This BBC story tells of an apparently “hi-tech” solution “invented” by a woman from a company called Blaze. It isn’t hi-tech at all – not unless you class everything incorporating a laser as hi-tech.
What it does is project a cycle symbol on to the road ahead. That is, if it’s adjusted properly. If it isn’t, the cycle symbol will be projected into the air, or anywhere else the Neanderthal on the bike chooses to aim it. There’s also no mention of what happens to the projected light when it hits a puddle or bus shelter. We scientists would know that as something called “reflection”, and God only knows what is likely to happen if a bright green laser is reflected off a bus shelter into the eyes of a passing motorist, or off a puddle into the eyes of a pedestrian.
The spreading infestation on our roads of people on two wheels who only think of themselves means that badly adjusted hi-brightness white LED lamps is already a growing safety issue. A badly adjusted laser is going to be a hundred times worse.
Quite how the people responsible for this dangerous toy think it will improve safety is anyone’s guess. Because when some jackass ignores every safety guideline going and tries to cut up an 18-wheeler attempting to turn left on the inside, I can’t imagine having a laser torch will make much difference to the outcome. And if you’re in an HGV (or any other vehicle) and you see ten of these things flashing away at you from all angles on the road, confusion is the most likely outcome – not safety.
The About page on the Blaze website says it all:
Cycling is about independence. But it’s also about community. It’s different things to different people. A dawn riser racing to work to get her adrenaline fix. A student saving up for a weekend gig. A nature-lover doing his bit for the environment.
Currently, urban cycling favours the brave, the reckless even, the ones willing to fight for their place on the road. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
I couldn’t have written a better reason for introducing mandatory IQ tests for cyclists if I tried.
The best thing London’s councillors could do is ban this thing before too many are sold. It needs proper safety testing by independent testers – not by pro-cycling commercial groups.
In order to understand the logic being applied by Islington Council, you have to take a look at the picture below.
Obviously, the only conclusion to be drawn from the idiotic behaviour being demonstrated by the cyclist is that HGV drivers need to take mandatory cycling lessons.
Yes, that’s right. Islington’s knee-jerk reaction to the recent spate of cyclist fatalities (and innumerable other non-fatal incidents) in London is to make it compulsory for HGV drivers working for the Council to take the so-called “Safe Urban Driving training course, or equivalent”.
That “or equivalent” part probably means that an NVQ in Pigeon Spotting would also suffice, but that’s just speculation on my part.
Of course, to anyone with any sense, the picture above would immediately prompt the introduction of mandatory IQ tests for cyclists – but we’re talking about a right-on leftie group, here.
As you’d expect, positive sounding grunts have come from pro-cycling groups. However – and also as you’d expect – the proposals don’t go far enough for them.
Ideally we’d like to see lorries redesigned so they do not have blind spots, by lowering the windscreens to knee height, such as you see in coaches or some rubbish trucks.
The moron in the photo would obviously be totally safe in that case. I mean, it’s obvious. And then some prat in the Green Party says:
Getting heavy goods vehicle drivers out on their bikes will help build understanding between cyclists and lorry drivers. However we must ensure that drivers of these large vehicles are not “driving blind” through crowded city streets.
I despair that society has degenerated to the point where people can make puerile comments like this from positions of perceived power and responsibility. They’re just idiots.
As long as people like the guy in the photograph exist, it is obvious what needs to be done – and it doesn’t involve re-training anyone driving a motor vehicle.
Well, this latest story suggest that a contract is going out to tender for someone “to help manage and organise the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency’s (VOSA) and Driving Standards Agency’s (DSA) legacy IT infrastructure after the two organisations merge in 2014”.
It will cost £35 million.
It never ceases to amaze me how this government can say and do two completely contradictory things. The merged body is going to be more bureaucratic than the two separate entities ever were. Heaven knows what will happen to the service levels.
I’ve mentioned before how LED lighting is the way forward – I use an LED strip instead of a table lamp for my PC workstation, and I’ve recently bought both 60W and 100W equivalent LED bulbs to replace annoying low-power fluorescent bulbs (which take time to reach full brightness, amongst other things).
