Diary Of An ADI

Kylie Innes, 23, passed her driving test on Christmas Eve (link long since dead). On Boxing Day (just), she was stopped by police who had seen her swerving across the A90, near Newtonhill in Scotland. She was 1½ times the drink drive limit.

The usual kind of mitigating circumstances were given – argument with mother, went for drive to clear head (at 1.35am on Boxing Day, of course), got breathalysed… the old story.

She was fined £400 and banned for a year.

It must be close to a world record. At 1.35am on Boxing Day, it must have been less than 18 hours after passing that she was stopped.

You sometimes have difficulty believing what you read – believing that people can be so completely stupid, and unable to learn from previous incidents.

This story came in on the newsfeeds (dead link). A 17-year old male from Brackley was driving a typical pratmobile – an MG Rover ZR – near Banbury, when it left the road. He had four passengers on board (this is a commercial script being played out here, remember, so you’ll have to forgive the similarity to other recent articles), all between 14 and 17.

The driver was treated for minor injuries, arrested, then bailed on suspicion of dangerous driving.

One 14-year old female passenger is in critical condition in hospital. Two boys, aged 16 and 17, are in serious but stable condition. A 15-year old girl has been released from hospital.

The previous story relates to an incident which occurred in 2010, but which has only now been heard in court. This latest one could easily end up being yet another teenage-death story when it is eventually heard.

Police are appealing for witnesses.

Lauren Birkett, 16, was one of three teenagers killed in Mexborough (link now dead), South Yorkshire, as a result of “aggressive driving”. The others were Robert Tepper and Jonathan Scott, both 17.

The survivors in other cars involved provided evidence that was “self serving and supporting of the individuals closest to them”, and “lacking in credibility”, according to the coroner.

In English, that means they were shown to be liars.

Jonathan Scott was the driver of the souped-up Corsa which crashed. The coroner ruled that it was being driven “in a manner that exposed them to risk of serious injury or death and a collision occurred from which they died”

Due to the stupidity inherent in English Law, there was apparently not enough evidence to show that the deaths were due to “dangerous driving”.

Let me just say that again: the car was being driven in a manner exposing the occupants to serious injury or death, but it wasn’t being driven dangerously. English Law, eh? So Scott is deemed to have died “accidentally”.

The story paints a vivid picture of juvenile motoring stupidity. There was an Astra overtaking a Punto, and Scott in his Corsa followed it and lost control. All three cars were being driven in a “competitive and aggressive” way. The Astra and Punto were being driven by two of the surviving individuals (along with their passengers) who the coroner concluded were liars.

Pedestrian witnesses said:

…the cars were driving so close together it looked as if they were ‘tied by a piece of string’.

The coroner rejected evidence (i.e. the lies) that they were all driving within the 30mph speed limit.

A police spokesman said:

Jonathan Scott’s Corsa had a two-litre engine instead of the standard 1.2 litre engine.

It also had bigger brakes fitted which made it more prone to skidding under sudden braking.

It’s difficult to feel any real sympathy, seeing as it is quite possible that if one of the other cars had crashed instead the occupants of the Corsa would perhaps have taken the same line that the occupants of the Astra and Punto have in trying to cover for each other. It was simply another example of young people behaving in precisely the manner that many of them do. No doubt, all of them felt very “cool” while they were acting like idiots.

It is why their insurance is sky-high. And “warnings” about the test getting harder are a joke when you consider that this was deliberate behaviour, and not an accidental event. Insurers should start dealing with these things instead of those which they clearly don’t understand.

Another insurer on the publicity trail again, but Swiftcover reckons that keeping your fog lights on when they aren’t needed (i.e. almost every male driver under the age of 30) leads to “as many as 300,000” accidents and 2,000,000 near misses per annum.

The full press release includes the following figures:

• fog lights caused 300.000 accidents in 2011
• 2m near misses in the same period
• 20% of young drivers leave lights on “because it looks good”

On that last one… I told you so!

Other excuses were that their normal lights weren’t bright enough (but obviously, brighter than they were), and to improve visibility on poorly lit roads. Those under 34 years were most likely to have left lights on “because it looked good” (look, I told you, didn’t I?)

Someone really needs to get it across to them: they don’t look cool with fog lights on. They look like what they are – total prats.

Mind you, I’m not quite sure how Swiftcover can attribute so many accidents just to fog lights. Just as many people driver around with only one light working (so you think there’s a motorbike coming at you), and that’s far more dangerous than fog lights being on.

As if to further pour water on the “warning” in the previous story, this one came in on the newsfeeds. A tragedy already written in stone, so enduring and persistent is it becoming.

Gary Saunders was 24, and last April he was negotiating a bend when he misjudged and crashed into a tree. He had passed his test just 6 weeks earlier. The car had no defects, nor did the road, and no other vehicle was involved.

[the police are]… of the opinion that Mr Saunders misjudged the bend.

His speed may have been excessive for the conditions.

So, yet again the same script is played out, with a young and inexperienced driver going too fast – and losing the bet!

Did Gary Saunders’ performance on the Theory Test – or his revision leading up to it – have any impact on the outcome of the incident? Not one bit of it, and yet the outcome is the very thing that causes the insurance companies to shove premiums sky-high for young drivers, and then start issuing “warnings” about the Theory Test being “harder”.

Memorising Theory Test questions is not the cause of high RTA figures among young drivers. Nor is the quality of their driving lessons involved. The problem goes much, MUCH deeper than that.

The Co-op launched its “black box” scheme in the UK mainland almost a year ago. A week later, Scotland was confusing the issue with ifs and buts about its own teenage crisis.

This story just came through on the news feeds. Northern Ireland is now considering black box technology to try to curb its own problems. Apparently, insurance in NI can be up to 70% higher than in the UK – which I’m sure is a meaningless statistic, since I doubt that this refers to the difference between the highest quotes in the UK and the lowest in NI (more likely, the lowest UK quote and the highest NI one).

What gets me about all these “initiatives” is that the stated target is to reduce insurance premiums.

What then happens is that once the insurance has been brought down, the little morons switch insurers (one without a black box requirement), and start driving like complete prats again.

Just like Pass Plus – when it still brought insurance down – people were doing it ONLY to get the insurance benefits. After that, they just drove like they would have done without having done the course at all. You even had “fit and proper” instructors signing it off without doing the driving, and even now you see instructors (and recently passed drivers) boasting that they “didn’t need to do much for Pass Plus because they’d already done it on their driving lessons”.

The Pass Plus syllabus is quite clear: it is additional training. Driving lesson experience cannot be included on it.

It’s also strange that NI is only “considering” doing it – and a year after everyone else. And that’s in spite of no legislation being needed to implement it.

It isn’t just the bad drivers who have got hold of the wrong end of the stick.