out of the mangled wreck – even if the road does have “something on it”.

The police could find nothing on the road surface, and believe that excessive speed was the cause.

Tennant claims to have been doing 40-45mph when he lost control.

The case is ongoing, but the fact that a juvenile mind is prepared to behave in such a juvenile way – with such appalling results – is precisely why young people have accidents. It isn’t their training. It is their attitudes.

Tennant is expressing all sorts of remorse.

The fact is: he made the decision to buy a sports car with sound mind clear conscience, and hopelessly inadequate driving skills knowing he was still a beginner. And now he needs to face the music.

EDIT: And this is why young drivers will continue to have fatal crashes, because there’s no deterrent. Tennant was cleared on the grounds that the case against him was not proven. I take back a lot of what I’ve said about Scottish law making better decisions than the law in England.

I’d just point out that Laura Campbell is still dead. And Tennant was still highly inexperienced, and driving a car hopelessly too fast for his poor driving skills.

Laura’s parents understandably feel “let down” by the verdict.

Top Gear Faking. Again.

19/03/2012
DOAADI
ADI, Movies & TV, News

ScammerTop Gear – the BBC programme about cars, hosted by chimpanzees, and avidly watched by pond life (my opinion, of course) – has had its fair share of rows about whether some of its stunts are real or not.

The latest one comes after the producers admitted that they set up a traffic jam and used driving instructors posing as learners.

The instructors pretended to be practising reverse parking in close proximity to each other, while James May was held up in his Ferrari California Spider (worth £5.6m).

Personally, I don’t really care if Top Gear fakes its stuff or not. Real or pretend, it conveys the wrong image to people of limited intelligence in the first place.

But I’m surprised – well, not that surprised – at driving instructors prepared to push the image of learners being a nuisance in order to appear on the show. I guess that we shouldn’t forget that there are plenty of driving instructors out there whose only interest in life is cars, and the announcement of a new series of Top Gear is enough to cause them to wet themselves.

Appearing on it would be like having sex for them (albeit, without any other organic  life form being involved). I wonder if they got paid?

Thatcher II: The Return Of The Nightmare

19/03/2012
DOAADI
ADI, News

I saw this in today’s newspapers. David Cameron – leader of this Mickey Mouse coalition we have to endure – is considering privatising the road network and introducing tolls.

Somehow, he believes that charging people more money in taxes (that’s what it would be) will kick-start the economy.

Amusingly, he says:

There’s nothing green about a traffic jam – and gridlock holds the economy back.

Yes. Well perhaps he should aim to cut back on the chaos caused by roadworks – specifically, the fact that even repairing a single cracked paving stone can involve advanced warnings of delays, three-way temporary lights, and total nightmare journey times for the month the work continues.

Or maybe the local councils’ unending quest to create the perfect bus stop or pedestrian crossing, putting in chicanes, taking out chicanes, speed bumps, light-controlled crossings, and so on. And let’s not forget trams in cities too small to accommodate them, so that tens of thousands of motorists can be held up to let trams carrying up to a hundred people at a time pass through.

If he considered those things, then maybe it wouldn’t be so painfully obvious he is clueless with this sort of nonsense:

Mr Cameron claimed that congestion on roads costs the UK economy £7bn a year.

Cameron says that the solution was to shift more people and goods on to the rail network. As I’ve said before, the man is not of this world.

The problem isn’t specifically congestion – it’s what causes that congestion.

Apart from roadworks, it is broken down cars, accidents, and the school runs. Those cause untold delays every single day – and all you have to do is consider how easy it can be in rush hour in many cities when it is half-term to figure that last one out.

And you can wave bye-bye to any greenbelt if this version is anything to go by:

New roads constructed from scratch by private investors, meanwhile, could become French-style toll roads.

Anyone who voted for these clowns only has themselves to blame.

Australian Learners Drive Time

19/03/2012
DOAADI
ADI, News, World

This is an interesting one – I’m still split over it.

In New South Wales, Australia, learner drivers have to complete a log book during their training. They have to do 120 hours of driving, which has to be signed off (but not even by an instructor, as I understand).

The current Road Minister, Duncan Gay, says:

“For too long governments have taken the opportunity, if there’s an accident somewhere, to automatically add extra hours to the learner’s permit time.”

Now, in part I agree with that. Accidents among young drivers are not due to inadequate tuition. But it is also a dig at the previous government – so you immediately wonder what point Gay is making. Is he genuinely of the belief that accidents are unfairly blamed on learner tuition and learners per se, or is he simply making vote-winning small talk?

Referring to the change – where learners will be able to knock 20 hours off their required driving hours if they take a driving safety course (which is non-compulsory), he then adds:

“(This) stops parents and children currently becoming criminals because 120 hours is just way too much.”

Mr Gay said he hoped the initiative would deliver a more realistic timeframe for L-platers and stop the some of them from fudging log books.

Ah! So instead of actually dealing with the problem (the accidents), his party is simply going for one of the symptoms – which, coincidentally, will be popular among some of the electorate. They want to move the goalposts for what constitutes “criminal behaviour” instead of dealing with the fact that people are simply happy to behave as criminals.

Not a good sign for the future, Mr Gay.

