An Audi driver was driving whilst twice the legal limit. William Watson, 27, drove into a hedge and wrote off his car, ran away from the scene of the accident, then evaded arrest when he was spotted by police a short time later. He was also reported for a separate offence a few days earlier of texting while driving, having been seen doing so by a police officer.
The funny part was his defence lawyer’s plea in mitigation:
[Watson] was held in high regard by those who knew him and had behaved in a way which was out of character.
I must say that he chose a bloody good way to behave “out of character”. Most people would have just picked one of the things he did, but Watson went for all three.
It occurred to me that defence lawyers would be better off not bothering trying to provide mitigating circumstances anymore. For a start off, if someone is guilty as hell the sob stories just make them look even more foolish as the courts totally ignore any pleas for leniency. The only realistic chance you’ve got of getting off is if you’re pregnant (or if you claim that post-natal depression made you do it). And let’s be honest, men can’t really pull that stunt.
Just when you thought you’d heard it all, something like this comes along. Alfa Romeo (a manufacturer of fast cars with added prat attraction) along with Marmalade (a company that makes its money insuring young drivers) have teamed up to do some “research” and come to the astounding conclusion that young drivers have accidents because they cannot afford new cars!
First of all, it is not “research”. Not in the slightest. It’s another survey, the sole purpose of which is to create publicity for the two companies involved.
The “research” – in particular, the article reporting it – is so amateurish it defies description. What is the point of reporting what the public thinks, when the facts are staring you right in the face?
Almost half of new young drivers believe they are being forced into less advanced motors – and this is a major contributor to those aged under 24 being involved in more car accidents than any other age group, according to a survey by manufacturer Alfa Romeo and insurer Marmalade.
Absolute bollocks. Young drivers (and anyone else) who have accidents do so because they drive badly. And insurance premiums are high for the age groups having most accidents as a direct result of this.
And young drivers in new cars are no different. Any safety features are only likely to mask the underlying appalling attitude and driving ability.
Some of the results so far are terrifying. In particular, a 66-year old in Eastbourne was found to be unable to read a car number plate from more than 4 metres! That’s less than a fifth the normal required distance. For all practical purposes he was driving whilst completely blind. The story rides on the back of that of 69-year old Wayne Metcalfe, who was jailed for 6 months (suspended for two years) after he killed a motorcyclist when he knocked him off without seeing him.
The guy who couldn’t read a plate beyond 4 metres also ought to be looking at a prison stretch. You don’t just overlook eyesight that poor (after all, the quality of vision within 4 metres is unlikely to be perfect in such a case, and not being able to see your feet properly would tend to register as there being something slightly wrong). In fact, ignoring such obvious problems has to be down either to criminal stupidity… or just the fact that criminal acts don’t bother you.
It’s a tragic story, but the fact that Lutman’s father was a driving instructor is totally irrelevant. That’s the Daily Mail for you, though.
The law in this country really is in a mess when you read the full story. Lutman was the driver, to be sure, but the deceased – Ian Deer, also 19 – appeared to be at least as responsible for what happened. Lutman didn’t want to drive, but was eventually coerced into doing so by Deer. In fact, Deer was messing with the dual controls (dangerous enough by itself) and even pulled Lutman’s arm off the steering wheel just before the crash. He was not wearing a seatbelt, and text messages received by Lutman made it clear that it was Deer’s idea to take the car keys.
Deer’s mother does not blame Lutman for the crash.
Lutman’s whole life is now ruined by a 3 year and 4 month jail sentence (it would have already been seriously damaged by what he had done, and what he never tried to deny responsibility for). I’m not defending him in any way, but far worse offenders from the dregs of society get away with much more lenient sentences. Lutman, on the other hand, was a good student at Leicester University, with a bright future ahead of him.
This made me smile. Not the main story itself, about a learner who passed first time with no faults (well done for that), but the bit at the end where he is quoted:
My lack of a driving licence was holding me back. Now I can move my career to the next level. I’ve already bought a van.
