Diary Of An ADI - A Driving Instructor's Blog

Don’t Spill That Drink!

01/01/2013

Some strange things come in on the newsfeeds. A recent one was from a Yahoo! question someone had asked about a film they saw where the driving examiner put a cup of coffee on the dashboard and told the candidate they would pass if they didn’t spill any during the test.

Apparently, the film (American) was called License to Drive (1988), and you can see the clip on YouTube.

I use the same technique sometimes. Not with an actual drink – I’d just get wet if I did that – but if I have a pupil who tends to drive and brake a bit unevenly (e.g. “like a sack of spanners falling down some stairs” is one description I have used before), I might suggest that they imagine they have a cup of tea sitting on the dashboard and that they should try to avoid sloshing any of it into the saucer as they move off and stop. It’s surprising how often it works.

Mind you, before the benefits have kicked in there are other occasions where if we’d been using a real cup and saucer it would have ended up through the windscreen and 20 feet down the road.

Body Mass And Alcohol Tolerance

01/01/2013

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, News

This time of year, all the newspapers are filled to the brim with stories about alcohol – primarily because it’s also the time when the police launch their Christmas and New Year drink drive campaigns.

If you search the internet, just about every source says that body mass affects direct alcohol absorption, and that generally, smaller people will be affected by less alcohol than larger people. The sources in question are reputable, and include scientific references. This one, for example, is by the Indiana School of Medicine and it says:

There are gender differences in body composition, with women having a lower proportion of total body water compared to men, even if they have the same weight. Thus, if a woman and a man, who both have the same weight, consume the same amount of alcohol, the woman would achieve higher blood alcohol levels compared to the man.

And the American National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) says:

Regardless of how much a person consumes, the body can only metabolize a certain amount of alcohol every hour (2). That amount varies widely among individuals and depends on a range of factors, including liver size (1) and body mass.

These are just two examples I quickly found via Google – there are many, many more all saying more or less the same thing. That’s why people frequently talk of body mass when they refer to how quickly someone can get drunk. What you’ve eaten, and how much, also affects alcohol absorption.

So it comes as a bit of a surprise to see a story in the newsfeeds which says Body Size Doesn’t Affect Drink Driving Limit, Research Reveals.

In actual fact, the “research” consisted of the following:

A man weighing 11st 6lb (73kg) and just under 5ft 10in (177cm) tall and a woman weighing 9st 6lb (60kg) and 5ft 5in (165cm) were tested after consuming the same amount of alcohol.

Let me just explain that this is absolutely not “research”. It’s no better than using a questionnaire given to 10 people coming out of the local Conservative Club and using the results to determine what the outcome of a General Election would be. And it’s laughable that the Huffington Post should be so stupid as to effectively do exactly that by believing Direct Line – the people pretending to be “researchers” in this case – and reporting this utter nonsense.

Direct Line’s “data” prove absolutely nothing that could be applied to the general population.

Drinking and driving is stupid, so don’t do it. But don’t make stuff up to try and lever it.

Parking On Hills

31/12/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Training

Concerning parking your car on hills and slopes, Driving: The Essential Skills (TES) says:

If you park your vehicle on a slope, remember the following.

Parking facing uphill –

Stop your vehicle as close as you can to the nearside kerb, if there is one.

Leave your steering wheel turned to the right. If the vehicle rolls backwards, the front wheels will be stopped by the kerb.

If there is no kerb, leave your steering wheel turned to the left. If the vehicle rolls back it won’t roll across the road.

Leave the vehicle in first gear with the parking brake firmly applied.

Parking facing downhill –

Leave your steering wheel turned to the left. The kerb should stop any forward movement.

Leave your vehicle in reverse gear with the parking brake firmly applied.

The logic behind this is simple. Facing uphill with a kerb, the front wheels will chock against it before the car picks up enough speed to mount it, and the car will stop. If you point your wheels to the left, the car will first of all roll away from the kerb in an arc and also pick up speed – so it will roll first of all into traffic, and possibly pick up sufficient velocity to mount the pavement or travel far enough back to hit someone or something.

Obviously, if there is no kerb, the lesser of two evils is to have it roll into the verge and not into oncoming traffic, hence the reason for pointing your wheels to the left in that case.

And you leave it in the gear which is the opposite to the direction the car will roll – in this case first, as it will roll backwards if there is a problem with the handbrake.

When facing downhill, you point your wheels to the left so that the kerb will again act as a chock. There is no need for a separate clause for when there is no kerb because you will want the car to roll the same way, away from traffic.

And in this case, you leave it in reverse, since the car will want to roll forwards if the handbrake fails.

