I noticed this story on the BBC website today, about a learner who had an accident on a lesson and flipped the car. My first thought was for the occupants.
True to form, though, this does not appear to be the first thought which has occurred to many other instructors out there. Some know-it-alls wonder “what the instructor was doing at the time “. Others suggest that “CPD is urgently required “.
I would just like to point out to these “experts” that when someone rear ends you (and many of these “experts” have been rear-ended, or worse) because you or your pupil stops suddenly, although it is their fault for insurance purposes, it is really you or your learner’s fault, in large part, for stopping so abruptly in the first place.
So whatever it was which led to the BSM car having an accident like this is just another example of one of the many things which can go wrong when you are an instructor. It’s not a reason to start saying bad things about BSM or the other ADI (not unless you have a bit of an inflated opinion of yourself, anyway).
I should also point out that a pupil told me today she’d been involved in an incident several years ago, which resulted in rolling the car, and that she had ended up with severe concussion. It can happen to anyone.
BSM’s statement has led to more criticism:
We have spoken to the learner driver who is fine and is already hoping to book her next lesson with us soon.
The instructor responded calmly, professionally and swiftly, and is back on the road in a new car.
The Wise Ones believe that BSM is just plugging itself at the pupil’s expense, when in fact they are trying to point out that the pupil was fine and not put off by the incident. What else are they going to say, for crying out loud?
Speaking personally, over the years I’ve had a couple of gentle rear-end shunts (no damage), one burst tyre (driving straight at a very high kerb when parking outside her house), and – my worst one – reversing into a high wall on the turn in the road exercise by hitting the gas instead of the brake and lifting the clutch up (I stopped him in time for there to be no damage to the car, but only just).
But I could have had a whole lot more: pupils trying to turn right on to roundabouts, suddenly deciding to go left when indicating right (and vice versa), suddenly deciding to go left or right when in the straight-ahead lane, suddenly deciding to emergency stop for the dead squirrel (or, in one case, “horse poo”) in the road, not preparing to stop for the squadron of old ladies on the crossing just in front of us, a dyspraxic pupil suddenly steering left on a dead straight road (“I have no idea why I did that”), another dyspraxic almost climbing into the footwell to look at the gear stick when turning left on a bend, with a 20 foot ditch next to us, in heavy rain, in pitch dark, and with another car waiting to emerge, and so on. The list is almost infinite.
No one’s perfect, and if a pupil does something totally unexpected, any instructor is likely to be caught out eventually. This unfortunate ADI was – and it has nothing to do with him being with BSM, nor does it put into question his abilities as an ADI.
Incidentally, the same story in The Sun gives a better insight into how it happened:
The driver, aged in her 20s, lost control after she locked the steering wheel to the right and stamped on the accelerator pedal as she left a junction.
Instead of sedately joining the road the brand new black Fiat 500 performed a high-speed u-turn straight into a garden gate.
The householder whose gate it was adds more information:
She had the steering wheel on full lock and accelerated.
The car effectively performed a u-turn and drove up my garden gate before quite gracefully landing upside down on my drive.
But the comments to the bottom of that story by the usual troglodytes are no better than the ones I’ve already referred to.
EDIT 26/05/2010: I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but there appears to be a lot of very unpleasant people around if the search terms used to find this post are anything to go by. Anyone who hates BSM as much as some appear to do, without having actually ever been franchised to them, ought to seek medical advice urgently before they succumb to their own venom!