DSA: Better Rehabilitation For Drunk Drivers

06/12/2012
DOAADI
Bad Drivers, DSA, Training

An email alert from the DSA confirming plans to “improve drink-drive rehabilitation”.

It’s actually the government, not specifically the DSA, who is doing this.

Road Safety Minister Stephen Hammond said:

“Most drivers are safe and responsible but there is a reckless minority who put lives in danger by drink driving and those drivers need to be tackled effectively.

“We are currently consulting on a package of tough measures to crack down on drink drivers, including removing their right to demand a blood or urine test. We also need to reduce the likelihood of re-offending, and providing all offenders with access to effective drink-drive rehabilitation courses is an important part of this.”

The way of reducing the likelihood of re-offending is to take their licences away permanently. That’s because most of them will re-offend – or just not get caught.

You can read the full report here.

The Kiwis Have Lost It, Big Time!

06/12/2012
DOAADI
Bad Drivers, Funny, General, News, World

This came through on the newsfeeds. Apparently, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in New Zealand has – for some unfathomable reason – decided to teach dogs how to drive a vehicle. I won’t call it a “car”, because it isn’t.

Apparently, it’s a publicity stunt aimed at showing dog owners thinking of abandoning their pets how intelligent they are. This doesn’t even go half way to explaining why it is therefore necessary to teach them to drive.

To the lesser mind, the suggestion that dogs are “intelligent” enough to drive naturally implies that they could also compete with humans on the professional sports front, become airline pilots, and become eligible to vote. Perhaps in New Zealand, but anywhere else…?

It’s a monumental waste of (New Zealand) money.

Driving Is For Adults, Not For Children: I

06/12/2012
DOAADI
ADI, Bad Drivers, Driving Tests, News, Training

These things are multiplying like fungus at the moment (link now dead) – another scheme aimed at encouraging children to want to drive cars before they’re physically and mentally developed enough to deal with it.

Pick of the quotes:

The Goodyear scheme teaches young people theoretical aspects of the Highway Code and practical road safety skills ahead of their 17th birthday when they can officially take their tests.

This suggests that by taking lessons before they’re 17 they can pass immediately they open their prezzies on the day. And this one from a 15-year old:

When in the car with my friends or family I might think about how difficult it is to drive and the rules they have to drive to. I’m really excited to take my test, pass and get a car.

I wonder if he (or those like him) will be able to contain their excitement until they can legally and safely drive?

Apparently, this is all down to some idiotic EU directive which, in turn appears to be seeded by some idiotic EU members who have minimum driving ages of 16 (with parents supervising). Those between 11 and 16 can take part.

Like the title says – and as I’ve stated more than once – driving is for adults, not for children. And I’ve added the “I” because I can see this one running and running.

Does Alcopal Work? (Update)

05/12/2012
DOAADI
Bad Drivers, General, News

Since I wrote about Alcopal a few months ago, I must admit that I haven’t kept my eye on its website (although this blog still gets a lot of hits via the search engines).Snake Oil label

However, today I received a press release from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) listing its weekly adjudications, and Alcopal was one of them. It seems that the purveyors of Alcopal have been busy re-writing their claims on their website, because the ones that have been ruled against definitely weren’t there when the story first broke in the summer.

It seems that gobbledegook has become the order of the day, and the site was now advertising the following:

Be CAREFUL if you’re considering DRINKING then DRIVING Going out to celebrate or just having a good time? ‘Be Careful’ if you’re driving. Always take ALCO-PAL with you … Take the recommended dose and it could make all the difference if you’re breathalyzed [sic] ALCO-PAL helps to reduce the alcohol breath you expel from your lungs. Alcopal effectively reduces and prevents the absorbtion [sic] of alcohol from the inner lining of the stomach and intestine into the systemic flow (blood stream). This helps in reducing the burden on the liver and kidneys. Please note if you are way over the recommended alcohol limit this product will not help you.