So I was interested in this article which explains how a British inventor has developed a lighting system for poorer countries where a weight is used to generate power for an LED array using gravity. It’s not so much the technology involved – which is straightforward – but the manner in which the inventor has gone about the task of developing a marketable product.
In the target countries for the light, kerosene and other fossil fuels are often used to provide lighting, and these are poisonous as well as dangerous in more obvious ways. With this new system, a weight of up to 12.5kg (consisting of sand, dirt, or rubble) powers a dynamo which can then provide light for up to 30 minutes on a single drop cycle. The units sell for only $10 each, and can be daisy chained to provide greater power levels.
The inventors bypassed the usual venture capitalists and went directly public, and raised $400,000 dollars through around 6,000 individual backers. If I’d have known about it, I’d have chucked a few bob in myself. It’s a brilliant idea.
The $10 price tag is still high – daily wages in some of the target countries are below $2 a day – but the savings in kerosene costs are around $100 inside two years, which means buyers would get a return on the investment very quickly.
The device can also be used to charge mobile phone batteries and other things.
I’ve mentioned Horslips several times on the blog (use the search function for video clips). They were the first band I ever saw live, and I was lucky enough to get to see them again a couple of years ago up in Glasgow after more than 30 years! They were just as good as they ever were.
This has been a long time in the making, but at long last an official biography has been released (I got wind from Classic Rock magazine this month). I’ve got mine on order and I’m looking forward to getting hold of it. I hope it arrives before Christmas.
I also note that there is a 2CD set containing the A- and B-sides of all Horslips’ singles releases over the years. I’ll have to order that when I find a source (I haven’t looked yet, and it might be easier than I thought). Oh, wait. It IS easier – Amazon has it. And nuts! Amazon also has the book, though I’ve already ordered mine from Ireland.
Horslips’ website also has a new list of all known gigs (the one I went to back in ‘78-ish isn’t on it, so I’ll have to let them know).
This story makes me shudder. Bijan Ebrahimi was a disabled Iranian who came to the UK. Unfortunately, he appears to have settled in one of those areas where many of the residents are only distinct from animals by virtue of appearance. Their intelligence and behavioural traits firmly identify them as simian, at best.
Bijan was wrongly labelled as a paedophile by certain mentally defective residents – notably, by Lee James, 24, and his accomplice, Stephen Norley, 25. By implication, other local residents – especially those close to James and Norley – were also involved.
Apparently, they had waged a campaign against Bijan as a result of the false conclusion they had reached about him, and which they were mentally incapable of dismissing when confronted with facts. Even when the police arrested Bijan based on residents’ insinuations, and found the accusations to be absolutely and totally false, those same residents – James and Norley in particular – persisted in their campaign against him.
You can read the story about what happened for yourselves. The upshot is that James was jailed for life for murder, and Norley for four years.
The part that I find most disturbing is that in the video Bijan took when James entered his house and started making threats you can see the woman in the background (apparently involved with James in some way) who was obviously also party to the campaign against him. It doesn’t take much imagination to picture the dealings of the sordid lair James and his associates inhabited, and how they convinced themselves of Bijan’s “guilt”.
The police have also been criticised for arresting and then releasing Bijan back into the morass created by James and the scum he was associated with. In effect, they made matters worse.
It’s frightening on many levels. That people like James, Norley, and any others who associated with them exist. That women like the one skulking in the background of the video can get away scot-free. That a false accusation of this nature can ever be allowed to escalate so far in the first place. And that police didn’t realise that they had fanned the flames with their action.
Back in June I mentioned that the DSA and VOSA would be merging in 2014. This latest news release from the DSA says that the new single agency will be called the “Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency”. I am assuming it will be known as the DVSA, though this abbreviation is not used in the release.
Obviously, there is more involved than just a name change (that petty accusation is in the sole domain of the web forum agitator).
All documents bearing the DSA logo will remain valid until further notice, and ADIs will not need to change their badges until the normal renewal times. Instructors will still be known as “DSA approved ADIs” until further notice. Again, I assume we will become “DVSA approved ADIs” at some stage. No DVSA logo is yet given.
It’s worth pointing out – to the agitators in particular – that this change is a government thing. It isn’t something the DSA can be blamed for.