I like the word obtuse as it is applied to people – particularly in the phrase “deliberately obtuse”. It’s generally where someone purposely picks up the wrong meaning for something. Or perhaps they’ll adopt a particular stance in a discussion which might not be commensurate (another good word) with their normal position on the matter (i.e. it’s the exact opposite). However, it is more commonly referred to by the euphemisms “debate”, “discussion”, “opinion”, and “playing devil’s advocate”.
A good example leapt out at me the other day when a new ADI wrote that he found it strange a pupil should still be driven to and from a nursery location by their instructor, even after 6 lessons. What made it worse was that the journey time was ½ hour each way, and lesson duration was 1½ hours at a time. He asked for “opinions” (I said he was new!)
The simple answer is that in a specific case like this, it is hard to say without knowing the pupil involved. However, taking up 60% of the pupil’s paid time driving to and from a “nursery” location is highly questionable even on the first lesson, let alone on the first four.
Of course, all pupils are different. I mentioned in a recent post how a new one of mine had had no experience at all in a car, and yet he had driven 15 miles or more on his first (2 hour) lesson, mostly without any physical intervention from me. In fact, I told him truthfully at the end that he was already looking like someone who’d had between 10-15 hours of lessons. On that very first session I drove about a mile and a half to a quiet location (10 minutes away), but he drove back, and I don’t expect to ever get behind the wheel for him again. I love it when I get people who learn this quickly, and I have to ignore the “deliberately obtuse” people who argue that I’m pushing pupils too hard, or taking risks. I know my job, and I have a high first time pass rate as a result. None of my ex-learners has ever been involved in a serious accident to my knowledge, so no one is going to tell me I should be sitting yapping in a car park, or flipping through dozens of pretty pictures.
I pick up a fair number of pupils who have switched instructors because – in their own words – they “didn’t feel like they were getting anywhere”. A young girl a couple of weeks ago was a prime example of this. She’d had 9 hours of lessons but had only ever driven round her village*. She’d not dealt with a single roundabout, encountered any other vehicle travelling faster than 30mph, or even touched one of the manoeuvres. But less than 5 minutes in it was clear that she was more than capable and we drove from her village to an industrial area in Colwick to begin looking at the turn in the road and bay parking, after which we drove through Stoke Bardolph along the riverbank. She had no problems beyond those you’d expect from someone trying something new. Another recently acquired pupil had done 19 hours, could drive reasonably well, and yet had not covered a single manoeuvre! We’ve now booked his test – even though his last instructor had told him* that he needed “another year of lessons”.
Of the many hundreds of people I’ve taught, I can count on the fingers of one hand those who have required me to drive to a location for them more than once (twice is my maximum ever). However, I’ve lost count of those who have easily managed to drive back home on the first lesson. I think sometimes the learner is far more capable of learning what they need to learn than the instructor in question is of either realising it or teaching it. That would explain why it seems I generally pick up people who learn quickly, whereas others out there always seem to have a surfeit of those who don’t (i.e. they would if they were allowed to).
Another thing is that most learner drivers know if they’re being held back or not. That’s why they jump ship and go elsewhere. They usually know if they can do something. Some ADIs appear incapable of realising this, and become “deliberately obtuse” in order to defend their inability to recognise ability in others. In all honesty, far too many instructors still “teach by numbers”, and it makes me laugh when I hear from a pupil how they spent several lessons “learning to reverse”, when they still haven’t covered any of the manoeuvres. What on earth did these lessons involve? I have visions of them sitting for an hour in the car, bored stiff and wondering what exactly it is they’re paying for, because you can only “practise reversing” for so long before it gets bloody boring. No wonder they go elsewhere.
There are occasional exceptions. I can only remember one and he was an arrogant little sod. He’d been shown how to drive by his brother, and after his first lesson the brother was arguing with me about when he could put in for his test. The thing is he was a terrible driver. He couldn’t steer properly, drove too fast, didn’t see anything in front of him, and didn’t have a clue about any of the manoeuvres (this was when you had to do two of them on your test). On his second lesson I told him we’d try all the manoeuvres without me saying anything and it was utter chaos. At the end I said “do you see what I mean about not being ready for your test yet?” Do you know what his reply was?