How contradictory can you get? They actually state that it won’t help you if you’re over the limit, and yet they state that it can drop your breath-alcohol level to within-limit if it is outside! Of course, I explained why it didn’t work in my previous article.

The ASA has upheld the complaint from RoSPA and told Alcopal that they must not advertise this again. Note what ASA says in their ruling:

…while the ad included the text “Please note if you are way over the recommended alcohol limit this product will not help you”, its overall impression was that the product could help consumers bypass the law and that drinking and driving was therefore acceptable. We considered the text “Please note if you are way over the recommended alcohol limit this product will not help you” was likely to be interpreted as suggesting the product could help consumers who were over the legal limit for driving, provided they were not “way over”. We considered that text, combined with the other claims, encouraged consumers to drink and drive and thereby incited them to break the law. We also noted the ad suggested the effects of drinking alcohol could be masked. For those reasons, we concluded that the ad was irresponsible.

The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 1.3 (Responsible advertising), 1.10 (Legality) and 4.6 (Harm and offence).

You can view the full ruling here.

Just When You Thought The Olympics Was Over…

04/12/2012
DOAADI
General, News

…Kate goes and gets pregnant! (That’s the Duchess of Cambridge – Prince William’s wife – to my non-UK visitors).

Now we’re going to have to endure 9 months of BBC boot-licking on this subject, which kicked off well this morning with the entire breakfast show dedicated to interviewing people who just said “it’s wonderful news”. And reporters standing pointlessly in the cold outside the bloody hospital. And on the radio, the same nauseous gush from women who “are pregnant just like Kate”.

A warning to the BBC and Daily Mail: if you overdo it you will start turning the public off the Royals. Even the most loyal of Daily Mail readers is only going to put up with blanket coverage for so long, and that’s saying something.

I wonder if there’ll be a “souvenir pull-out” in any of the weekend papers? Jeez. Then there will be all those commemorative plates and coins in the back pages.

I think I’ll emigrate.

Sky On Demand + BBC iPlayer

01/12/2012
DOAADI
Computers & Tech, Movies & TV

I saw on the BBC News this morning – well, between the news and something else – that you can get BBC iPlayer shows on your TV now. It didn’t say how, but this was something I simply had to get set up. It would irk me if I didn’t.

So, I did a bit of trawling and found the usual load of crap, bitching about Sky, and misleading rubbish on the various forums.

In actual fact, to get iPlayer, this is what you have to do. It was really rather easy after all.

  1. Go to www.sky.com/tvondemand and activate the service (it’s free).
  2. Connect an ethernet cable between your Sky box and your broadband router.
  3. On your Sky box, go to Services >> On Demand (red button) >> Options >> Customise. Set Broadband Connection to ON.

And that’s it. Once Sky activates your service (mine took less than 2 minutes), when you go back into Services and press the red button you’ll have an updated menu with Catch Up in  it. From there you can select iPlayer, ITV Player, Demand 5, and various Sky shows. Apparently, more services are planned.

I’m currently watching a great episode of Guitar Heroes (Part V) from the BBC.

Note: You can get wireless boxes direct from Sky (which connect to your router) to avoid cables if that’s what you prefer. They only cost about £20.

My Cat From Hell

01/12/2012
DOAADI
Movies & TV

Between lessons I turned on the TV and caught a programme on Animal Planet (Sky) called My Cat From Hell. It’s hilariously entertaining. Obviously, it’s American – where else would you find someone making a living as a “cat behaviorist” (US spelling)?

I caught the tail-end of one show and only saw the cat in the “after-treatment” mode. There were a few flashbacks to how it used to be, and those were pretty funny. It reminded me of one of our cats who I think was part vampire.

But the second show started and it was brilliant. This ginger tomcat they were featuring was incredible. To start with it was clearly not a normal cat – it had long legs, tigerish stripes and patches, and its paws had thumbs almost as big as mine. It could jump from the floor to the top of the glass shower door in a single bound. It repeatedly attacked its owner on any part of her body it could reach, and it wasn’t playing. There was a shot of it attacking their other cat, and if the owner hadn’t intervened with a spray-bottle of water it looked like it was actually trying to kill – it grabbed the other cat, sank its teeth in, and just wouldn’t let go. It was serious mauling.

