Back in January, I commented on plans to cut the speed limit on certain sections of motorway to 60mph. The argument given by the perpetrators was that it would reduce pollution, which was effectively a knee-jerk reaction to impending EU legislation that has been ignored until the last minute by our Mickey Mouse government. The proposal was all the more stupid because the same government was talking about increasing the limit only three years earlier.
In my article, I showed how the reduction in pollution resulting from lowering the speed limit was a) theoretical, because you can’t drive anywhere near the speed limit most of the day on the stretch of motorway in question; and b) even if you could, you’d be there for longer, and so this cancels out the initial gain completely.
Fortunately, the jokers who are still clinging to power have decided to scrap the idea. Well, “shelved” is the official term used. And quite right, too.
It made me laugh when I saw a single link from a cycling forum (I didn’t know cyclists could write) referring to me as a “petrolhead”, and suggesting I had provided “no citation”. In fact, I had. But what I also did was understand that citation, then apply it to the situation being discussed. It’s a cross you have to bear when you have an education – you know, understanding things with numbers in them, then applying them. That small detail is clearly beyond the wit of the average cyclist.
An internal flight from Washington to Denver was stuck in Wyoming due to a thunderstorm. So the pilot, Gerhard Bradner, ordered pizzas for all 160 passengers. He paid for it out of his own pocket, too (in the UK, I reckon that would come to at least £150).
Almost as heart-warming is the fact that when the airline’s president heard about it, he informed Bradner that he will be fully reimbursed.
That’s what Surepass are advertising! And I wonder how long this advertisement in the Bromsgrove Advertiser stays up if the ASA gets wind of it?
I don’t have a problem with people advertising instructor training. I don’t care if its an individual or a large school, and as long as they qualify their claims, they can dangle whatever carrots they like. The reason for this is that the vast majority of instructors fail at a business level – and that’s assuming that they even make it through the three exams and qualify in the first place.
I’m uneasy about this Surepass advert for several reasons. Firstly, it is advertised under “catering – hospitality” and “retail – wholesale”, and it is described as “job type – permanent”. Being a driving instructor is none of those things. The first two are just clumsy, and the last one is completely wrong (unless Surepass are actually employing salaried instructors now). Instructors are self-employed, not employed.
We’re also back to the old “salary: £20,000 to £30,000 /year” claims. While this isn’t technically wrong, it is extremely misleading. There is no way a £30,000 salary can be guaranteed when the person earning it is selling lessons for £20 an hour, and having to provide a car and fuel. It’s possible, but you simply cannot guarantee it. £20,000 is a far more realistic claim, especially for a new instructor. However, if you look at their instructor pages they also talk of £40,000 and even £45,000 a year gross earnings! Maybe they need a lesson in the differences between turnover and income, as they seem to be getting them mixed up.
Surepass also make some very strong claims. They reckon they have a 90% pass rate for Part 3, and further claim that this is 67% higher than the industry average. They also refer to a “guaranteed income”. As I say, unless they are employing people rather than selling franchises this is a very tenuous claim (the ad actually says you will be franchised).
The advert also refers to a “guaranteed car”, though I couldn’t see a car option in any of their franchise packages, nor is one mentioned on their instructor training pages. The maximum gross earnings figure appears to increase the bigger the franchise you sign up to.
However, the biggest problem with the ad is the use of the word “free”. Every occurrence is marked with an asterisk, which means that there are conditions attached. But nowhere in the ad are these conditions explained. Indeed, when you click the “Apply Now” button, you’re informed that it costs £2,500, and there is still no explanation of the word “free”. I guess that to find out you have to actually apply, and that is surely not right.
I’ve predicted several times this year that there is likely to be a new rush to offer instructor training, and this is the sort of thing I was referring to.
This is in the Irish Independent, but it relates to a UK driver. It reports that a 79-year old man driving a Mitsubishi Shogun was involved in a crash on the A26 in East Sussex last month. When police arranged for a test (not sure if it was roadside, as he had to be cut free from the wreckage after he collided with a lorry), it emerged that he could only read a number plate from a distance of 1 metre!
I can’t even create a scaled graphic to illustrate the severity of this – the red dot arrow is about 3 metres in relation to the longer 20 metre one!
