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Civil Servants Paid Huge Bonuses – But NOT At The DSA

25/08/2012

This Telegraph article makes interesting reading. It reports on how some senior civil servants have been paid bonuses of up to £100,000.

I love some of the job titles held by those involved:

Department for International Development
Training and Development Agency (responsible for improving teaching skills)
UK Hydrographic Office
The Ordnance Survey – they make maps
The Debt Management Office (there’s an oxymoron in there somewhere)
The Asset Protection Agency (they were set up to handle bank bailouts)
Ofcom – the media regulator
The National Offender Management Service’s (NOMS) human relations officer
The NOMS’ “director of change”

They’re all household names, aren’t they?

It should be pointed out that:

While some Government departments and agencies have felt ready to pay bonuses again, others have continued a self-imposed moratorium on such payments. No senior staff at the Electoral Commission, the Driving Standards Agency, the Office of Rail Regulation or the Independent Police Commission received bonuses in 2011/12.

I’m sure that will upset a lot of people.

How Not To Be An Artist

25/08/2012

DOAADI

Funny, News, World

This story cracked me up when I read it yesterday. A church in Spain – The Sanctuary of Mercy Church – has a semi-famous painting of Christ (shown here on the left). It has recently become damaged by damp. It’s not valuable, but as it’s over 100 years old it has some value for the locals and the Christian World in general.

The church had apparently (from the story I read yesterday) recently got funding to have it professionally restored.

But an old lady – in her 80s – got there before the restorers and fixed it herself (see image on the right). Church officials didn’t realise what she was doing until it was too late.

The old lady was obviously an early Gary Numan fan, and rumour has it that her next project will involve the Mona Lisa (see below).

Seriously (well, sort of), I’m sure the old lady in question had the best of intentions when she set to work – and you have to wonder at security (the story I read yesterday reported that there were guards at the church). But I would imagine that they don’t have a lot of problems with octogenarian graffiti artists under normal circumstances, so this one got in under the radar.

You have to remember that they take religion far more seriously in Spain, and that’s often even more true of the older people, so you can understand why she tried to do what she did.

The only thing you stumble over is the quality.

In fact, the original was very modern, whereas the amateur’s version looks mediaeval.

Driving Examiner Strikes: August 2012

25/08/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Driving Tests, DSA

An email alert from the DSA:

The DSA is urging all driving test candidates booked to take a test on the morning of Thursday 30 August to attend as usual, despite the potential for strike action by driving examiners who are members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union.

The DSA’s chief executive Rosemary Thew said:

“Not all examiners are members of the PCS union and even if they are, we can’t be sure that they’ll support the strike. So we’re asking candidates to come for their test as normal so it can go ahead if possible.

“We’re sorry for the inconvenience this will cause and will do everything we can to minimise disruption for our customers.”

Candidates who turn up but can’t take their tests because of strike action will not have to contact the DSA to rebook. They should hear from the agency with a new date within 5 to 10 working days.

Out-of-pocket expenses

If candidates fail to attend they won’t be able to claim out-of-pocket expenses if their tests are cancelled and they’ll need to rebook their own tests.

Details about claiming out-of-pocket expenses can be found at direct.gov.uk/drivingtestexpenses.

Theory tests

Theory tests are not affected and will be taking place as planned.

Rosemary Thew has said what I usually do about not all examiners getting involved. I would add that from what I can gather (i.e. previous strikes), the further north you travel the more likely they are to be burning effigies, chanting, and waving banners.

Keep your fingers crossed and turn up.

EDIT 25/8/2012: This came through in the feeds. The comment about how many test would be cancelled if ALL union members took action is interesting – and misleading.

When I first read it I thought “100 tests across England and Wales is nothing”. But then I realised that they are just talking about their local area (journalists who don’t understand the significance of the internet and who make stupid ambiguous comments like that should learn from their mistakes). The actual number nationwide would be quite significant – that “100” is across six test centres, and there are 300-400 test centres around the country.

That would equate to somewhere in the region of 5,000 tests on a pro rata basis, though obviously some centres have fewer examiners than the West Midlands ones, and as I said above not all examiners get involved.

Learner Kills Mother In Freak Accident

25/08/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, News, Training, World

This ~~came through in the feeds~~ [dead link], and tells how a 15-year old learner killed her mother by running over her twice.

