Archive - April 2011

More on Test Centre Closures

12/04/2011
DOAADI
ADI, Driving Tests, World

I’ve written several times recently about test centre closures – both real and imagined – and the subsequent behaviour of ADIs in the areas covered by the centres in question.

This report in Herald Scotland pushes further the idea that tests could be conducted from a variety of locations – supermarkets, libraries, community centres, and so on.

The article says:

The test centres are self-funding, with costs paid by learners sitting their tests. But is thought the savings would help pay for the £71 million cost of building 66 multi-purpose test centres across Britain.

I’m not sure if that is quite correct. MPTCs were not built to be LESS efficient than what was there previously. They were built to be MORE efficient. It stands to reason that ONE MPTC on an industrial estate is going to cost less to run than TWO or THREE community-based test centres shoe-horned above shops and into converted terraced houses in run-down estates. The explanation given above is another Mickey Mouse coalition way of trying to blame things on Labour.

And let’s not forget something no one else appears to be mentioning. The publicity may be centred upon the ramblings of certain self-styled community champions (“we MUST keep a testing facility in our village… won’t someone PLEEEASE think of the children”), but 90% of the public detest learner drivers and would like nothing better than for the test centre next door to bugger off somewhere else.

Driving 15 miles to the nearest test centre is not the problem people like Mike Weir and Sandra Osborne suggest. Some people have to do that anyway (I had one last week who lived 17 miles from the test centre, and several more greater than 10 miles away), and I’d like to see where it is written that no one should ever have to end up travelling further than they do now just because their local centre moves somewhere else.

Commonsense is being swallowed up and masked by amateurish political schemings.

I wonder if those supermarkets, libraries, and community centres will “allow” tests to be conducted for free?

And one more thing: test centres being further away would be less of a problem if local councils did their bloody roadworks more efficiently instead of digging big holes, putting up barriers and lights, and then doing naff all for two months. The biggest worry when travelling is not the distance, but the time.

Make Sure You ALL Understand the Same Thing

12/04/2011
DOAADI
General

Writing about cyclists recently reminded me of a bike ride I did a few years ago.

At the squash club I used to play at, a group of them were serious cyclists and every year they did a run to Skegness (about 80 miles). Some of them were serious racers, and one of them was able to do the journey in around 2½ hours.

Anyway, I’d been doing a bit of training with them on my mountain bike and was going along. The night before at the club, they said “you know how to get there, don’t you?” I used to go there every year when I was a kid and knew the route – one of them – so I said “of course”.

Next morning I turned up to the meet and had a small rucksack with me. It had bottles of Lucozade and Mars Bars. They said “you can’t ride all the way with that weight on your back. Throw it in the van and you can get stuff out when we stop at different points”. Fair enough, so off we go.

We averaged 23mph between West Bridgford and Grantham. I thought “I’m not going to keep this up for 80 miles”, and when we got to Grantham Hill (not sure if it is really called that, but it’s a hill and it’s in Grantham), I thought “screw this” and got off to walk up. I said to them “don’t worry, I’ll see you later when you stop”.

So, I get back on and start riding. I went via the route I used to go by when my family holidays were spent there every summer. I expected to catch up with them, but there wasn’t a peep.

At about 30 miles I checked my phone and there were missed calls. Signal is erratic out that way, but I got in contact with the support van and they had been driving back and forth trying to find me. It turned out that my route and theirs weren’t quite the same – mine was the more obvious A52 via Boston, whereas theirs was the cyclists’ A153 route via Sleaford.

I had no money on me to buy anything with sugar in it, and only my water bottle – which I kept filling up on garage forecourts. It was quite a warm day (but with a breeze), and at one point out around 60 miles I lay down in a field of cabbages and slept for an hour. Every time a farm truck filled with onions went by my stomach started rumbling. I was looking for trees with something to eat on them. I was starving.

I made it in the end. When I got hold of that rucksack I drank four bottles of Lucozade and ate six Mars Bars in one go.

So the moral is: make sure that when you give instructions you avoid ambiguity!