You’re supposed to be able to read a new style number plate at 20 metres (correct at the time of writing), yet this senile idiot – who hasn’t been named, though he should have been – could barely see a plate at less than a 20th of that distance. For all practical purposes, he was blind. His licence was immediately revoked – presumably under Cassie’s Law. At least now this old fool isn’t likely to kill anyone. Hopefully, he will be prosecuted, too.
I have absolutely no sympathy for these people. And still you get those comedians (usually getting old themselves) who believe that older drivers are not worthy of any kind of special testing to make sure they aren’t lying through their teeth about their fitness to drive. It’s “ageist”, they say.
Older drivers are far more likely to become liabilities on the road purely as a function of getting old. It doesn’t matter how poorly new or young drivers behave – it’s a totally separate issue. Nor does it matter how many centuries the decrepit older driver has gone without having an accident. The simple fact is that as we age, we tend towards biological malfunction and eventual collapse (i.e. death). Once you’re over 70, you’re a darn sight closer to total collapse than you are of winning Wimbledon.
Unfortunately, the brain also begins to slide as you get older, and it would appear than this prevents some elderly drivers recognising their weaknesses. Of course, most just knowingly lie in order to keep their licence.
This story beggars belief. Jack Powell was 18, and had passed his test a mere two weeks earlier. He was busy following the script those of his kind live their lives by, and “lost control” of his Renault Clio on a bend.
Just as an aside, there is a massive statistical blip in the accident figures which explains why 17-24 year olds pay sky-high insurance premiums. The most common accident this group experiences is:
on a bend
at night
on a rural road
more than one occupant in the car
no other car involved
In Powell’s case, only the “at night” one was missing from his performance. Unfortunately, although no other car actually caused Powell to lose control, another car did bear the brunt of his pathetic driving skills after he’d lost it.
Kiri Jade Hodgkinson, 14, was a front seat passenger in Powell’s car. She died at the scene. Powell smashed into a Renault Megane travelling the opposite way and this resulted in the death of the passenger, Barbara Ford, 67. A 13-year old girl in the back seat of Powell’s car broke both legs and an ankle. In any right-minded country, Powell would now be looking for ways to justify that he be allowed a PlayStation to while away the hours of a substantial jail sentence. Instead:
Today magistrates handed him a 12 month Community Order with 250 hours unpaid work. He was also given a nine month curfew and a five year disqualification from driving, with an order to have an extended retest before being allowed a return to driving.
Comments by the Police are notable for the absence of any indication that they are happy with this outcome.
This rubbish driver has effectively got away with killing two people. They should have locked him up and thrown away the key. He’s effectively a killer.
A new series (well, a single show) begins next week. Not much information in the press release, but it appears to feature two typical berks (note: that’s a general comment – I don’t know either of them) who couldn’t get on Big Brother (note: that’s an opinion built up after watching many similar shows), so went for this instead. It’s an hour long, so be prepared for the usual pointless filler material. Oh, and don’t be surprised if at least one of the “contestants” turn out to be more than two standard deviations away from the mean when it comes to being “normal” (note: that’s a further opinion built up from watching similar shows – there is going to have to be a hook of some sort).
Will the shock of what they experience help Jason & Laura change their ways for good?
No. They drive like that because they want to, yet are too stupid or arrogant to do anything about it.
I’ve had an email from one of the contestants who believes his driving is probably now better than mine as a result of taking part in this show. Mmm. I’ll wait until I see it next week before I comment on that – although I’ve never been bad enough to need to appear on a show like this in the first place, so he will have had to have made up a lot of ground compared to me.
However, as I said in my reply:
Don’t take it to heart.
I guess you can’t say too much prior to transmission, but why on earth would you want to put yourself in front of millions of viewers like that, rather than simply book a few refresher lessons with a local instructor if you feel you had something to learn?
These shows don’t choose boring, “normal” people. They choose extroverts – often with some sort of hook – who are selling themselves (or their hook). And such programmes do a major disservice to the industry that I work in. My comments were not personal, just general.
It does make you wonder, though. If you know you are a bad driver and claim you’re not proud of it, why go on TV in front of millions of people to show it off? Why not just take some lessons to fix the problem? Being crap on the roads is not a badge of honour, except among real lowlifes.
I mean, if you enter yourself for something like this, then you KNOW you have a problem. I guess that fixing it quietly just doesn’t get the same sort of publicity, does it?
