Increasing The Minimum Driving Age… Continued

16/10/2013
DOAADI
ADI, Bad Drivers, DSA, News, Transport

I told you we hadn’t heard the last of this one. It’s going to run, and run… and then run some more. Especially with driving instructors like this opening their mouths.

In spite of almost every organisation welcoming the changes at least in part (though the AA’s spokesman and president is so far removed from reality his views are highly misleading), this driving instructor from Wigan is against it.

But Pat Caulwell, of Gidlow Motoring School, said the recommendations would be punishing the majority of young drivers because of the irresponsible actions of the few.

As I’ve pointed out many times, driving instructors are not usually the sweetest grapes on the bunch, and consequently Mr Caulwell appears incapable of Bunch of grapesunderstanding the concept of risk. Every single driver is a risk. Every single new driver is a bigger risk, and every single young new driver is a huge risk. The accident statistics prove it, and it’s why insurance premiums are higher for young new drivers.

Risk is a probability, not a certainty. If you look at something like a coin toss, where the probability (or risk) of a head or tail is 50:50, then this would equate to a young driver having the same risk of an accident as an experienced one. However, although they only make up 12% of the driving population, they account for 25% of all road deaths and serious accidents – just imagine how many they’d account for if they made up 50% of the driving population! If you compare that to a coin toss, you’re going to be coming up with tails a lot more than heads..

People like Caulwell need to get a grip and face up to the reality that young drivers are a huge risk. Even if the majority manage not to have accidents, they still could. A significant minority do – and since we’re talking about fatalities here, there is much more at stake than a paltry 5 minutes of fame in an obscure rag for someone who doesn’t understand what he’s talking about.

One in five young drivers have an accident of some sort within the first six months of passing their test. Carrying three passengers triples the underlying accident risk. With these fact staring you in the face, airtime should not given to people like Caulwell, who clearly haven’t got a clue. And to hell with namby-pamby nonsense like “working shifts” and “looking for a job”. No one should be allowed to endanger someone else’s life just so they can “work shifts”. When I was younger, I went through several periods of not being able to run a car, but I still got to work whenever I needed to.

A licence is a privilege, not a right. A car is a luxury, not a necessity.

Contact Form

15/10/2013
DOAADI
General

Apologies to those who tried to contact me and found the Contact Form out of action. I am now seriously looking for an alternative script – this one gets updates just about every day, which is totally unnecessary. Somewhere along the line one of the updates changed how the form is implemented and I didn’t realise until today when I thought the number of emails I usually get had dropped. Heaven knows how long it’s been out of action!

It’s working at the moment, though.

Edit: I’m now using a new form script – hopefully, this one won’t be receiving daily updates or syntax changes that don’t get altered automatically.

Microsoft To End Support For Windows XP

15/10/2013
DOAADI
Computers & Tech

Microsoft will no longer support Windows XP from 8 April 2014. I can already imagine the panic that is building at my last company, as they begin – in their An Abacusleviathan style – to start thinking about planning to maybe eventually move up to something else… perhaps. And when they realise the overall cost, someone will have the brilliant idea of going for Lotus Suite (again) instead of Office, because IBM is desperately trying to offload it for peanuts to increase poor sales, and the company I used to work for has such a tight arse, even buying ONE Office licence would have them calling crisis meeting after crisis meeting to “address the issue”.

Thinking back, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were now using abacuses and slide rules anyway. It would have been typical of them to see that as a step forwards.

Migrating systems is not an easy task. In most cases the hardware running XP will be so old it couldn’t run Windows 7 efficiently (or in some cases, at all). When they introduced XP, my first company had to spend a fortune on new hardware. It was funny to see them going through each workstation one-by-one to see if they met the minimum spec, and replacing the boxes as minimally as possible. Oh, and everything ran on 15” CRT monitors.

And the mind boggles at what that same company would do if they looked into moving to Windows 8 with touchscreen capability. Admittedly, my experience of the employees there suggests that touchscreens would definitely be the way to go with them, but the cost…! Oh, the cost!

35% Off DSA Learning Materials

15/10/2013
DOAADI
ADI, Driving Tests, DSA

The DSA is offering 35% off all practical test learning materials until 20 October 2013 to celebrate “Practical Test Week” (how come I hadn’t heard of that?)

Make sure you use the promotional code PT13 when you check out on the TSO website.

