As of yesterday – Monday, 7 April 2014 – both theory and practical driving tests can only be conducted in English or Welsh.
Now, there isn’t a lot of linguistic clutter in that statement, and it means just what it says: YOU CAN ONLY TAKE YOUR THEORY OR PRACTICAL TEST IN ENGLISH OR WELSH FROM 7 APRIL 2014.
Can I take my test in Punjabi after April 2014?
No! You can only take your tests in English or Welsh after 7 April 2014. You cannot have an interpreter on your practical test unless it is for British Sign Language (BSL). Read my earlier article which spells out clearly which languages are no longer supported.
(This is an actual search term used to find the blog today – 8 April. It was actually written in better English than most search terms).
Another nominee for the 2014 Darwin Awards. Louise Ditchfield, 23, called her instructor at midnight to arrange a lesson the following day “because she was bored”. Unfortunately, being a pisshead, she was drunk at the time – so drunk that when she was pulled over for swerving all over the road the next day she was still over twice the legal limit. She claimed she had last had a drink “more than 24 hours” previously. In spite of this obvious lie, she was quoted in court:
I thought the alcohol would have gone. It was a big mistake. I am sorry.
Ditchfield was also taking the lesson in red pyjamas, which says a lot about the person she is. The whole affair also raises a few questions about her instructor. I would be very worried if one of mine tried to do a lesson in their nightwear.
Sam Wilson, 25, is a new front runner in the 2014 Darwin Awards. Wilson, from Bingham in Nottinghamshire, was driving his car to a scrap yard, expecting to get £150 for it. However, he had the bright idea of taking parts off it with the intention of selling them separately.
He had removed all the doors, the bonnet, and – judging by the photos – most of the lights, including the indicators. The article doesn’t say anything about the brake lights, but since they are part of the rear cluster, and since the article definitely states that there were no indicators… well, you have to hazard a guess. In fact, look closely and you can see that the rear cluster is gone.
Championing his Darwin Awards nomination, Wilson said after he attended court:
The car didn’t have any lights on it, but my argument was that it was daylight.
It didn’t have any signals either, but I used arm signals to indicate…
…Wilson added he thought the car was safe to drive because it still had an MOT certificate…
In the Telegraph version he also claimed:
…there were kit cars on the road that also lacked features such as doors and lights.
You need to get your eyes tested, Sammyboy. You won’t see many cars without brake lights on the roads. Except for ones like yours. The police didn’t share his wisdom. They said:
It wouldn’t have taken much to realise that the skeleton of a vehicle Wilson was trying to drive on the carriageway was not roadworthy.
It beggars belief that he thought he could drive it without anyone having concerns.
It isn’t clear how or why Wilson thought the scrap dealer would pay the full £150 after he had taken the very parts off it that those who go to scrap yards are looking for which justifies that scrap value in the first place. He was eventually paid £70 for it which meant – after his £250 fine and shiny new three-points on his licence – he made a loss of £180 on the deal. Mind you, as a student I’m sure he got some great selfies and will have a great tale to tell in the Student Bar for a while.
It never ceases to amaze me that people think an MoT certificate somehow covers them no matter what condition their car is in at the time it is examined while out on the road. If a bulb breaks as you are driving away from your MoT then the car instantly becomes “unroadworthy”, and you are liable.
You read a lot of crap on the internet news feeds. Every now an then, something comes along that takes the biscuit – on the surface, at least.
A car dealership is encouraging drivers to paint their thumbnails green to remind them not to text while driving. They got the idea from an American who “invented the technique”. To be fair to the dealership, though, the idea is to get to people to do it and then post photos on to a Facebook page. The dealership will donate £100 to various charities for the first few people who do.
To be brutally honest, the only beneficiaries will be those charities. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is hardly going to change the way people behave.
The kinds of people who text while driving are simply too stupid to have a driver’s licence in the first place. They text because they want to, and they know they shouldn’t be doing it. If I see someone fiddling with their phone at traffic lights when I’m on a lesson I eyeball them – and when they see me, their immediate reaction is an absolute guarantee that they KNOW they are doing wrong.
The world has become a very strange place compared to what it was when I was a kid. Nowadays, people are actually dumb enough to believe stunts like this have intrinsic value.
Well done to Duncan, who passed first time (with me) today with 8 driver faults. He told me that if he’d have failed this time – having taken his test four times several years ago – he was going to give up. To be honest, he was one of those who I’d have put money on passing, so I’ve no idea what he was thinking to coming up with something like that, but as they saying goes, there’s nowt so queer as folk.