I sometimes wish parents would get it into their thick, money-grabbing skulls that you can’t just count on “getting lucky” and pass your driving test if you can’t drive, anymore than you can count of winning the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket!
I don’t think they realise what kind of rubbish parents it makes them by even hoping that little Jonny or Kylie might “get lucky” in the first place – especially because even if they did get lucky, they’d then stand a bloody good chance of getting “unlucky” and killing themselves (or someone else) once they got out alone and started showing off.
Two things got me thinking about this recently. The first was a call from an ex-pupil who’d passed her test in an automatic well over a year ago but who had not driven since. She was taking auto lessons for almost two years before eventually passing her test on her seventh attempt. However, before that she’d been with me doing manual lessons, also for two years, and she never got anywhere near test standard. Don’t get me wrong – I’d tried to get her to switch to auto much earlier on in her training, but she refused because she’d bought a manual car. She was simply incapable of reliably mastering the foot coordination needed to stop without stalling. It was only when I found out she’d sold her car some time later that both me and her son got on to her again and finally persuaded her to switch. But as I say, it still took her another two years and seven test attempts.
Flatteringly, she always credited me with getting her through her test. She was a really nice lady and we’ve always stayed in touch by telephone, and although I hadn’t heard from her for a year, she called me when she recently bought her own car and asked if I’d take her out to get used to it.
I have to admit that I was very nervous. To be fair, she was actually much better than I had expected, but there were still many traces of the old style. For example, as I got her to pull into her driveway at the end of that lesson she nearly ran into a fence as she hit the gas instead of the brake. She planned to drive to work that day, and I warned her to be careful. But when I called her the next day to see how it went it seems she had already scraped her gatepost. To make matters worse, she called me the next day to tell me she’d done it again – this time causing somewhat more damage to the car.
It’s a horrible position to be in. I have no control over her because she is a full licence holder, and yet if I did have any control I would have forbidden her to drive at all. Part of me wonders how she will ever be a safe driver – in spite of having taken over 200 hours of lessons and seven tests! I really feel sorry for her. But this leads me on to the second thing – the thing that I was referring to right at the start.
I’m usually quite fortunate when it comes to people wanting to take tests before they’re ready. First of all, I try to nip it in the bud as soon as it starts – sometimes even nipping it before it starts (it’s in my T&Cs). If they still won’t listen, then the bottom line is that they’re not going to test in my car, and whatever happens after that is up to them. A good illustration of this is a pupil I had not long ago (or his family, anyway). He was a nice lad, but very quiet. So quiet, in fact, that I am certain that there was some underlying issue, though “the family” insisted not – even though they followed him around, even on some of his lessons. He’d apparently had quite a few lessons with a previous instructor, but his dad reckoned he was being taken for a ride. When he came to me he had a test already booked, which I made them cancel after I’d seen him drive. He couldn’t possibly have passed.
The trouble was, the dad kept saying “I’d like him to have a go” (i.e. at the test). I made it clear that there was no way he was going in my car if he was not likely to pass. I always explain that I could lose my job if I send dangerous pupils to test – which is technically true, even if it’s somewhat exaggerated (as an aside, it’s nice when the examiner comments that it was a “nice drive” as they leave the car. It’s less nice when it is obvious the candidate shouldn’t have been there to start with. The examiner knows, and so do you).
So anyway, they reluctantly agreed to “move” the original test back by just over a month. I’d have preferred an indefinite cancel until I could see light at the end of the tunnel, but they were obviously just trying to keep the number of lessons to a minimum. In that extra time, the lad took just three 1 hour lessons (with several cancellations). He couldn’t do any of the manoeuvres correctly, nor were they getting better very quickly, and the pressure to get him to test standard with yet another idiotic test date looming was huge. To be honest, since he also just wanted to “have a go”, the pressure was much worse for me. I had also discovered since taking him on that in the case of reversing into a corner he strongly believed that when the kerb was coming towards him in the mirror then it was moving away in reality (honestly, he said exactly this), and it meant that every single time we did it he would repeatedly and determinedly steer the wrong way (or in random directions if he tried to think about it). With the test only weeks away, and a couple more hours of lessons at best, I couldn’t see how I’d be able to fix this and everything else in time.