But the funny thing was that as the owner chased it with the spray, she was shouting “bad kitty”, bad kitty”. It cracked me up – she needed a SWAT team.

If you like cats and get a chance, watch the programme on Sky channel 525 (Animal Planet HD). Great fun.

Examiner Strike: 30 November 2012

29/11/2012
DOAADI
ADI, Driving Tests, DSA

Just moving this to the top – it’s tomorrow (Friday).

The PCS union fossils are at it again – another strike is planned for 30 November 2012.

The DSA has put out what has become a routine email advising candidates to attend their tests as normal. This is because not all examiners are stupid enough to be members of the union in the first place, and of those that are, they’re not all that stupid that they get involved in strike action.

EDIT 30/11/2012: I can’t believe people are searching for this today – the day of the strike!!!!!!

You need to contact your local test centre or – doing as they have already asked – turn up and hope for the best. You’re not going to get any useful information on the web this late.

Coldest Winter EVER. With Knobs On. 2012 Episode

28/11/2012
DOAADI
General, News

The Daily Mail has lost its primary source of news now that the floods are receding and the rain has moved away. So what can it do next?

Answer: predict the coldest winter for 100 years.

They carefully avoid any direct mention of precisely who it is who is providing this information. Second-rate journos haven’t yet moved into meteorology as a side line as far as I know, so this smacks of the usual suspects providing wild guesses for the Mail’s editors to wet themselves over.

I have recently mentioned Exacta’s annual guess. This one – whoever it is from – is totally different. And we know it isn’t the Met Office, because they stopped doing long range forecasts after getting it totally wrong every time (the Met Office has trouble telling you what the weather is doing right now sometimes).

Also remember that the Mail forecast the same last year and got it totally and utterly wrong – so wrong, it was like calling heads and getting tails.

I love the part in the Mail story about water “blowing upwards”. Big deal. It does that when it’s windy.

No Smoking Signs In Cars

28/11/2012
DOAADI
ADI

You have to smile sometimes.

Vehicles which are primarily used for business purposes by more than one person are legally obliged to display a No Smoking sign. A driving school car will almost certainly be primarily used for business, and by definition will have more than one person in it the vast majority of the time, meaning that it is used by more than one person.

A No Smoking sign costs £0.69 (not much – that price was correct when I wrote this). You only need one of them.

A solicitor who advertises online says:

All vehicles covered by the ban should display no-smoking signs, with the no-smoking symbol at least 70mm in diameter, in each compartment of the vehicle in which people can sit. The penalty for not displaying a sign is a fixed-penalty notice of £200, reduced to £150 if paid within 15 days, or a maximum fine of £1,000 if convicted by a court.

The company has a duty to prevent smoking in smoke free vehicles. The penalty for not doing this is a maximum fine of £2,500 on conviction. Compliance requires that the company take reasonable steps, which in addition to displaying signs as above might include…

There’s not a lot of verbal or literal clutter in there. It isn’t rocket science. Well, it shouldn’t be.

So it always amuses me when you see instructors trying to argue that their school car isn’t a company vehicle, isn’t used primarily for business, or just openly bragging at how they’re never, ever going to display one because it’s against their “rights”. Right on, brother! And for an encore, you could maybe do some stand up comedy for the (non-)amusement of your fellow leftie instructors.

As I say, a clear plastic sign (which peels off easily) costs 69 pence not much. You can stick it where your tax disc holder used to go, or anywhere else where it isn’t obstructing your view.

It’s a 69p cheap sign, for goodness sake!

Do I need a No Smoking sign in my school car?

Technically, you’re breaking the Law if you don’t. However, almost three years since the Law changed, you see loads of people smoking in their works vehicles, even when they have signs installed, so it clearly isn’t being enforced.