I can see no reason to go against this advice.

Irish Quotas On The Cards?

31/12/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, Driving Tests, News, World

OK, I admit I’m stirring it with that title, but hot on the heels of that last story from Ireland comes this one announcing proposed changes to the Irish system.

The bit at the bottom is bound to stir up a hornets nest:

Currently, test pass rates vary hugely from centre to centre, with almost half of all learners failing the test.

For example, in 2011, 68 per cent of drivers passed the test in Ennis, Co Clare, but just 40 per cent passed in Kilkenny and in Rathgar, Dublin.

While the RSA defends the variation, it is understood next year’s review will tackle the issue “to ensure uniformity of the driving test”.

Oh dear! They even put it in inverted commas, so they know already what will happen. Let’s just hope someone in Ireland understands the true implications of varying pass rates and doesn’t just end up blaming it on the examiners. And let’s also hope they understand the implications of foisting variances on Irish examiners employed by a system which is less than two years old, and which replaced total anarchy.

Giving Learners A Chance – Irish Style

31/12/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, Driving Tests, News, World

This came in on the newsfeeds. It’s a letter to the Irish Times from someone who doesn’t have a clue.

It’s worth pointing out that from what I am told by my Irish pupils, until last year the standard way of obtaining a licence in Ireland was to get a provisional, take one driving lesson, and then drive for the rest of your life without fear of any legal comeback whatsoever. And I’m not making that up. It was possible to get a full licence, but it didn’t require much effort (and the “effort” wasn’t necessarily the kind that involved passing a test). Documentation was almost non-existent.

Ireland was forced into line by the EU – which was a good thing, because in the early part of this century, tax breaks meant that there was a lot of Irish labour over here, and being members of the EU meant that they could drive in the UK with no restrictions. The overall standard demonstrated was absolutely appalling. Again, I’m not making that up – though I’m sure that crazy woman from Manchester who wrote to me a while back is hyperventilating over the fact that I have said it.

I’ve reported before on the typical attitude of older Irish drivers. In that story from 2011, a 61-year old failed to get a test fail reversed in court (it was his seventh appeal against being failed), and his defence was based solely on the fact that he had “been driving for 44 years”.

As of April 2011, anyone obtaining a learner permit in Ireland for the first time is required to do mandatory training, and must be accompanied at all times by a qualified driver who has held their licence for at least 2 years.

Anyway, the letter I mentioned runs as follows:

Sir, – Your Front Page article (December 11th) states there are 271,000 learner drivers in this country. That a recent Garda operation found 50 per cent of learner drivers were driving unaccompanied is hardly surprising.

Why do learner drivers feel it is necessary to break the law? Perhaps most of them have no choice. It is rare that a job is to be found within walking or cycling distance of one’s home. Outside the cities, public transport is minimal. Even in the cities, public transport is often not suitable. A qualified driver may not be available, or a lift with someone going your way. The job may not pay enough to justify renting a dwelling closer to it.

Instead of criminalising learner drivers with penalty points and €1,000 fines, it might be better if the Road Safety Authority produced a TV series on how to be a better and safer driver, which would be shown regularly on TV and the internet. Then anyone, of any age, at any time, could revise their driving skills. Keep the compulsory driving lessons. Also, perhaps all learner drivers could be restricted to a maximum of 65km/h, with penalty points awarded for breaking that particular law or non-display of L-plates.

Finally, something which the Government might understand. If you can’t get to work, how can you take up that job and pay tax to the Government? If 271,000 decided not to drive, that’s 271,000 fewer road taxes to be collected, 271,000 fewer insurance policies to be sold, less excise duty and VAT at 91 cent per litre. God only knows how much would be lost to the exchequer.

There is a problem with driving standards in this country, but criminalising and beating down learner drivers starting out in life is not the most effective way of going about it.

I have had a full driving licence since 1993 and am not writing merely because I am a learner driver. – Yours, etc,

What this guy is advocating is a return to the old system! To let learners drive unsupervised for as long as they want – but to produce a TV series to “educate” them by way of a smokescreen.

He completely fails to understands that the reason the new Irish system is not being adhered to is precisely because of the cowboy operation it used to be. He is the worst kind of modern-day, namby-pamby liberal – the kind that gets whatever country they live in into a mess to begin with by trying to remove barriers on grounds of “rights” and “civil liberties”. The reason so many are flouting the law is because that’s the kind of people they are! We have that sort over here, too, and they regularly appear on the cop shows on TV.

One suspects that in spite of his last sentence and disclaimer over any vested interest, there just might be someone he is thinking of when he writes what he has written.

