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Test Waiting Times

21/09/2015

I’ve heard a lot of complaints lately about the waiting times for driving tests. DVSA knows there is a problem and it is trying to deal with it though what that article doesn’t mention is the back door solution also being looked at, which involves making the test so easy that a monkey could pass it. Mark my words: that second solution is the one that they’ll go with (assuming the public consultation that will follow the trial a) doesn’t overwhelmingly come out against it, and b) if it does, the consultation isn’t ignored).

That Despatch article explains why waiting times have gone up. First, there is the upturn in the economy, which means people are taking tests in greater numbers (for many, it adds a vital string to their bow when job hunting). Second, DVSA says it has had more examiners retiring. Third, DVSA says there has been a surge in 20-somethings taking their tests after putting it off (I’m not sure why they give this as a separate reason, as it is just the first one worded differently.

Quite frankly, DVSA should have seen the examiner crisis coming and dealt with it long before it became a problem. Come to think of it, they also ought to have anticipated the country coming out of recession, because it was pretty bloody obvious that it was going to end sooner or later. I detected the upturn as long ago as early 2014 – I wrote about it on the blog – yet DVSA says it only predicted an increase in the number of tests “late last year”. I’m sure I recall them predicting a fall in the numbers of those taking tests within the same time frame as all of this even though their own data show a sustained increase in tests from January 2013 onwards (and that was during the depths of the recession).

None of it makes any sense. And to top it all, there’s only been a 5% increase in the number of tests taken between January and March 2015 compared with the same period last year – yet waiting times have gone up by more than 100%.

Recruiting new examiners will take ages. From what I’ve read on certain forums they’re only on the situational judgement test (the earliest part of recruitment process) even now, in spite of claiming that recruitment started in October 2014 (it may be a different intake, of course, though it is more likely that “starting” something in civil service speak translates into taking almost a year before it turns into “doing” it). The actual training and probationary periods alone add up to over 10 months before anyone can be a fully-functioning examiner, and before that there are other tests intended to sort the wheat from the chaff. Allowing for the typical civil service efficiency noted above you can probably add up to six weeks of dead time between each of the stages, so we’ll be lucky if we see any examiners from this source before 2017. Of course, that leaves another possible back door open, and I can see them trying to fast track unsuitable people through the training programme.

Phew. I wrote a lot more than I intended there once I got going. The real reason I did this article, though, was the because of an item I got on the newsfeeds concerning Liverpool’s test waiting times – between 9 and 13 weeks, apparently. Well, my local test centres are officially claiming between 9 and 13 weeks, but I can assure you that one pupil who booked a test a few weeks ago could only get one in January 2016. When I worked it out, it must have been about 19 or 20 weeks. That’s around 10 weeks more than the official figure, and it’s a discrepancy I have been seeing for the whole of this year – with actual waiting times being considerably (and consistently) greater than the officially reported ones.

I also note from that news item that a local instructor is claiming that the long waiting times are costing him work, because people want tests quickly and they therefore go to other parts of the country if they can’t get them in Liverpool! Now, it may be a Liverpool thing, and perhaps people there really do go elsewhere if they can’t get an early test date. But the question I would ask is: where? The Manchester area has official waiting times of between 5 and 9 weeks, which in reality is probably closer to 15 weeks. Leeds is officially almost as bad as Liverpool. Anyone traveling further afield than that is crazy. My own pupils have been shopping around, I must admit, but only to book tests at the local test centre with the best time. Anyone who comes to me in September wanting to pass before Christmas, I tell them straight that they have got virtually no chance – and especially not if they haven’t even done their theory test yet.

Incidentally, that same instructor also claims his franchisees all have full diaries. In that case, you can’t say that you’re losing work – turning it down because you can’t accommodate it is not “losing” it. You’re only losing it if you want it and need it, but it goes elsewhere.