He’s been a pleasure to teach, even though he was a Manchester Utd supporter. Mind you, this season, making fun of Manchester Utd supporters has been like shooting fish in a barrel, so maybe that’s just my imagination. His brother, on the other hand, is a Liverpool supporter and I also taught him to drive – several years ago, fortunately. I’d probably have refused to teach him if he was with me now! Joking aside, though, it’s nice when you get a text like this:
Just texting to say thank you again, I wouldn’t have got through it without you and and the lessons have been a pleasure. Take care mate.
This is what makes the job worthwhile. And it puts me above 50% for the year, again, though I’m still not happy with that – it’s well below my overall rate for last year.
A reader sent me this link to an article in the Daily Mash. Titled “Roads are not a velodrome”, it pokes fun at that spiralling number of wannabe athletes who behave like apes on our roads as they take their fragile, expensive, two-wheeled toys that they can’t handle – either physically or mentally – out on to routes which are already dangerous.
Last week, on the Virgin roundabout in Colwick, for example, two of these twats were riding side-by-side and deliberately straight-lined it – still side-by-side. The retard who gave me the evil-eye is hopefully on some sort of court order to prevent him having children for the sake of society. He really shouldn’t be allowed to breed, but unfortunately people like him can usually do it asexually – and I’ll bet asexual sex is something he IS good at. Because cycling certainly doesn’t make the list.
There’s no information yet about when – and if – there will be a specific logo for the new body. The number of hits I’ve been getting on the blog asking suggests that this is important to a lot of ADIs for reasons which are unclear. Far more important is the financial impact – good, bad, or remaining the same – on those who use it.
For anyone who needs to contact what used to be VOSA or DSA, just use the same numbers and addresses you always did until new ones are announced. Outwardly, there is no real change at the moment.
I thought I was missing something when I saw this. Until the last few seconds of the clip, that is – when reality struck back. In summary, Jack Sanderson was nearly killed when his bike almost collided with a car on the notorious Cat & Fiddle Road in Cheshire. Instead, Sanderson rolled down a hill and escaped injury.
The A537 is one of the most dangerous roads in Europe. It also attracts some of the stupidest specimens on the planet – and it is because of those that the road has had reduced speed limits imposed, has double white lines indicating that no overtaking is allowed, and has speed cameras fitted. So, when you look at the video recorded by Sanderson you immediately notice how many rules he was breaking.
To start with, it doesn’t look like he was driving at 50mph (the speed limit which is imposed on that road, I believe). Secondly, he clearly crosses a solid white line – on a bend, with a sign warning of a series of bends, and SLOW marked on the road – to overtake another biker. It is after that when he apparently loses control, veers across the solid white line again on another bend, and almost smashes into a car coming the other way (and note that the two are approaching each other at an combined speed of over 100mph).
He avoids certain death for himself by flinging his bike off the road and down a hill. The text snippet for the report simply says:
A motorcyclist has had a lucky escape on one of Europe’s most notoriously dangerous roads and published the video as a warning to others.
Jack Sanderson from Cheshire crashed on the A537 Cat and Fiddle road, in Cheshire, after his motorbike crossed the white line and he swerved to avoid an oncoming car.
What it should say is that Sanderson was a dickhead who was speeding, overtaking illegally, and behaving in a dangerously immature way because of his almost non-existent riding skills, and who very nearly caused the death of an innocent motorist because of this illegal and incompetent behaviour.
The last words are that Cheshire Police are investigating. Let’s hope they don’t bottle it and let the moron off. He should be banned from riding or driving for a very long time.
I noticed a surge in hits from people searching for information about Alcopal or reviews of it. As I have said previously, Alcopal does not work. This is especially true when you consider that the guy who is peddling the stuff can’t even make up his mind how it is supposed to work in his marketing claims – he has variously said that it absorbs alcohol before you do, that it prevents it getting into the bloodstream “from the stomach”, and that it masks it on your breath. At the moment he appears to be back to claiming that it absorbs alcohol before you do – which would be scientifically impossible for such a small amount of material as is in the tablets, considering the volume of alcohol the type of arseholes likely to want to use it will have swallowed.
This time around, our erstwhile Snake Oil peddler is claiming that…
New Alcopal tablets guarantee to improve impairments caused by consuming alcohol. Enjoy your night out without the fear of being spiked or ending up in a drunken stupor. Alcopal’s clever little ingredient prevents alcohol being absorbed through the stomach and into the bloodstream; it also gives some protection to the liver and kidneys.