Ronny Edry: Nobel Peace Prize Candidate?

31/12/2012

DOAADI

General

Ronny Edry is an Israeli graphic designer. He shared this poster (left) on Facebook, and the Iranians responded in kind (right).

Maybe there is hope for the world with people like this guy (and those who can accept his sentiments openly). From media coverage, you’d never think that there were peace-loving Israelis and Iranians out there.

You can view his Facebook page here. It has become something of a phenomenon, as this site shows. Edry simply has to be the No. 1 candidate for a Nobel Peace Prize for this simple but effective gesture.

What a brilliant way to end 2012.

Young Driver Fatalities To Be Fixed By A Computer Simulation?

30/12/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, News, Training

I wrote a couple of months ago about how DriveIQ was using raw emotions to try and push its product. They were using the bereaved mother of a girl, who was killed after driving into a tree at 80mph, in order to clearly imply that use of its software would have prevented that tragedy and all others like it!

Well, this story in the Mail suggests that they’re at it again.

In typical Mail fashion, it is hailed as a “new weapon”, when in fact it has been around for several years in more or less the form it exists in now – the only thing that’s “new” is that the Mail has got hold of it. But the really unsavoury part is that they’re now using a disabled – but, naturally, highly photogenic – teenager to suggest that what happened to her wouldn’t have if she’d have had DriveIQ available to start with. Reading between the lines there is the clear suggestion that her training (and that of all other new drivers) was somehow lacking, and this is particularly galling when you consider how DriveIQ started – as a2om, who tried to claim that it’s then-salaried instructors were better than anyone else.

The whole story is misleading rubbish.

The girl’s accident involved a car full of drunken teenagers leaving a party, speeding off (her words), flipping into a field, and rolling repeatedly (which suggests grossly excessive speed). Other important details are missing.

I can absolutely guarantee that at no point during her original lessons would she have been told that this was OK, or in any way acceptable behaviour on the roads. I can also guarantee that she will have known that speeding and distraction were dangerous. Only the most stupid of people would not. The problem is that they choose to ignore it and do whatever the hell they want.

The title of the Mail story is:

New weapon in the war against the biggest killer of young people: The cyber road test that stops teenage drivers making the mistake that left me paralysed for life

The story includes lines such as:

Traditional driving lessons concentrate on the technical skills needed to pass the test but have failed to evolve to prevent statistics that show 19 out of 20 road accidents are caused by poor attitude and behaviour, not vehicle-handling skills.

Drive iQ was developed to fill the gaping void in the current learning process.

In our Drive iQ test, Lauren [a new driver] had failed to recognise the dangers we were in [and “crashed”], despite having passed the test to hold a UK licence. If the situation had been real, Lauren would have helped bolster the shocking statistic that one in five young people crashes in the first six months of driving.

If I had had the opportunity to watch the simulation of a crash like mine play out on a computer screen, my life would have turned out very differently.

All of this is highly misleading, and incredibly naive. The author (the disabled girl in question) could have been saved by other, much more reliable ways. How?

Well, if the minimum driving age had been higher, she wouldn’t have been driving that day. If there had been a curfew on young drivers, she probably wouldn’t have been driving from a party (assuming it was a night time party). And if there had been a ban on young drivers carrying passengers, then the distractions she was subject to wouldn’t have been there in the first place. And if she had been driving a car fitted with a black box, she would have been a bit less likely to be driving at such high speed. Most of these things definitely would have prevented her from having an accident on that day. And others would have reduced the risk dramatically.

But there is no way that a computer simulation could make the same claims.

I’m not saying that road safety shouldn’t be taught in schools, and I’m not saying that DriveIQ is useless. But the claims being made for these things are just total rubbish!

The article also mentions the fact that the teenage brain doesn’t properly mature until the early to mid-20s, and still doesn’t make the connection that this cannot be hurried by sitting in front of a computer.

Words Of Un-wisdom On Lesson Duration

30/12/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Training

I noticed a debate on a forum about the best lesson duration. Someone has posted that pupils can’t concentrate for more than 40 minutes and suggested that that is the best lesson length. The same person has subsequently posted that two 1 hour lessons is better than one 2 hour lesson.

For a start off, every learner is different. Some have difficulty concentrating for more than five minutes, and you can’t help but wonder if these should be driving at all, because they’re going to have the same issues when they’ve got a full licence. However, the majority of pupils have no trouble doing a 2 hour lesson, and to suggest that they stop learning after 40 minutes is absolutely stupid.