Gypsies Stripped of Licences

12/04/2011
DOAADI
ADI, DSA, World

I hope it isn’t just gypsies who have this happen to them – it should happen to anyone who is found to be involved in the same type of fraud.

This story in the Daily Mirror reports that almost 150 Irish travellers paid around £500 per test to have some one do it for them, netting the crooks doing the impersonating somewhere around £150,000.

Two women and a man have had to flee their homes as angry gypsies try to get their money back (obviously, these gypsies aren’t bright enough to realise their own fraudulent position in all this – there is no money to “get back” because the people paying it are as guilty of fraud as those taking it).

The three criminals will be sentenced later this year.

According to the DSA, around 5,000 fraudulent driving tests of this type take place.

Keisha Wall Sentenced to Prison

12/04/2011
DOAADI
ADI, World

I wrote a few weeks ago about the case of a woman, Keisha Wall, who read a text message on her mobile phone shortly before ramming into a pedestrian and killing her (here, here, and here).

This article in the Daily Mail reports that she has been jailed.

She arrived at court holding a mobile phone! She’s been jailed for 2½ years.

As reported previously – and repeated in the article here – she was sitting next to her mother, Constance Wall, who is a driving instructor. Let’s hope that “is” soon becomes “was”, because her mother did not at any time appear to tell the truth during the case (I base that comment on the decision made by the jury). I’ll correct that, because I just saw a more detailed account. There’s something weird going on, because her mother wasn’t called on to give evidence. I don’t know about you, but I’d say that the person sitting right next to the accused at the time of the then-alleged crime (i.e. the passenger) would be a bloody good first choice witness!

Wall’s defence said:

She will have to live with the circumstances of that very short episode for the rest of her life.

She is extremely sorry and remorseful for what has happened. That remorse is deep felt, genuine and long-lasting. She is law abiding and supportive of her younger siblings.

No she isn’t. She’s a filthy liar who killed someone. She lied in court, which hardly makes her “law abiding”, and being “remorseful” didn’t stop her from lying, did it?

Still, she’ll be out in little more than a year.

Dangerous Cycling Law

11/04/2011
DOAADI
ADI, General

Uncle AlbertThis one is timely. With the sun, and the first leaves appearing with the Cherry blossom, prattus spandexius is now out of hibernation.

You’ll see him – typically with a full-face beard and/or the physique of Thunderbird 2 – pretending to be fit on country lanes and other places where he can cause maximum inconvenience. On weekends, he’ll be part of a gang – almost invariably with one of the gang members being a dead ringer for Uncle Albert and riding one of those lie-down bikes – deliberately riding two or three abreast to hold traffic back.

So this story in the Guardian is interesting – maybe not for exactly the reasons I’d like to think, but it should give prattus spandexius something to think about next time he tries to act like a rolling road block if it ever actually happens.

In 2008, a cyclist hit a teenager and killed her. He was found guilty of dangerous cycling – he shouted to a group of teens “move, because I’m not stopping”. He didn’t, and he killed the girl. He was fined £2,200. There isn’t a specific law covering dangerous cycling like there is for driving.

It’ll be interesting to see how far this goes.

Ten Year Ban “Excessive”?

11/04/2011
DOAADI
ADI, General, World

One from Canada. The Winnipeg Sun reports that a woman who killed two men and seriously injured a third is appealing against her 10 year ban – saying it is “harsh and excessive”.

Apparently, she hit the accelerator thinking it to be the brake. She accelerated suddenly and swerved across the street, hit another vehicle and tore out a fire hydrant. She pushed the other vehicle into a pedestrian, who was seriously injured. Her own vehicle carried on across the intersection and hit two men, who died at the scene.

Her defence lawyer argues that she is a capable driver who suffered momentary inattention.

This seems at odds with the fact that at the original trial she appears to have been an inexperienced driver who had taken refresher lessons.

It’s obviously a tragic story (for those who were killed), but what caught my eye was the length of the ban. Ten years is a hell of a long time.

I just wish they did that over here. Ten years? It isn’t long enough. Some people simply shouldn’t be allowed to drive.