I’m not sure why it is “new”. Maybe because the “old” one didn’t work, after all? But the real problem is that 80% of the alcohol you drink gets absorbed in the small intestine and not the stomach, so even if there was even a slight scientific justification for for claiming Alcopal acts as some sort of barrier in the stomach region, it falls flat on its face when intestinal absorption is brought in. And the comment about the liver and kidneys is a sly suggestion that alcohol-related liver disease can be prevented by Alcopal.
The ingredients in Alcopal do not stop alcohol getting into your bloodstream to any significant extent. The ingredients in Alcopal do not protect your liver and kidneys. The ingredients in Alcopal simply do not work. And the fact that Alcopal Ltd didn’t even bother to respond to the ASA’s questions shows clearly what kind of people you are dealing with.
Don’t waste your time even thinking about buying anything that makes these claims.
I saw an amusing post on one of the forums a while back. Someone was asking how to change a Ford Focus headlight bulb and had concluded that the front bumper had to be removed because he’d taken a screw out and couldn’t remove the headlight. Naturally, this was the manufacturer’s fault.
Even more amusing was the advice from someone else to check before you buy a car. It’s amazing how these stupid rumours start – and are propagated – out there in Instructor Land? In actual fact, Ford Focus headlight bulbs are incredibly easy to change, and appear to have been designed specifically to be that way!
Let me just stress that this applies to the Mk II model onwards. It does not apply to the original body shaped Focus from circa 2003 which ran on coal – watch this video for advice on that one (even then, the bumper does not have to be removed). And I’m joking about the coal thing – I loved that original design.
On the pre-2012 (but post 2003-style) models, all you do is remove the single screw that holds the headlight cluster in place (using a Tx key or a normal screwdriver – they even made it so you can use either). The cluster is locked at the bottom by a hook on the end of a long plastic arm – you just push the arm down slightly to release the hook, and the cluster will slide easily forwards out of the car along two rails. You can then release the cable connector by pushing a small button and pulling it off. The whole cluster will now come away from the car in your hand. The bulbs are behind big rubber caps (which come off and go back on extremely easily) and are held in place by simple spring-wire clips. The sockets the bulbs sit in are keyed to prevent them being put in the wrong way round.
The cluster slides easily back in and clicks into place as the hook latches into place. It takes less than five minutes to remove the cluster, change the bulb, and put the cluster back. I’ve had to replace quite a few bulbs, and there has never been a problem.
On the 2013-2017 models (I haven’t had to do a 2018-onwards one yet) there are two screws which have to be removed. The cluster then slides forwards and you, and you lift the outside edge to remove it . Remove the electrical connector and you can see four caps which cover the bulb mountings. This is the picture in the Ford Focus manual, but I have to say it is a bit misleading because mine doesn’t look quite like that at the back. It’s similar, but definitely not the same.
According to the manual, the sidelight bulb is behind cap A, the dipped beam light is behind cap B, the main beam lamp is behind cap C, and cap D conceals the indicator lamp. After removing a cover, you apparently turn the bulb holder anti-clockwise to remove it, and then push the bulb in gently and turn it anti-clockwise to remove it from the holder. In actual fact, behind the rubber covers my bulbs are held in with clips, but they still come out and go back in very easily – and they’re keyed so you can’t put them in wrong. Whatever your cluster looks like, it isn’t difficult to remove the bulbs one at a time to find the right one.
The specs for the front bulbs are as follows (I believe these are the same for all models after 2003 but check your manual first):
sidelight – W5W 5 Watts
dipped beam – H7 55 Watts
main beam – H1 55 Watts
indicator – PY21W 21 Watts
A word of advice: when you remove the screws, put them in your pocket or on the floor. If they fall inside the engine compartment – which they are sure to do if you put them on the ledge at the front of the engine compartment – they’re likely to fall on to a hidden ledge and will be sods to find and recover. Trust me, I’ve been there.
Well done to Duncan, who passed first time (with me) today with 8 driver faults. He told me that if he’d have failed this time – having taken his test four times several years ago – he was going to give up. To be honest, he was one of those who I’d have put money on passing, so I’ve no idea what he was thinking to coming up with something like that, but as they saying goes, there’s nowt so queer as folk.
This is the picture in the Ford Focus manual, but I have to say it is a bit misleading because mine doesn’t look quite like that at the back. It’s similar, but definitely not the same.