The last straw came on his final lesson with me. I asked him to follow the road ahead at a large, very busy, light-controlled junction. As the lights changed we drove into it – and then did an emergency stop right in the middle as he suddenly decided he didn’t know where “straight ahead” was (I stress again that his test was literally a fortnight away). On that same lesson, on three separate occasions I asked him to turn right – either at lights or at junctions with filter lanes – and on every occasion he made no attempt to move the car into the appropriate lane, and would have turned right across other traffic. And no matter how many times we travelled the same road with speed limit changes from 20/30, 30/40, or back again, he would simply not see the signs at least once per lesson and I’d have to intervene. And finally, on that last session, we had a go at reversing into a corner and he just drove straight into the kerb (like he did on every previous lesson).
At that point I terminated the lesson and went to speak to his father. I told him that the lad simply wasn’t ready and that they should just cancel the test and not put him under such pressure. Yet again, the father repeated that he “just wanted him to have a go [at the test]” – at least the fourth time he had said it to me. Yet again, I made it clear that I was not taking him to test because he had no chance of passing as things were. My argument about unfair pressure on the lad was totally lost on this guy. I never heard from them again, and my blood runs cold at what could happen to this obviously vulnerable young man if he goes to test or – worse – if he passes too soon and is as unpredictable on the road as the lady I mentioned above.
What makes it particularly annoying is that my aim is to get pupils to test standard quickly and efficiently. I’m fully aware that learning to drive is expensive, so I push them hard to get them up to a safe standard. If I ever thought I was milking people for money then I’d give the job up instantly – my moral code is better than that. And yet with some people this just will not sink in. The guy in question only wanted his son – a young man who obviously had problems – to take a test that I knew he had no chance of passing on the off chance he’d pass, with no regard for what might happen to him if he did. And God knows what stories they’ll be telling their next instructor about me.
One thing is certain, though. I’ll sleep easier now. I wonder if the young lad’s father will? Unfortunately, he is completely clueless about the matter, so I doubt that it will affect him.
Well done to Rich, who passed today first time with just two driver faults.
Rich was a recommend – I also taught his cousin when he was studying in Nottingham a couple of years ago – and he’s been a pleasure to work with. What was also nice was how he complimented me on my “scientific” approach – which meant that he could finally master the manoeuvres.
Anyway, that puts my pass rate for the year at 70% (30 passes), with 20 of those being first timers. I’m quite happy with that, particularly as the last 10 have all been first timers. It’s what makes this job so enjoyable.
I originally wrote this back in 2013, but it has become popular recently (late 2022).
Someone found the blog on the term “I just passed my ADI part 3 and don’t know what to do next”.
It’s also a common question on the forums, alongside “should I become an ADI? – which I explain in great detail here. The stock answer from the illuminati is that you shouldn’t do it, quickly followed by various diatribes about franchises, how you should strike out on your own and not pay any money to anyone else for either your training or your workload. But you don’t want to hear that, nor should you have to – you’ve passed your Part 3 and you want to know how to move forward.
Let’s get a few things straight. People have failed at this job since the dawn of time. That’s because if you can’t get the work (i.e. turnover) then you’ll simply go under. That was as true 20 or 30 years ago as it is now. The only thing that’s different is that it is perhaps a little harder to get the work these days – not only because there are more ADIs around (though this is less of a problem than the illuminati would have everyone think), but also because those that are already doing the job are offering silly prices, and also that many new learners tend to go for established, recommended, or easily found instructors or schools.
Running any business is very straightforward. All you need is a) products to sell, and b) customers who want to buy them. It’s no different running a driving school – by passing Part 3 you have your product, but the trick now is finding customers to sell it to.
The information you get from forums (superseded by social media nowadays) is highly misleading. That’s because few ADIs will ever be open and honest about how difficult it was to get started, or how difficult it is to remain in business. Most haven’t got a clue how well they are actually doing at it, even when they’re doing badly. Over the years I’ve watched many of them claim to be setting the world on fire, only to watch them go through not having enough work, having too little work, thinking of becoming bus drivers, and finally… becoming bus drivers! And yet those same people will still advise you to do what they did and start out completely independent, even though it clearly hasn’t worked for them.