Increasing The Minimum Driving Age: Update

13/10/2013
DOAADI
ADI, Bad Drivers, Driving Tests, DSA, News

The Daily Express is going all Daily Mail with this misinformed scaremongering session. It says:

A mandatory requirement for 120 hours of lessons could leave learner drivers footing a bill for £3,360 of lessons before even taking a test.

Some amateur hack with a calculator must have worked that one out. Shame they didn’t have a clue in the first place.

To start with, the number the hack came up with is based on an hourly lesson rate of £28 – and that’s in spite of someone in the article being quoted as saying average hourly rates are £18 (which would add up to £2,160). If instructors are charging £28 an hour in some areas, that’s what the market will stand, and it has no bearing on the rate charged in depressed areas because people there will not be paying £28.

Secondly, the proposals do not say that the entire 120 hours has to be with a driving instructor. Most learners have access to a car for private practice – many who never actually do any private practice still have access to a car if their parents would insure them. If the system changes, then so will the parents have to.

And finally, it will cost more in order to stop people killing themselves – no matter how that is achieved. Is that really as much of a bad thing as the Express and those it is quoting are making out? These lowlife hacks spend their lives whingeing about road deaths, and then oppose any plan to try and change it with rubbish stories like this one.

Idiotic “Research” Involving Alzheimer’s And Driving

13/10/2013
DOAADI
ADI, Bad Drivers, News, World

It’s an unfortunate fact that there are many idiots in this world. This story appears to identify another group of them, located in Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, if this story is anything to go by.

These jokers have concluded that people with “mild forms” of Alzheimer’s can still drive safely. That’s in spite of the statement:

Although road test studies have shown a clear decline in average driving ability with increasing severity of dementia.

It’s like saying that jumping off a cliff is safe, because it’s only the bit where you hit the ground that’s dangerous! But they go even further by only making the comparison against other older drivers without Alzheimer’s – and I can’t think of an analogy convoluted enough to describe that.

Alzheimer’s is progressive. And it affects every one who gets it differently. But even in the early stages the possible symptoms are:

  • forget about recent conversations or events
  • repeat themselves
  • become slower at grasping new ideas
  • lose the thread of what is being said
  • sometimes become confused
  • show poor judgement, or find it harder to make decisions
  • lose interest in other people or activities
  • develop a readiness to blame others for taking mislaid items
  • become unwilling to try out new things or adapt to change.

That’s from the Alzheimer’s Society. And it should be pretty clear that someone who is likely to be slow on the uptake, to become confused or show poor judgement, to make bad decisions, and to become crotchety is not really a prime example of good driver material. Alzheimer’s typically goes from these early stages to the last stages over a period of about 10 years, but it can be much quicker for some people. People in the last stages end up requiring total nursing care.

Older drivers whose health or eyesight is already deteriorating for whatever reason are notoriously unreliable at recognising or admitting to the fact. Those with Alzheimer’s will be at least as unreliable – if not more so – at deciding to admit they should give up driving. So it is quite unbelievable that these “researchers” should come out with something like this – something which cannot possibly make the overall situation on the roads any better, since we’re talking about a negative progression. Alzheimer’s never progresses in a positive direction.

Altruism has no place in deciding whether people with such illnesses should retain their driving licences.

As many recent stories have shown, older drivers are totally safe – right up until one of them gets on to the wrong carriageway of a motorway or other major road (how on earth does someone manage that?) And I for one don’t like the idea of playing Russian Roulette every time I go out.

The “research” is irresponsible and misleading.

People with Alzheimer’s deserve care and respect – but not a driving licence.

American Roundabouts

13/10/2013
DOAADI
ADI, News, Transport, World

Almost two years ago, I wrote about North-American Roundabouts, and how they were becoming more popular to the extent that websites about them were appearing. Even back then, some American states were whingeing that they were a “European import” and that they increased accidents. The Americans appear to be even worse than the Brits when it comes to grabbing the wrong end of the snake.

Just because people are stupid doesn’t mean that it is wrong to expect them to do things – even new things – that are better and safer for everyone overall. And using roundabouts is a good example, since they’re  are designed to improve traffic flow in congested areas. But how do you prove that they actually work to people – in this case, an entire nation – who are frightened of them?

Whenever I’m doing the first roundabouts lesson with a pupil I always explain how and why roundabouts keep traffic flowing, whereas simple crossroads (light-controlled or otherwise) don’t. I just explain logically – and it’s enough – but given the Americans’ preference for rigid and inflexible rules (that was the Wall Street Journal’s conclusion in that previous article), more proof is obviously needed for them.