He also says that DVSA don’t pay examiners to work weekends anymore. Again, I can’t speak for Liverpool, but DVSA says in that Despatch article I linked to at the start that examiners are being encouraged “to work additional hours to provide more tests.” One of my current pupils has got a Sunday test in mid-October, which he booked in early August (that was 10 weeks even then), so – and as I say, unless Liverpool is different – that instructor’s comments are incorrect.

Another Liverpool instructor is quoted as saying that the number of tests decreased over the last few years. I refer again to the official DVSA figures, which do not back up this claim at all. In December 2012 they carried out around 100,000 tests, but since then the number has steadily increased, to over 150,000 in April 2015. The most tests conducted in a single month was around 170,000 in October 2007 so we are very nearly at that same level right now.

The only relevant factor has to be the number of people eligible for (and trying to) take the driving test. Irrespective of retirements or anything else, if they are conducting almost as many tests as they were back in 2007 (and they are), then if the waiting time is increasing it simply has to be just that more people want tests than in 2007! And only that.

Of course, you then have to ask who these additional test candidates really are. Can they all be 20-somethings who decided not to learn during the recession? My own observations suggest not.

Rugby World Cup

20/09/2015

DOAADI

Sport, World

A big upset in the rugby World Cup today, as Japan beat South Africa in what is being touted as the biggest upset in world cup history. I love this photo, which has emerged on the web.

South Africa have won the world cup twice, and they’re one of the biggest names in rugby. Japan last won a world cup match back in 1991, and they’re hardly the first on anyone’s list of top rugby teams.

Mind you, when you see names like Thompson, Leitch, Broadhurst and Hesketh in the Japanese line-up, you know times they are a-changing!

All great fun though.

Only in Manchester

19/09/2015

DOAADI

Assholes, Bad Drivers, News

Police are going to prosecute dozens of drivers who drove the wrong way on the M60 slip road near Sale in Greater Manchester.

On the other hand, ITV reports that they AREN’T being prosecuted.

It’s sufficient to point out that they are all twats, and the fact that it happened in Manchester totally fits in with a police spokesman’s comment:

The laws of the road are there for a reason, which is to protect motorists and people need to realise that they cannot do what they want, when they want.

That last line sums up the problem with our roads today.

Is it a Clock? Or is it a Bomb?

19/09/2015

DOAADI

News, World

The Americans aren’t very good at this sort of thing. The story of Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year old pupil at MacArthur High School, has been all over the media the last few days, but I particularly like this write-up from BGR which proves that some Americans at least have got it together.

Ahmed brought a homemade clock into school to show off his technical skills to his teachers. One of them decided it was a bomb and called in the police. Ahmed was then questioned by four of them, handcuffed, and taken to a juvenile detention centre. At no point did he say it was anything other than a clock. Conversely, at no point did the police consider that it was anything other than a bomb.

“We have no information that he claimed it was a bomb,” one of the cops told The Dallas Morning News. “He kept maintaining it was a clock, but there was no broader explanation.”

Texas police don’t appear to be all that bright, because like many of their kind they insist on trying to use big words when interviewed. They really shouldn’t. If it was a clock, what possible “broader explanation” could Ahmed give?

At the time of the original story, the police were still thinking of charging Ahmed with making a “hoax bomb”. Remember that he never claimed it was a bomb, and he maintained throughout that it was a clock, so quite how this “hoax bomb” fits in is anyone’s guess. The Texas police trying to save face, I would guess.

I don’t want to seem to be paraphrasing the BGR article, but they’ve done such a good write up, and it’s pretty much what I’d have written if I’d got there first. For that reason, I apologise for also mentioning that Ahmed is Muslim, although as BGR’s follow up article notes, he is a native Texan (by which I assume they mean he was born there).

Mind you, when you look at the picture of Ahmed’s clock – which you initially assume to be mechanical (well, I did), but which turns out to be digital – you can see how lesser intellects might become alarmed. It’s about the size of a small briefcase. On the other hand, it clearly operates from the mains and it has a huge display. Of course, it also has no explosives in it.