I want to put in for it. I’ll be so shit scared on the day I’m bound to get it right!
I didn’t teach him after that.
Let’s summarise things here. Yes, some pupils may well be extremely slow to learn the absolute basics of car control, but they really are in a tiny, tiny minority of the normal population. Taking more than six 1½ hour lessons and still being incapable of driving on main roads could happen, but the vast majority of times it shouldn’t. But even so, using 60% of someone’s paid time the way it was described originally is definitely out of order. Any sensible learner would look for a new instructor immediately after that.
* I suppose I should add “allegedly” to the starred examples. The “deliberately obtuse” ones would argue that you can’t believe anything a pupil tells you. Of course you can’t. They’re all liars.
The story dwells on the fact that the learner had “only” had seven hours of lessons. So what? I started with a new pupil last week who’d never driven before. He’d never even sat in the driver’s seat of a car. Yet on the first lesson he ended up driving by himself for a distance of at least 15 miles. We had the third lesson today (which now totals 5 hours), and we’ve attempted all of the manoeuvres – and the only thing to sort out with those involves practice and polish.
Although it’s been a while since I had one of these, at the other end of the scale you occasionally get people who take two or three times that amount of lessons before they can even negotiate a simple junction, and even then it can still go wrong. They can’t help it, and they aren’t doing it deliberately. They just aren’t natural drivers.
We don’t know anything at all about the learner in the story. No one seems interested in the important facts, or in how that pupil must feel knowing everyone is rubbing their hands over her misfortune. They just want to gloat.
It appears that she hit the gas instead of the brake, which isn’t uncommon. Mine will sometimes do it when they first try a manoeuvre, but I never lose control. My feet hover over the pedals just in case. And it’s the same with steering – I always assume that pupils will do something strange or dramatic until I know them well enough to be sure that they won’t. They sometimes try it, especially when they see a bus or lorry coming towards them, and I even had one dyspraxic who suddenly tried to drive across a pavement next to a straight road, and who couldn’t explain why.
So the only question that seems to crop up here is why the instructor wasn’t ready for it.
However, there is a saying, often attributed to John Bradford, which goes “there but for the grace of God, go I”. In a nutshell, it means that it could happen to anyone – and that means both the learner driver, the instructor, and any other driver in cases such as these.
I haven’t had anyone go to test for a while, so well done Charlotte who passed this week first time with 8 driver faults. I told you you could do it!
She’s been one of those pupils who has been a pleasure to teach. She came to me through references from the mother of a brother and sister I’d previously taught (both of whom passed first time), and as a result of not progressing very well with her previous instructor. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her ability to drive, but she’d been allowed to go too slowly and to be hesitant at every junction – whether it was clear or not. This had turned into a habit (my conclusion, and not something she’d told me), and we all know that habits are hard to break.
But now all that is behind her and she is a fully-fledged driver!
As everyone knows, the 1980s were the worst decade ever. Even another outbreak of the Bubonic Plague couldn’t have made the 80s any worse as far as new bands and music were concerned. Some of the best pre-80s bands faltered – depending on the source, even Rush came fairly close to splitting as a result of synthesisers taking over the band’s sound. Punk certainly lost out to the New Romantic crap, and in later years many of the original punks moved over to dance and pop, even though the so-called “ideals” of punk were diametrically opposed to those of these later genres.
Ooops! I’m digressing. One band which definitely went through an 80s phase was ZZ Top. I can remember listening to Top of the Pops each week and being driven mad by the lack of any decent rock music. But occasionally, the likes of ZZ Top or another pre-80s band would open a small window of decent sound, even though it was clad in typical 80s gaudiness. I’m thinking of songs like Gimme All Your Lovin’ and Legs, with their Eastmancolor videos and bouffant hairdos on the girls.