The other contestant has written to me now. Apparently she is an actress (I told you there’d be hooks), and did the show for “all sorts of personal reasons”.
As I pointed out, my job is to try and teach young people enough about driving so that they don’t end up killing themselves (or other people). The TV companies are making that harder and harder by glamourizing bad driving on these shows. The average chav male sees it as a chance to show how hard he is. As for the chav girls… well, it gives them a chance to go on TV in their best clobber, if previous shows in this genre are anything to go by.
One person’s 15 minutes of fame is enough to encourage thousands of impressionable young people to seek the same publicity.
Back in January, I reported on an ASA ruling against Cycling Scotland. It concerned a promotional ad about giving cyclists room on the roads, and someone (five people, in fact) had complained that it was irresponsible because the rider in question wasn’t wearing a helmet and was effectively blocking the road.
I ought to point out that my only beef with cyclists is how they get in the way, and I’m increasingly of the opinion that the vast majority are stupid and do it on purpose, while the rest of them are simply stupid. Personally, I don’t give two hoots about the content of these kinds of ads beyond the fact that cycling on roads shouldn’t be encouraged any further because it’s too dangerous for everyone concerned – cyclist and motorist – and there are too many cyclists venturing out on to busy roads as it is.
Anyway, actually getting to view the Cycling Scotland video isn’t as straightforward as you’d expect, though I’m pretty sure I could view it earlier this year. Oh yes, it’s on YouTube, but certainly when I follow the link I get the message shown here that I’m not allowed to view it in my country! Strange, when you consider that it’s actually been posted by Cycling Scotland (or the agency acting on their behalf), and Scotland isn’t independent just yet. Clearly, someone somewhere has ideas well above their station. However, as I said in the earlier article, Cycling Scotland was appealing against the original ASA ruling. I also said that it was clear that politics was involved, and this ban on anyone in England seeing the ad is precisely the type of thing I meant.
I also predicted that ASA would kowtow to Cycling Scotland, and so it has transpired in this new ruling. The original ASA page is no longer online – which is, in itself, highly suspect, as it should have been left so that the history involved was transparent.
As a result of these shady goings on, I have no doubt that there are some out there who would happily attempt to sue me if I posted the full video on the blog. However, my legal adviser has indicated that a snippet of the video is completely acceptable, so here’s the offending part.
My first observation was that cyclists round my way definitely don’t look like that! Most would look more at home swinging through the trees instead of gracing a catwalk. But I digress. The woman riding the bike isn’t wearing a helmet and – more importantly – she is riding right in the middle of the road. The ASA originally agreed this was irresponsible advertising when they ruled against it back in January, and I guess this is one reason why they have removed that original ruling so that no one can compare it side-by-side with the new 180-degree one (i.e. one that is the exact opposite of the former). Even so, they say:
We acknowledged Cycling Scotland’s explanation regarding why the cyclist featured in the final scene of the ad was placed in the primary position and that this was an appropriate position to depict the cyclist in given the specific road conditions.
I see. And young children will be fully aware of this and not think it’s OK to ride in the middle of the road. Nice one, ASA.
But this comment from Cycling Scotland really made me laugh:
Cycling Scotland further commented that cycling had a high benefit:disbenefit ratio, even when factoring in injuries and referred to the national cycling charity (CTC) report.
I would counter that this statement has a high stupid:disstupid ratio, even when factoring in the obvious politics involved. The Highway Code says:
66
You should:
be considerate of other road users…
Riding in the middle of the road, blocking traffic, putting yourself in danger, and forcing others into danger as they overtake wide (especially on country lanes, as depicted here) has been “overlooked” by the ASA. I wonder how much pressure was put on them to do so?
Look! It’s from 2014. We’re not in 2014. It’s an old story.
An alert from the DVSA advises candidates who have tests booked on Thursday, 10 July 2014 to turn up as normal. The PCS union hasn’t had a strike for a while, so it’s making up for lost time with one now.
Remember that not all examiners are members of PCS, and not all those who are are stupid enough to get involved with strikes. Based on past experience, your test is most at risk if you live in a place where unions and strike action are still part of people’s normal lives (i.e. north of the Midlands).