Sure, if you spend an entire lesson repeating the same thing over and over again – and unfortunately, many instructors do structure their lessons like that – then yes, the pupil is having to concentrate hard and it’s highly likely that mental fatigue is going to creep in very quickly. It’s not the pupil’s fault – it’s the instructor’s, for not conducting their lessons properly.

Taking the manoeuvres as an example, I usually do not like to spend more than about 15 minutes on any one, because I’ve found that after two or three attempts other mistakes (like missed observations) start to creep in, and any improvements are overshadowed. Not with all pupils, but certainly with a lot of them. If we have one try, and it’s better than last time, I leave it and move on to something else.

When I pick a pupil up for a lesson, frequently they live somewhere where it is not possible to cover whatever it is we’re going to cover. So we have to travel – to find roundabouts, busy roads, dual-carriageways, junctions, an industrial estate, and so on. It can take 15-20 minutes driving on very familiar routes – boringly familiar, if you just stay there – to get to the trickier ones. Then, and only then, can the lesson begin properly. The leisurely drive to and from the location requires very little concentration compared with that required when dealing with something new or difficult, but it allows consolidation of previously learnt skills (especially when other road users provide new experiences) and is valuable in that respect.

Of course, once you get to your intended location, blasting them with roundabout after roundabout, or big junction after big junction, requires a heck of a lot of concentration, and doing that for more than 10-15 minutes without a pause is just asking for trouble. Again, it is down to a proper lesson structure to make it work.

If a pupil just books 1 hour lessons, for many that will only leave about 20 minutes to deal with the main lesson topic once travel to and from the relevant locations is taken into account. If something else happens along the way and you have to stop and discuss it, you’ll have even less time to cover the intended topic. But if they book 1½ or 2 hour lessons then there is plenty of time for a leisurely and constructive consolidation drive followed by a bit of hard work.

For most pupils, a single 2 hour lesson is much more constructive than two 1 hour lessons. In cases where it isn’t, then don’t do them!

And let’s not forget the fact that as ADIs we’re running a business and not a charity. Lesson duration has to be tailored to satisfy some of the instructor’s needs as well as the pupil’s. Longer lessons require less travelling distance between them, so if there are no other issues to consider (like those with poor concentration or limited finances) then longer lessons are better for all concerned.

Wait Until The Fat Lady Sings…!

29/12/2012

DOAADI

General

I’m watching Live Football on the BBC website, alternately pulling out my hair and breathing sighs of relief as Arsenal throw away three leads against Newcastle, then steal the lead a fourth time.

So the score is sitting at 4-3, when this Tweet comes in on the BBC scrolling updates:

SpartanDetritus on Twitter: “Newcastle may have conceded eight goals in a few days but we certainly haven’t been embarrassed in two difficult away games against Man Utd and Arsenal.”

About 2 seconds later the score goes to 5-3, and three minutes after that 6-3. Finally, 7-3 in the 90th minute (Theo Walcott hat-trick).

I think SpartanDetritus (aka Jonny) may have spoken a little too soon!

Let’s Believe Some Rumours

29/12/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Driving Tests, DSA

The universe was formed about 15 billion years ago. About 2 minutes after that, certain people began to disagree with everything the DSA said, and have kept on repeating this disagreement at every conceivable opportunity up to the present day.

The latest example involves the rumour that from some time next year the DSA is going to remove the option to book your theory test by telephone.

As you can imagine, those whose existence stretches back beyond the age of the dinosaurs, and whose only purpose in life is to fill their colostomy bags at the mere mention of “DSA”, are far more prepared to believe a rumour of this sort – probably heard from another fossil in the test centre waiting room – than they are to worry about simple things like facts.

In fact, if you go to the DSA’s Facebook page, they have made it abundantly clear that they are revamping their online systems, and have stated in black and white that people who cannot or will not use the internet will still be able to book by telephone.

Hold on. You mean there are people who refuse to use online services? Absolutely there are – and many of them are the same fossil artefacts I mentioned at the start of this story, whose repetitive opposition to the DSA becomes so tiresome.

The DSA has made one fundamental mistake in my opinion. On it’s Facebook page it says:

We’ll be encouraging everyone who can use digital services independently to do so. When people phone us in future, we’ll first offer them help to use the digital service. If they are unable to for any reason, they’ll be able to complete their transaction over the phone as they do now.

This doesn’t involve the total capitulation that the fossil-brains are always looking for, and so no doubt they will continue to whinge and whine about it as though the original accusation were true. We shall see.

For everyone else out there, it’s far simpler to book online than it is by phone anyway. If you can get online, don’t be foolish – use it to book your tests. If you genuinely cannot get online then you can still book by phone (bearing in mind that you may have a long wait if the lines are busy).