ZZ Top has actually been around since the late 60s, but I can’t remember them hitting it big in the UK until the very late 70s or early 80s, and as I say the 80s did a lot of damage to a lot of bands. Fortunately, ZZ Top weathered it – largely due to Billy Gibbons’ foresight, I reckon – and have continued to release new material. Output has slowed a little in the last 15 years or so, but this isn’t surprising when you consider that all three band members are well into their sixties now. Even so, the recent material has been very good.
It was with all this in mind that I’d arranged to see them on one of their UK shows – at Manchester’s O2 Apollo, last night.
First, a word about the support act, the Ben Miller Band. This next thing isn’t something you ever expect to write about – and I doubt that I’ll ever have to do it again – but last night I saw my first ever electric washboard. There it is on the left. Note the signal cable coming out of the bottom of it. There were electric spoons, too.
Oh, yeah. And I’ve seen guitarists playing guitar and drums at the same time, vocalists singing and playing flute at the same time, and all manner of other clever multitasking tricks. But I think seeing someone play trombone and drums at the same time is a first.
BMB is classed variously as Delta Blues, Ozarks, Bluegrass, Newgrass, Jug Band, and so on. In fact, all three members are multi-instrumentalists, and they play the sort of music that my dream of doing Route 66 one day would take in. I didn’t see any jugs, but I’m sure they can play one- and I bet there’s a ¼” jack in it when they do!
The other main feature was the bass player. Not an ordinary one, but a single-stringed washtub bass.
What mattered was the music, of course. And they were brilliant! Yet another case where the support band has prompted me to get their album. And judging from the reception they got, the audience felt the same way.
ZZ Top played several of their songs from the La Futura album (their latest), as well as some old favourites. The older ones from the 80s come across really well when you strip the videos away – this is just my opinion, of course, because I’ve already mentioned how much the 80s music scene screwed up my enjoyment of rock. They also went as far back as 1971 into their back catalogue. I Gotsta Get Paid is great live, as is Sharp Dressed Man. They also did a cover of Foxy Lady.
Billy Gibbons is a superb guitarist – I believe he is consistently in the Top 100 Guitarists of All Time lists – and the sound was crisp and clear. I was surprised that they only played a venue the size of the Apollo, which has a capacity of about 3,500, but it must have been sold out. I was also surprised that they only had two UK gigs, because I’d would have imagined them being able to fill arenas with ease.
The crowd was enthusiastic and there was a great atmosphere throughout, marred only slightly by a group of dickheads in front of me who had obviously had too much to drink, and who decided that dancing wildly without any regard for those around them was a good idea. I suppose it was until one of them nearly got his teeth punched in by the guy he was jumping all over. Either that – or the beer they were swilling – calmed them down after that. They then spent almost the entire show holding up Blackberry phones to take photos (it always makes me laugh when I see someone taking pictures on a Blackberry).
Here’s a selection pictures I took. I was close to the stage and they’ve come out well.
Coolledge was banned for a further 3 years just for the driving rap. The alcohol one is still to come.
What always fascinates me in these stories is how anyone could live a life like that. I mean, to have been in such trouble permanently from at least the age of 12, and to show no signs of trying to crawl up out of the pond and improve yourself. You really cannot believe such people are human, sometimes.
The do-gooders would berate you for thinking that. But what will Coolledge and those like him do next? They have no concept of “rules”, so other people mean nothing to them.
I haven’t had anyone go to test for a while, so well done Charlotte who passed this week first time with 8 driver faults. I told you you could do it!
ZZ Top has actually been around since the late 60s, but I can’t remember them hitting it big in the UK until the very late 70s or early 80s, and as I say the 80s did a lot of damage to a lot of bands. Fortunately, ZZ Top weathered it – largely due to Billy Gibbons’ foresight, I reckon – and have continued to release new material. Output has slowed a little in the last 15 years or so, but this isn’t surprising when you consider that all three band members are well into their sixties now. Even so, the recent material has been very good.