There’s a TV show called Mythbusters (if you search this site you’ll find several stories involving it). They go into detail in proving or disproving common beliefs about everyday things – anything from things which happen in action movies to normal things like traffic accidents. According to this recent news story they have put roundabouts to the test under the premise that they are either “a curse or cure for congested intersections” (in the words of the news item I’ve linked to). The story is brand new, so I would imagine it’ll be a little while before we see the show over here.

Apparently, they have compared a “4-stop intersection” (so, more or less equivalent to a light-controlled junction in UK-speak) with a roundabout. The found that the light-controlled junction averaged 385 vehicles over a 15-minute period compared to 460 vehicles for the roundabout over a similar period. Or in other words, the roundabout allowed 20% more traffic through. The news article, in The Detroit News, concludes:

There are a lot of drivers out there who fear and loathe roundabouts, mainly because they don’t understand them…

…Roundabouts eliminate T-bone and front end crashes. Any crash that does occur is minor because speeds inside roundabouts are usually limited to 25 mph and both vehicles are traveling in the same direction.

The story finishes by referring to how many roundabouts there are in certain cities – they count them in the low tens – and advises that more are coming.

So, roundabouts do improve traffic flow. Someone from America should come over and explain that to the idiots responsible for the “improvements” to Nottingham’s Ring Road, and the Tramicide in Clifton. They’re taking roundabouts out and replacing them with… yep, you guessed it. Traffic lights.

Nottingham City Council is committed to making life as hard as possible for the motorist, while simultaneously introducing absolutely anything that the spotty faced interns from the year’s graduate intake thinks might benefit pedestrians. I note from the Aspley Lane work that although the road is down to one lane (with huge tailbacks) this weekend, they’ve done the important stuff already and installed tactile paving for the dozens of crossings that the junction will now include (it had one before), and that’s even before they’ve built the pavements! And it’s all for the school 200 metres down the road, and for the nearby zoo (sorry, I mean the Broxtowe Estate), not for the tens of thousands of motorists who travel along the Ring Road each day on important business.

You can watch the Mythbusters segment here.

Life Out There?

13/10/2013
DOAADI
Astronomy, General, News

I love these kinds of stories. Every time a new lump of extra-terrestrial rock is found they start going on about how it might hold life. Or might once have held What a housing development on another planet might look likelife. Or might one day hold life.

This time they have made up an even better story. The rock in question, they tell us, was blasted off a planet when its star exploded. Somehow or other – in the minds of these astronomers – this automatically brings up the possibility of life having existed on it at some point past, present, or future. Even though no life has ever been found in order to give such a conclusion any plausibility.

I’ve come to the conclusion there are two types of astronomer. The first kind discovers new things. The second kind makes up stories about new things.

If you ever watch some of those silly “documentaries” on the Discovery Channel – the ones that insist on trying to make astronomy glamorous – you see repeated low-quality animations of what life “may look like”, even though there is no chance of us ever finding out, and only a slightly better chance of there being any life out there at all (and by “slightly better” I mean the astronomers’ premise that life must exist out there somewhere and since you can’t prove it doesn’t, then you’re left with the “fact” that is does.

And they criticise those who blindly believe in any sort of god.

Bulgarian Driving Test Fraud

11/10/2013
DOAADI
ADI, Driving Tests, News, World

This is a story from Bulgaria, about Bulgaria, before the George Flag wavers get all excited. Apparently, from 2014 all Theory Tests in Bulgaria will have to Tablet computerbe completed using tablets (that’s “tablets” like the one shown on the left for any British ADIs looking in, and not the kind you take for incontinence).

This change is coming about due to the discovery that the existing pen and paper test is prone to corruption, and that the entire staff of the Road Administration Agency in Sofia had been found guilty of manipulating test results. Even to the point of opening sealed envelopes and substituting the correct answer sheets. And 80 private driving schools were also involved in the fraud. No one knows how long it had been going on, or how many people had gained licences based on fraudulent results. Nor does anyone know who made how much out of the fraud.

I guess we’ll never know, but I wonder if Bulgaria is suffering the same wave of whingeing that we had over here when the DSA decide to move away from laminated pictures of a few road signs and start using those new-fangled computers? Or like that when they introduced the Hazard Perception Test?