Obviously, you could cancel your test right now and rearrange it for a different date. However, if your test IS cancelled then it will automatically be rearranged at no cost to you. Mind you, that won’t stop you losing time off work, nor will it enable you (or your instructor) to claim for the cost of the lost lesson/car hire – the DVSA seems to have sneaked that one in without much of a fanfare:
You can’t claim for:
the cost of driving lessons or training courses that you took before your test appointment
In the past, I’ve never had a problem claiming my pre-test lesson fee back if the DSA (as it was) screwed up – it’s only happened a few times, in any case. This wording suggests I might now. So we’re all being potentially inconvenienced one way or another.
I’m playing with Visual Studio at the moment because I need to do something that there is no proprietary software for, so I decided to write it myself. I chose Visual Basic (VB) for this.
I sat down and started working through a few tutorials to remind myself how it works – it’s ages since I used VB – and after getting bored with lesson 2 I jumped straight to lesson 20-something because that’s where the browser control was. As it happens, you can create a complete browser with VB using a single line of code, and it worked first time. Well, when I loaded Google or my own site, it did. But when I tried to open the site that had prompted me to write the application I am working on in the first place I was confronted by a message informing me that I needed a later browser than IE7!
Bugger. It turns out that even in Visual Studio 2013 the default browser behaviour of the WebBrowser tool is to behave like IE7. And it further turns out that there is no simple setting to change it.
I’m no VB expert, but some of the information I found on the topic was very confusing. Some people say that VB adopts the installed browser settings by default, and others provided poorly explained solutions which didn’t work. However, after a bit of tinkering using several of these references I managed to get VB to open the page I needed.
For anyone who is having the same problem, here’s what you do – and it involves editing the Registry, so take the usual precautions – and remember that unless you are extraordinarily cack-handed you cannot destroy civilisation as we know it by editing the Registry. Just don’t delete anything and you should be fine.
When you create a project in Visual Studio and run it, as I understand it there are basically two .exe files created. Let’s suppose our project is called MyWebThing. If you run the project from within Studio it is compiled into a file called MyWebThing.vshost.exe and this is what is executed during the debug within Studio. A standalone file called MyWebThing.exe is also compiled, and this is what you could run outside of Studio (it’s your finished product, so to speak).
Now, you have to edit the Registry so that named files take on different default behaviours – in this case, the default browser behaviour (there is no global setting or easy way of doing it that I can find). In our case, for our project MyWebThing we need to make sure that both MyWebThing.vshost.exe and MyWebThing.exe are catered for in any Registry changes we make. If you change the name of the project, or create a new one, you’ll have to do this all over again. We need to put new entries – one for each .exe file – in three separate places.
This applies to Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. I don’t know if it will work on other versions.
Open RegEdit and navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER >> Software >> Microsoft >> Internet Explorer >> Main >> FeatureControl >> FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION
Create two new DWORD entries, and name them MyWebThing.vshost.exe and MyWebThing.exe (or whatever name you are using instead of MyWebThing). Modify them both to have the hex value 2711.
Now navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE >> Software >> Microsoft >> Internet Explorer >> MAIN >> FeatureControl >> FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION
Create two more DWORD entries with the same names as above, but give them both hex values of 270f.
Finally, navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE >> Wow6432Node >> Microsoft >> Internet Explorer >> MAIN > FeatureControl >> FEATURE_BROWSER_EMULATION
Create a further two DWORD entries named as before and give them hex values of 2711.
Close RegEdit and run your project again. You should now be able to access all websites.
The thing is, the contractors haven’t been working nights or weekends for 95% of the time the disruption has been in place. However, I noticed that over the last few weeks this is no longer the case. It’s obvious that they were behind – from the various reported delays that have added months to the completion dates, to the amount of work that had obviously still got to be done. After all, it’s hard to keep defending dozens of kilometres of scorched earth with “it’ll be ready by Christmas” when the scorched earth in question still has deep holes with reinforced sides for sewer and drainage work, most of which have been in the exact same state for at least the last six months.
Being a tram worker is a real cushy number, as well. From what I’ve seen it seems to involve standing around all day texting on your phone and eating bacon sandwiches. Of course, the period I call “a day” has – until recently – only involved the time between 10am and 3pm Monday to Friday.
The tram is a waste of money, and all the people involved with it are not the best examples of efficient workers.
All of the above is “alleged”, of course. The people in question might instead be wonderful individuals who will get the tram finished on time, who work nights and weekends and have done since the work started, who don’t spend all day eating and texting, and so on. This is just for balance, of course.