It’s a sad indictment of the times we live in that such distrust exists. This extends to the support that has been created for Ahmed by his sisters, as mentioned in the Dallas Morning News.

Is it only me who thinks that the hash tag @IStandWithAhmed could be considered inflammatory? You know, with the unfortunate combination of the letters “I” and “S”? Yes, very sad times.

In a nutshell, Texas police could easily have realised early on that it was a false alarm. But for whatever reason, they didn’t. In the meantime, Ahmed has got an invite to the White House to meet President Obama.

New Smoking Rules From October 2015

18/09/2015

DOAADI

DVSA

This DVSA alert refers to the new smoking law, which will apply to all drivers in England and Wales from 1 October 2015.

Smoking in vehicles: new rules from 1 October 2015

From 1 October 2015 it will be illegal to smoke in a vehicle with anyone under 18 present.

The new law will apply in England and Wales.

Both the driver and the smoker could be fined £50. The law applies to every driver, including those aged 17 and those with a provisional driving licence.

The law does not apply if the driver is 17 years old and is on their own in the car.

The law is changing to protect children and young people from the dangers of secondhand smoke.

Find out more at www.gov.uk/smokefreecars.

I agree with it – nothing annoys me more than seeing people smoking with kids in the car. I don’t know how they’ll enforce it, though.

Corbyn Has Probably Already Lost 2020

18/09/2015

DOAADI

News

I have always been a Labour voter – by which, I mean that there is no one else I would ever vote for. However, there is still no guarantee I would always actually vote Labour if I disagreed with their policies. I’d just not bother – like I did (or rather, didn’t) between about 1980 and the late 1990s.

I almost didn’t vote again in the last election This was as a direct result of the incompetence of a certain Portfolio Holder for Housing and Planning (a Labour councillor) over the tram, road works, and 20mph speed limits in Nottingham. I was concerned that by supporting Labour on a national level I would be supporting this woman at the local level.

It’s worth pointing out that people like me don’t win elections for political parties. That responsibility lies with the floating voters – people who change the way they vote based on the phases of the moon, which way the wind is blowing, or some minor event in their lives which occurred shortly before they needed to make their political choice. There’s nothing I hate more than to hear the statement “I’m voting [insert name] because it’s time we had a change”. But like it or not, these people make up the majority of the electorate, and they therefore collectively hold the cards which decide the outcome of any election.

And Jeremy Corbyn has managed – singlehandedly, and in less than a week since he was elected leader of the Party – to ensure that almost none of these floaters will vote Labour in the 2020 election. He did this by not singing the National Anthem at a Battle of Britain memorial service.

Corbyn is a man who went to work for trade unions almost immediately after leaving school in the late 60s. He was elected on to Haringey Council (synonymous with the “loony left” tag throughout the late 70s, 80s, and 90s) in 1974. He supports unilateral nuclear disarmament, and:

…is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Amnesty International and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and is the National Chair of the Stop the War Coalition.

(Source: Wikipedia)

In short, his politics (not him as a person) were part of the reason I stopped voting. I started again when it became clear that Tony Blair, and Gordon Brown and Ed Milliband after him, had realised that extreme left wing views were never going to win over the voters moving into the 21st Century. Such leftist ideas might have positively influenced elections 80 years ago, when most of the downtrodden voting population worked underground, but since the late 70s left wing fanaticism has become steadily more risible. These days. it is as distasteful as the stuff dogs leave behind, and which you have to scrape off your shoes.

You could argue that Ed Milliband lost the last general election (only just, I might add) because of a bacon sandwich. More specifically, it was because the likes of The Sun and The Daily Mail ran the photo – and other distasteful material – on an almost daily basis for the entire duration of their election coverage.This is how the right-wing tabloid press operates.