It isn’t from a reputable news source and details are initially sketchy – until you look at one of the links, which reveals that it happened in Kentucky, USA. The mother, Kimberly Riggs, was conducting a lesson in a church car park. She was outside the vehicle with the door open when the car suddenly lurched forward. She was knocked down by the door, and the car left the church car park – but then it turned round, went through a fence and backyard of someone’s house, reversed into the car park again, did a 180 degree spin, and pinned the mother to a fence. The mother had apparently been chasing the car at the time. She died in hospital later.

It raises quite a few questions. But taking it at face value to eliminate some of the possibilities (conspiracy theories) both sources hint at, the main questions in my mind concern allowing people of such a young age to drive cars, and the dangers of automatic transmission in such cases.

I’ve heard some weird comments recently from ADIs in the UK extolling the virtues of automatics. Kimberly Riggs almost certainly wouldn’t have been killed if the car had been a manual transmission. It would probably have just stalled – if not in the first instance, at some point during its odd path out of, and back into, the car park.

Automatics may be easier to learn in. But dumbing down the learning-to-drive process unnecessarily makes little sense when you hear a story like this one.

As I mentioned recently, learning in an automatic car is the only way some people are ever going to have hope of gaining a full driving licence. Those with certain disabilities are obviously included. But there is no way that any of that makes learning in an auto a “better” choice for the majority of drivers.

The original source also raises the valid point about why someone whose control of the car was apparently so poor was left inside alone in the first place.

EDIT: The story has now appeared in the next days’ Daily Mail.

Even The Scots Ban People For Longer Than We Do!

24/08/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, News

This story came in on the newsfeed. It tells how a learner driver, Stuart McCulloch, was jailed for causing a crash in which his friend, Michael Cameron, was killed.

Even though McCulloch was over the drink drive limit, and he lied to police about who was driving, the story has some poignancy. Not much, but some.

But the bit that surprised me most of all was the fact that he was banned from holding or obtaining a driving licence for 10 years. In England it’d probably be two years at the most, with the distinct possibility of not even a ban if there was some idiotic mitigating yarn spun by the defence lawyer.

Mobile Phone Bans Ineffective?

24/08/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, News, World

Nice to see that the American educational system is no better than ours. After years of dumbing down and inflated grades to make people look better than they are, the same people seem to be at universities, demonstrating a very rudimentary understanding of accident statistics and the factors which affect them.

This report (via The Telegraph) from MIT says that mobile phone bans in cars might be ineffective because those who use mobiles are already bad drivers.

I would hope that most of those reading this can already see the obvious problem with this statement. If someone is already a bad driver, using a mobile phone will just make them worse.

The study leader, Bryan Reimer, is quoted (it’s an American quote, hence the spelling):

It’s clear that cell phones in and of themselves impair the ability to manage the demands of driving.

But the fundamental problem may be the behavior of the individuals willing to pick up the technology.

You cannot possibly suggest that using a mobile phone doesn’t impair your ability to concentrate on driving, yet that’s what this guy is implying in spite of that first sentence. Why do so many academics try to be clever and find conflict or uncertainty where there is none? If you fiddle with the radio or CD, try to open a packet of sweets or sandwiches, tip your head back to drink, try to feed the sprog in the baby seat at the side of or behind you… or piss about with your mobile phone, then you are distracted.

Banning the use of mobile phones – and enforcing it with hefty penalties – addresses just one part of the overall problem. People being rubbish drivers at the genetic level is part of the same problem, but totally unconnected with mobile phone distraction while driving.

To make matters worse, the “study” only involved 108 people, and those were split into three age groups (giving only 36 per group if it was an equal split). They were also “asked” to grade themselves as frequent or infrequent mobile phone users while driving (so objectivity has just sailed away over the horizon).

The findings were reported earlier this month in ‘Accident Analysis & Prevention’ and may explain why cell phone bans do not seem to work.

‘Cell phone bans have reduced cell phone use by drivers, but the perplexing thing is that they haven’t reduced crashes,’ said Russ Rader, a spokesperson for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Arlington, Virginia…

They don’t work because the whole issue is far more complex than this “study” has assumed, and people just ignore the bans, for God’s sake! In the UK, you’re looking at a fixed penalty of £60 and 3 points on your licence at the very least. If it goes to court then £1,000 and a ban is quite likely. Yet when I’m out on the roads, it can be as many as 50% of other road users pratting about on phones at traffic lights (i.e. when I get chance to look). Some of them – predominantly women, I’m afraid – are obviously texting or networking, and not merely talking.

‘There is no question in anyone’s mind that talking on a cell phone increases risk,’ said Reimer.