Elderly Driver Injures Cyclist… Banned

11/04/2011
DOAADI
ADI, General

This is an interesting story from The Bolton News.

A 90 year old driver, Thomas Clark, has been banned from driving after he pulled out of a junction and seriously injured a cyclist.

His defence lawyer argues that he has never been involved in an accident before, and he relies on driving to get around and help a housebound 85 year old friend.

However, the housebound friend lives 55 miles away – and Clark has also pleaded guilty to driving with defective eyesight!

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they can’t do what they used to be able to do.

Driving is one of them.

Another Test Centre Closure?

11/04/2011
DOAADI
ADI, General

I’ve recently mentioned several situations where one of the following is true:

  • start petition because test centre is scheduled to close
  • start petition because scheduled test centre closure has now happened
  • start petition because test centre closed down several years ago, and since one of the others appeared to get somewhere, we might too
  • there is no real evidence that the test centre is closing, but we haven’t got much on so let’s start a petition anyway

Now there’s another one up in Cumbria (perilously close to Scotland, where a lot of the other unrest seems to be centred). Please note an updated story from the same source, which quotes the same instructors saying the same things – but which also adds something from the DSA.

The story here appears to be that the Theory Test facility is transferring from Workington, Cumbria, to Carlisle. The distance between these two locations is about 30 miles. As the report says, a maximum of 80 people a week take their theory tests in Workington – that isn’t many, and having no more than 16 people a day doing the test is hardly a sound justification for keeping open a facility which has an overhead which must run into quite a few tens of thousands when you consider the staffing and IT costs. But the main beef is simply – as the report puts it – that:

The cost-cutting move has sparked suspicion that practical driving tests will also be moved next year.

Now, it’s worth noting the DSA’s response to this:

The DSA relies for income on the fees we receive from our customers so we have a duty to spend that money responsibly while maintaining a good level of service.

There are no plans to withdraw the practical test service from Workington. However, maintaining a theory test centre in Workington is simply not cost-effective so we plan to close the centre at the end of August. Candidates from Workington will be able to use the existing theory test centre in Carlisle.

It couldn’t be clearer, could it? Not unless you’re an ADI (cars OR motorcycles, if you read the articles), of course, in which case it is as clear as mud.

Some cleverdick has had his calculator out and argues that 80 tests a week at £31 a time equals around £124,000 a year. Maybe for his next trick, he’d like to try using the minus key to subtract the salaries of the staff used to administer tests, those used to maintain the computers (whether on-site or otherwise), building rent and overheads, and so on. Without knowing the exact figures, I wouldn’t be surprised if the costs are greater than the turnover – BECAUSE 80 TESTS A WEEK ISN’T MANY.

They’ve already got the local MP on the case. As we all know, the job of the local MP is to take up any case – no matter how pointless – to show that he cares.

If only he also understood.

Rush Time Machine Tour is Coming!

11/04/2011
DOAADI
Music

Rush Time Machine TourI got my first two tickets in the post this morning – Glasgow and Newcastle!

I’m not too impressed by the Newcastle one… it’s three blocks back. I’ll have to see about sorting that one out.

Glasgow kicks off the UK leg on 14 May, and it’s a busy two weeks after that slotting lessons in between travelling to the different venues.

Moving Pictures is also being re-released this week on DVD and Blu-ray, and featuring remastering and various extras.

Ignores Highway Code… But Still a Great Driver

08/04/2011
DOAADI
ADI, General

This is a bit of a rehash of something that comes around every year or so, but it still makes interesting reading in Fleet News.

A survey by Autoglass (the article marks this with an asterisk, but doesn’t appear to include the footnote to explain why) says that 76% of motorists say they haven’t read the Highway Code since they passed their tests, 21% say they regularly break the HC, and 68% say they break it now and again. Around 40% reckon they break 30mph speed limits, 9% don’t indicate, 5% admit to using mobiles (utter bollocks – it’s more like 50%), and 4% jump red lights.

But 62% rated themselves as “good” and 22% rated themselves as “excellent”.