They’ll claim to have gone independent from the moment they passed Part 3 (which in some cases is a plain lie), got a full diary within weeks (which is usually a massive exaggeration), and say they have a “waiting list” of several months (which is just nonsense, because if someone wants to start taking lessons they aren’t going to hang around until you become free). Even if there were ADIs who genuinely did do all that they claim in the timeframe they mention (and in the here and now – not 30 years ago), the simple truth is that for 99.9% of all other ADIs it was harder and took much longer.
A lot of people ask me for advice, and this is what I tell them.
Go for it!
You passed your Part 3 after spending all that money on training. Now go and make a success out of it – because it IS possible.
Know your financial targets
No rocket science here. Know how much you need to earn (as distinct from how much you’d like to earn), and work from there. Don’t plan on getting a full diary from Day One – you’ll only end up disappointed. Success is about making a living and not about working 60 hours a week. Of course, if you do get a full diary and end up working 60 hours a week, treat it as a huge bonus.
Check local AA lesson prices
Being a national school, the AA’s prices are a useful barometer. If the standard hourly rate for your area is £28 or more then you are likely to be able to get work. If the AA rate is less than that then you may have more difficulty finding work and will have to allow a little extra time for your plan to dominate the world.
Franchise or independent?
If you need to pay bills you would have to be insane to rule out joining a franchise – at least in the beginning. If you can generate all your own work, being independent is easily the cheapest option. However, all those failed and struggling ADIs out there thought that they could generate the work, too. It isn’t that easy.
How do I advertise myself?
One way or another it will cost you. It’ll cost you time, and it will cost you money. Unless you have plenty of both to spare, a franchisor will be able to spend the money more effectively and will likely be able to obtain a better return on the investment than you could achieve on your own. You can use your time on a franchise to improve your reputation and brand image, and then cut the apron strings when you think you’re ready. That might take anything up to several years – but at least you’ll be growing your business.
So I can do that myself, right?
In theory, yes you can. But as I have already pointed out, the job market is full of failed ADIs who were absolutely convinced that they – for the first time in recorded history – would do something no other ADI has ever managed (though many have attempted), and corner the entire market whilst simultaneously sending all franchises to hell. Honestly, just about every new ADI thinks in terms of hanging on to all that lovely money from their pupils. That’s why you’re asking this question in the first place, because a little voice inside your head is advising you to pocket every penny without any consideration for how you will actually get those pennies. You can spend hundreds – even thousands – of pounds on advertising and get absolutely no work out of it as a result. If you can afford to gamble with failure like that, by all means go ahead – but you have been warned.
Big franchise or little franchise?
Ultimately, getting work all comes down to advertising. Even the smallest of local franchises will probably be able to advertise more effectively than a solo ADI could. As the size of the school increases, the amount they spend also increases – but so does the return on that spend. The large national and semi-national schools can produce hard-hitting campaigns which attract a lot of interest.
Are there any guarantees?
Absolutely not. A franchisor cannot guarantee work anymore than a solo ADI can guarantee it. However, it is fair to say that if a large franchisor is having difficulties, anyone trying to operate independently in the same area will likely be having it worse. So conversely, in a more realistic climate where there is work to be had, the franchisor will probably have more success getting it than the average solo instructor.
Undercutting gets me more work, right?
In theory, yes. In practice, no – and it also reduces your profits. You see, it’s all very well knocking a few pennies off the lesson rate and playing the supermarket game of labelling things at £29.95 instead of £30, but what happens when everyone is doing it and you have to drop down to maybe £23.95 in order to distinguish your product? Because then you’ll be earning up to £7 less for each lesson, and since you’ll have done it in the first place because you’re not getting enough hours in, you’ll have cut your turnover by around 25%. And I can assure you that any work you do attract will not offset that lost income. At best, you’ll simply end up doing more work for less money. Go down this path and you’re well on the road to ruin.
But don’t pupils want cheap lessons?