The point is that you can be absolutely sure that come 2020, The Sun and The Mail will be at it again. The problem for Labour this time, though, will be that whereas Ed Milliband didn’t have many skeletons in the closet – and they had to make do with the unfortunate sandwich – Jeremy Corbyn has got a truck load of the things as far as stirring up the emotions of the floating voter goes. The National Anthem affair is the cherry on top, which will appeal to the emotions of the vast majority of floaters. And that’s assuming that Corbyn isn’t clumsy enough to add to his portfolio in the next four years.

Outlook Hyperlinks Not Working

15/09/2015

DOAADI

Computers & Tech

I have no idea what caused it – though I suspect Microsoft’s recent update may have been involved – but all of a sudden, clicking any links in Outlook emails gave the message:

Your organization’s policies are preventing us from completing this action.

I had two lengthy sessions with Microsoft support, but that didn’t get me anywhere. In the end, I downloaded an automatic fix and that sorted it. If you try it yourself and you’re using Windows 10, use the download link for Windows 8.1.

I still don’t know what the problem was. I’d tried resetting Internet Explorer and changing program defaults as suggested in that link. Support also tried it, plus we tried uninstalling an app that might – and I mean “might” – have been involved, but all to no avail. The automatic fix appears to do exactly what we’d tried manually.

All sorted now.

Up A Gumtree (Darwin Award Candidate)

07/09/2015

DOAADI

Funny, News

Take a look at this half-witted thug. His name is Darnell Miller, of Stockhill Circus in Basford.

He’s now the current front-runner for the 2015 Darwin Awards as a result of his less-than-perfect criminal master plan.

So how did it work? Well, he appears to have been just smart enough to be able to open up the Gumtree website in his browser. Once there, he saw the pretty pictures of mobile phones people were selling and agreed to meet them with the idea of purchasing the phones. Once he had his hands on the merchandise – and this is the clever part (to him, anyway) – he ran away like the snivelling coward he was.

His intelligence ran out at that point. You see, every one of his victims was able to give an absolutely perfect description of him. Furthermore, the master plan had the obvious flaw in it that after the first time you executed it, the chances of further success became progressively lower as word got around. Miller was simply too stupid to realise this.

The thing is, his life was already in the gutter for him to have even tried this in the first place. Now that he has a 5-year prison stretch to deal with, the gutter is going to seem luxurious compared to where he is likely to end up.

How Evil Can People Get?

06/09/2015

DOAADI

News, World

Many people will already be aware of this story. Michelle Carter, 18, is on trial in America for allegedly encouraging her boyfriend to commit suicide.

Conrad Roy was also 18, and he had mental health problems. I won’t copy the text here, but you can read the text message exchanges between him and Carter in The Sun’s version of the story.

The message carried by these texts is crystal clear, and it only leaves you wondering how someone could be so evil, and at the same time so dumb as to document that evil so clearly.

But this is America we’re talking about, and the situation isn’t anywhere near as clear cut as you might think.

Carter is charged with involuntary manslaughter, which carries a 20 year jail term. However, Massachusetts (where all this happened) is one of a handful of American states where assisted suicide is not illegal, and that is where her lawyers are hovering. They argue that Conrad wanted to kill himself and she merely “assisted”. You only have to read those texts she sent to see just how much “assistance” she gave him.

Carter may have sent a few texts too many, though. Several months after the Conrad’s death, she sent a message to a friend which said:

Like, honestly I could have stopped it. I was the one on the phone with him and he got out of the car because [the carbon monoxide] was working and he got scared. I f***ing told him to get back in.

She also texted to a friend:

[If the police] read my messages with him I’m done. His family will hate me and I can go to jail.

When you read the full transcript of texts between her and Conrad, you can really come to only one conclusion – and that would hold, whatever the technical outcome of the trial.