Then why bloody well suggest the opposite, and say to the media that bans don’t work? The only logical action from that is to change the law so people can use them, especially as far as the typical journalist’s brain in concerned. And that’s just stupid when you’ve also just said that using one increases risk!

As I say, the whole issue is far more complex, and extant research – on many more people – has shown:

…that if you’re using any mobile phone when driving, you’re four times more likely to crash. You also have significantly worse reaction times than someone driving after drinking alcohol at the legal limit.

To find out how difficult it is to focus on several things while driving, try the Driving Challenge. This online game highlights the dangers of using your phone when driving.

Try the Driving Challenge

See that? See how complex it is, now that we know that those genetically bad drivers are still potentially (no research has tried to nitpick this aspect separately yet) affected by distraction more with their mobiles than they are with alcohol?

The MIT “study” only really shows that driver attitude and character might be a factor in distraction.It absolutely does not prove that phone bans don’t work, The accident statistics are too complex for such an immature conclusion to be drawn from such limited and flawed (allowing people to grade themselves) data.

And Some Other Nice News…

24/08/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Driving Tests, Training

I’ve mentioned her in one or two other posts over the last couple of years, but I used to have a pupil who was not a natural driver by any stretch of the imagination. Even after close to 100 hours she could not control the clutch, and anything other than a detailed talk through by me (and not always then) was likely to lead to her braking without de-clutching – especially if the lights ahead of us changed suddenly. This problem carried across into all aspects of her driving – it took months of hard work to get her to be able to do a turn in the road, and the other manoeuvres were even worse.

I’d tried to persuade her to learn in an automatic many times, but she had bought a car and was insistent that she wanted to learn in a manual. I felt terrible that it was taking her so long, and I told her so.

But one day early last year (in fact, it may even have been late 2010) she let it slip that she’d sold her car, so I started off at her again about auto lessons. This time I enlisted her son to help convince her, and she gave in. I organised an automatic instructor for her.

I remember her first auto lesson – she phoned me and said “It’s great. At traffic lights I just have to brake and then let go to move off again”. I replied, “Yes, I know. That’s what you used to do in the manual, which was why we had all the problems!”

She’s always stayed in touch – either to tell me that she’d failed her test, or to have a moan about her instructor. In return, I’ve always geed her up to keep at it; not to give up.

The other day I got a call and she could barely talk (and I ought to point out that her texts sent this week are almost as incoherent). She’d passed on her 7th attempt.

What touched me was that she was so grateful to me, even though our last lesson was in January 2011! It gives you a warm glow inside. I just wish some of the younger ones who you really do feel like you’ve gone out on a limb for were just half as grateful.

Test Pass: 24/8/2012

24/08/2012

DOAADI

Driving Tests

Well done Ali, who passed first time today with just 5 driver faults.

He’s got his own car already (which helped with all the private practice, even if it did mean falling out with his girlfriend who was his supervising driver) and he will be out this afternoon for the first time. He was nervous as anything – even though he’s one of those people who won’t admit it – but it worked out well in the end.

Now he’ll be able to take his daughter places he couldn’t before, so it’s a nice result all round.

Test Pass: 22/8/2012

24/08/2012

DOAADI

Driving Tests

Well done to Isobel, who passed first time with 9 driver faults on Wednesday.

She’s off on a gap year from next week, so she couldn’t really have cut things much finer, but she did it!

It was also an unusual situation in that she doesn’t live in Nottingham and stopped taking lessons at the end of last Uni term – with the promise that she’d do a lot of private practice with her mum and then book some lessons and travel up for her test the week before it. I was a bit worried about taking so many risks that I had no control over, but it all worked out.

I’ll hopefully see you when you get back and take those refresher lessons!

National Express Driver “Reacted Quickly”

23/08/2012

DOAADI

Bad Drivers, News, Transport

This story on the BBC is interesting. A National Express bus crashed into, and killed, a pedestrian – it was doing 62mph in a 50mph zone.

Just to clarify that: it was doing a measured 12mph over the speed limit. Or in other words, the speedo in the cab was likely to be showing closer to 70mph.

When I’m on the motorway driving at the speed limit I am frequently overtaken by National Express coaches. They often pass at quite considerable relative speed. I very rarely overtake one myself. A bit like Audis, really.

I half-jokingly warn my pupils to be careful around them because they’re “Exocet missiles with custom body jobs”.

A passenger on the bus said that the driver “reacted quickly”. I can’t see how this is going to cancel out that thing about driving over the speed limit.