Oh yes. People would like cheap everything – until they actually get it, and then they realise that below a certain threshold you get exactly what you pay for. You see, the going rate for lessons which provide value for money for all those concerned IS around £30 per hour. At that price, the instructor can deliver a good lesson. As soon as you start chipping away at that the first thing to suffer is the instructor’s income. In order to rectify that – and in the face of probably still not getting enough new work to counteract the reduced prices – the instructor has to reduce his business overheads, and the largest overhead (apart from the car) is undoubtedly fuel costs.
What’s in a name?
Cutting fuel costs means doing less driving, and that means slower learning. And since pupils aren’t stupid, many will twig early on that they’re being held back – perhaps not deliberately, but still held back – and start looking for another instructor. This time around they’ll think twice about going for a cheap one and opt for a larger local or national school. And many first-time learners think like that right from the start and choose a big name – often on the strength of mum or dad’s advice. So there is quite a lot in a name.
Is it worth it?
If you put the hours in and can afford to be patient, yes. Definitely. But you aren’t going to get very far if this is going to be your main source of income and you are planning to do every school run for your own kids, or not work evenings or weekends, and so on. Even when you’re busy, maybe doing 30-40 hours a week, work can drop to below 20-25 hours the next week just like that due to test passes or cancellations. It can then take anything from days to months to creep back up again – it depends on all sorts of factors that are totally beyond your control. It’s the price you pay for being self-employed.
But how much can I earn?
The sums are quite simple, and depend on how many hours of lessons you can deliver. Let’s assume that it will cost you £100 a week just to keep a car on your driveway (and it WILL cost about that for a half decent car, no matter what the illuminati try and tell you).
If you do a fixed 20 hours of lessons at £30 an hour you will turn over £600, less the cost of the car and about £130 for fuel. That will earn you about £18,000 a year before tax.
You can pro rata that calculation for any number of worked hours as long as you increase the fuel allowance accordingly.
However, there is no way you can just dial up your working hours – you might get 40 one week, then 20 for the next couple of months. and dial up a salary like that. As I have already said, you could have 40 hours one week (I’ve had over 50 hours a few times), and then see it fall to less than 25 hours for reasons totally out of your control the next. Once you’re established, you will probably average about 30 hours per week in a typical year.
Franchise costs vary. In some cases, you provide your own car and then pay the franchisor to have their livery and advertising work done for you. In others, you pay a franchisor to supply a car and everything else apart from the fuel. If you took out a franchise with a big school like the AA, you’d be paying up to £200 a week for the car, so that annual before-tax wage for 20 hours would be about £14,000.
Don’t look down your nose at franchises! I’ve tried to make it clear that the theoretical £19,000 for 20 hours depends on everything working perfectly. The chances are you wouldn’t get anywhere near as many hours by yourself when you first qualify are remote, so £14,000 is not to be sniffed at.
The bottom line
Consider starting out on a franchise until you learn the ropes. Don’t dismiss the option outright, otherwise you may not be in the game in a year’s time (just like the people who are advising you to go solo now). Once you can let go, do it. But only go independent when you’re certain you can stand on your own feet. Do it too soon and you’ll likely end up throwing all the hard work involved in getting your badge down the drain.
This BBC story tells of an apparently “hi-tech” solution “invented” by a woman from a company called Blaze. It isn’t hi-tech at all – not unless you class everything incorporating a laser as hi-tech.
60W and 100W equivalent LED bulbs to replace annoying low-power fluorescent bulbs (which take time to reach full brightness, amongst other things).
get to see them again a couple of years ago up in Glasgow after more than 30 years! They were just as good as they ever were.
anymore than you can count of winning the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket!
car and asked if I’d take her out to get used to it.
(with several cancellations). He couldn’t do any of the manoeuvres correctly, nor were they getting better very quickly, and the pressure to get him to test standard with yet another idiotic test date looming was huge. To be honest, since he also just wanted to “have a go”, the pressure was much worse for me. I had also discovered since taking him on that in the case of reversing into a corner he strongly believed that when the kerb was coming towards him in the mirror then it was moving away in reality (honestly, he said exactly this), and it meant that every single time we did it he would repeatedly and determinedly steer the wrong way (or in random directions if he tried to think about it). With the test only weeks away, and a couple more hours of lessons at best, I couldn’t see how I’d be able to fix this and everything else in time.
Well done to Rich, who passed today first time with just two driver faults.