More Nottingham City Council Incompetence Planned

04/09/2015

DOAADI

Transport

As I write, it is Friday 4 September. There are delays on the A60 at Ruddington – a combination of gas mains work near the petrol station and the installation of “pedestrian refuges”. Worryingly, there are also yellow signs warning that “work commences here 7 September 2015 for 3 weeks. Delays expected”. These signs are in place along the whole of the A60 from the Nottingham Knight roundabout all the way up to the Business Park south of Ruddington.

The existing work has been underway for at least three weeks already, with temporary lights up for most of the day (while they install the central refuges), and all day the last couple of days due to the gas main work. Both sets of work have been planned and carried out by incompetents, and should have been completed much sooner.

Edit: no signs of any works (other than the stuff started 3 weeks ago, which is not being touched and is still unfinished as of 9th September.

There are delays at the Crown Island due to the “ring road improvements” the Council got an EU grant for two years ago, and is desperate to spend before the EU asks for it back. It is not possible to predict precisely where the delays are on any given day, since traffic is sometimes at a standstill back to Nuthall Road heading south, and at other times (like yesterday) standing still as far back as the QMC heading north.

Edit: Tuesday 8th it was down to one lane northbound. Wednesday 9th it is one lane southbound, but with no advance warning until you turn on to the roundabout and hit a wall of cones.

There are delays along Queens Drive due to one lane being closed. Although this is due to the replacement street lighting – and has been going on intermittently for several weeks – it is connected with the tram. If nothing else, the work could easily have been done concurrent with the tram work while the road was restricted. Instead, I suspect they deliberately did it this way so they could officially announce that the tram was “finished” two weeks ago (albeit almost a year late), when they knew full well that it wasn’t.

Signs on Bilborough Road, and on roads in Wollaton and Lenton proclaim that due to the Tour of Britain cycle race those roads will be closed on Friday 11 September between (approximately) 2pm and 4pm. You will note the day – Friday – and the time – rush hour, which starts early on Fridays. You will also note the proximity of these areas to Crown Island, mentioned above.

You couldn’t make this up. But they’re not finished yet.

Signs proclaim that the roads around Silverdale Island will be closed for two weeks from 7 September. You will note the proximity of Silverdale Island to both the Crown Island and Ruddington.

You will also note the dates – 7 September – which means that everything, including that idiot cycle event, is going to be happening next Friday.

Edit: The incompetence gets worse by the day. They did NOTHING on 7th or during the day on the 8th, meaning pointless alternative routes were taken by myself when trying to access Silverdale. Then, it was chaos Tuesday night. Wednesday morning it is all gone again, but watch out for Wednesday night.

Also, it appears the work extends on to the A52, which was a single lane northbound Tuesday night (8th), as was part of the A60 from Ruddington.

Colwick Loop Road still has those road works – which started in January, are a month overdue, and which show few signs of concluding soon – due to the building of a Sainsbury’s store on one of the industrial estates.

The junction between Carlton Hill, Cavendish Road, and Station Road in Carlton has delays due to the “upgrading” of the junction. I can’t remember off the top of my head, but I think the sign says “3 weeks”. I didn’t see any advance warning of this, either.

You may remember that this junction is the temporal focal point of my derision towards National Grid, since it was here several years ago that gas main replacement commenced (blocking roads for months at a time) and has spread out like a cancer across the city since.

Driving through Ruddington this morning I saw two people with “NCC” (that’s the County Council) on the backs of their fluorescent jackets with a big tape measure and a can of yellow spray paint marking up the junction of Clifton Road and Wilford Road.

So brace yourself for weeks of misery there in the near future as they “improve” the road. The actual work on those pedestrian refuges I mentioned right at the start commenced less than a fortnight after some people with spray paint and a measuring wheel had been seen there.

Incidentally, the two people I saw this morning betrayed nothing to suggest they were qualified surveyors (no theodolite, just a big tape measure). They looked like they could be emptying bins later today after they’d finished this job.

These are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. There are lots of others, but it just goes to reinforce my assessment of the City and County Councils.