To make matters worse, the course learners can go on to cut those 20 hours is not free (Gay says they will be “affordable”) – and they will even be able to cut another 20 hours if they take “professional” courses. I’m sure that those will be even more “affordable”.

I think the real attitude to driving is summed up in the next paragraph:

“Further options to assist learner licence holders in remote, lower socio-economic… communities meet learner driver log book hours will also be considered,” Mr Gay said.

Votes, votes, votes. What on earth is the point of arguing that safety isn’t implicated by cutting driving hours, when you’re immediately going to make concession upon concession for minority groups? It is the poorer people who are both prepared to break the law, and financially inclined to do it – and their societal attitude certainly doesn’t push them towards being safe drivers.

Looks like the Aussies have the same problems with government involvement in driver training that the UK does. I wonder if Mr Gay gets his information from his daughter, like our transport minister does?

Incidentally, the proposed changes are reported slightly differently depending on where you look.

But There IS A Recession On…

19/03/2012
DOAADI
ADI, News

 

Hot on the heels of that last article, this one quotes a breakdown recovery company (also an insurer), who say that drivers are delaying servicing and repairs to cut their expenditure. Apparently, this is the outcome of “research” again.

No, really?

It says that 25% of motorists have a fault which makes the car illegal, and 14% say it urgently needs repair. Common faults include:

  • faulty brakes
  • faulty wipers
  • broken or missing mirrors
  • defective brake lights

Around 20% admit to driving without an MOT – which they point out is an offence. It seems there is no end to these statements of the obvious.

The article says that drivers “now” take over four months to fix faults, on average. It doesn’t say what this figure was previously, although it does seem to consider that just because people “say” it is due to cost, then this must be a brand new reason – rather than a new excuse.

Let’s Pretend There’s A Problem…

19/03/2012
DOAADI
ADI, News

I love this on Yahoo! News. They have a story on “tips for Easter driving” from a certain car loans company. The advice amounts to this (from the company’s co-director):

“Older cars can be particularly vulnerable to breakdown when sat in traffic on busy motorways so anyone driving an older vehicle, or a car that they have not had serviced for a while, should certainly follow our tips for having a hassle free Easter getaway.

“Of course, for those who are not going anywhere in their cars this Easter because they simply think their car is too unreliable and prone to breakdown, it is worth remembering that there are some great car finance deals [link to own company website here] available at the moment for buying a new car and prices are more affordable than you may think.”

It then talks about car loans, with a further link to the company’s own website.

Oh, wait!. There ARE some tips. These are:

  • check your tyres
  • check your battery and lights
  • check your windscreen
  • check your oil
  • think about breakdown cover
  • buy a new car [link to company’s website again]

I’ve recently accepted a sponsored article on the blog. Basically, an advertiser provides an article with a link back to their website, which I publish for them and provide a link to it on the blog homepage for an agreed period of time. It’s clear that Yahoo! may well have done something very similar by allowing such blatant advertising to go under the guise of “news”. If they did, I bet they charged more than I did, though.

As for the “advice”… well, it could have been lifted from anywhere (the AA for example). It is public domain common sense that applies all through the year, with some bad marketeering very conspicuously tacked on the end.

Baby-Boomers Now An Increased Risk

13/03/2012
DOAADI
ADI, News

Just for information, the term baby-boomers refers to people who were born post-war between about 1946 and 1964. That would make them between 47 and 66 as of today.

This story, submitted by a reader, reports that the UK population is getting older and an increasing number of cars are being driven by the over-65s. At the moment, around 15% of the population is over 65, but this is predicted to rise to around 25% by 2050.

A parliamentary committee is suggesting in a report that older drivers could be sent on courses.

Frighteningly, in 1975 only 15% of the over-70s had driving licences. In 2010 it stood at 60%. The story adds:

Older drivers are over-represented in multi-vehicle crashes, suggesting that they have difficulty interacting with other road users.

This is almost the exact wording used in that Young Drivers Risk & Rurality report I mentioned recently. It would seem that if you select the appropriate reports, every single person in the UK Is “over-represented” one way or another when it comes to crap driving!

Young drivers often think they know it all, when simple logic clearly dictates that they don’t – because they simply cannot, due to lack of experience. Older drivers might be a lot closer to knowing it all, but whether they can recall it at the right time or not is another matter entirely.

Amusingly, the story mentions that over-70s just have to fill a form in saying they’re safe to drive and bingo! – here’s a new licence. The parliamentary report…

…says there needs to be urgent research into whether this is working…

Of course it isn’t bloody working! You’d have to be an idiot to think that self-certification isn’t going to be abused the second you let it loose.

The AA believes that any extra training should be voluntary and not mandatory. I disagree with that. The AA says:

If there was a compulsory course or testing people might worry unnecessarily and be unwilling to go through it, so they would lose their mobility.

OK. So let them carry on lying just to retain their “mobility” – and don’t worry too much when things like this happen (Cassie’s Law still needs signatures, by the way). By all means put greater value on an old person’s wheels than on the life of a teenager – but close the door on your way out!

There should be mandatory testing of ANY at-risk group or individual.

As people are fond of saying, a driving licence is a privilege, not a right. But it would appear that this doesn’t apply to old people, for whom a driving licence is increasingly turning into an absolute right.