It’s actually quite a simple equation they use. It only has one variable:
x = “make the motorist wait as long as possible”.
I saw it in action this morning. I came off the A453 and turned into Clifton, along Green Lane. As I approached the junction with Southchurch Drive (the tram crossing), the lights changed to red. This is the sequence that followed:
a pause of about 10 seconds
pedestrian crossings go green for approximately 30 seconds, then back to red
a tram has stopped by this time
a further 10 second pause
Southchurch Drive lights go green, tram and following traffic move off
Southchurch Drive lights stay green for at least 1 minute
Southchurch Drive lights turn red
a further 10 second pause
pedestrian crossings go green again for another 30 seconds, then back to red
a further 10 second pause
Green Lane lights change to green
there’s a minor delay moving off because two people with Clifton genes (one riding a mobility scooter) have proceeded to cross well after the green man turned red and we have to wait for them
After less than 15 seconds the lights change back to red
Only a fraction of the traffic that had built up along Green Lane got through, and it had to endure the same protracted sequence all over again.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Those responsible for the tram are complete wankers.
The tram officially “opened” on 25 August – getting on for a year behind schedule. Today – 3 September – I was held up in several locations by road closures and/or restrictions which are absolutely and completely part of the tram works. Beeston centre in particular is an un-navigable pigsty of a building site, just as it has been for the entire duration of the tram fiasco.
Mind you, when I say “un-navigable”, I’m only talking about for every road user EXCEPT for those on the tram. Nottingham City/County Council has made damned sure that the illusion of the tram being completed is maintained, irrespective of the fact that they are still causing chaos on the roads.
But my main point is the news item I saw on the BBC local website yesterday. They (the Council) have spent a further £70,000 on a “feasibility study” and they’re already talking about a new £170m extension out past Kimberley and even possibly into Derbyshire, It would involve a tunnel under the M1.
Mark my words: they have already decided to do it.
What makes me so sure? Well, until it was built I had no idea (and no interest) in precisely where the lines would be laid in Clifton. I was taken aback when they removed the original three roundabouts along Southchurch Drive, and I didn’t make the connection until I saw the lines being laid. The roundabouts were removed for the tram, and only for the tram. As is typical with Nottingham City Council, it was a case of screw the motorist – and you now have a situation where “straight ahead” from the south end of Farnborough Road means veering on to Southchurch Drive, whereas continuing along Farnborough Road is now a light-controlled right turn. The lights at all three ex-roundabout locations are heavily biased against road vehicles and they stay on red for ridiculously long periods, even when there is absolutely no other traffic around. The signage in some places is also highly suspect.
But back to the Kimberley extension. Another recent vast and idiotic scheme saw the roundabout where Aspley Lane crosses the ring road completely removed even though it has resulted in traffic jams that were not there before (especially heading south). See where this is going? And if you open up Google Maps, identify Kimberley (specifically the Giltbrook Retail Park where IKEA is located), the Hyson Green tram station, Aspley Lane, and then add somewhere run down that the clowns in the Council might want to “regenerate”… say, Strelley… it doesn’t take a genius to see where the likely route of Line 4 is going to be.
As I say, Line 4 is already decided. It’s just a question of when. Oh, and will they have finished this one before they start on the next? It’s even odds at the moment.
There is talk of partly privatising the driving test itself, closing test centres, and increasing the age of self-certification from 70 to 75 years. The article states:
Ministers want to improve the driving test pass rate, which is languishing below 50 per cent. The document states that there is “anecdotal evidence” that ill-prepared learners are booking their test date after only a handful of lessons, possibly because of concerns over waiting times between booking and taking the practical examination.
This is complete bollocks. The pass rate has gone up every year since 2002, and 47% is hardly “languishing” below 50. And waiting times have only gone up over the last year, so God only knows where this “anecdotal evidence” has come from. Here are the historical pass rates:
2002/3
2003/4
2004/5
2005/6
2006/7
2007/8
2008/9
2009/10
2010/11
2011/12
2012/13
2013/14
2014/15
43.2
42.8
14.9
42.6
43.3
44.2
45.3
45.9
46.3
46.9
47.1
47.1
46.9
I couldn’t find any data from before 2002, and that figure from 2004/5 has to be an error, but here’s what the data look like (without 2004/5) when plotted on a graph:
It’s bad enough that the Independent hacks didn’t research it properly, but I really do wish that those people cutting-and-pasting it on to forums would do their homework first. The situation is not as the Government (or the Independent) is reporting it, and that makes it invalid as the justification for change. The Government is merely pursuing an agenda – more on that in a moment.
The driving test pass rate has always “languished” below 100% for the simple reason that not everyone passes the test! The reason they don’t pass is because there is effectively a “pass mark” – dictated by the driver fault/serious fault boundary – which quite simply means that if they don’t drive well enough on the day then they will fail. It’s nature in action, and it results in a national pass rate of around 47% at the moment. You wouldn’t expect it to change much year on year unless someone was fiddling the results.
But that’s what the Government is proposing. One of the ways they will do it is already being trialled, and the actual changes being looked at include replacing most of the existing manoeuvres (which people can currently easily fail at) with ones that only a complete idiot could fail at. I mean, they are looking to replace the turn in the road and reverse round a corner manoeuvres with “pulling over on the right” and “reversing”!
To get an idea of what the Government is trying to do, you only have to look at the GCSE grading system. GCSEs are graded A to G and – like it or not – every one of those grades is officially considered to be a “pass”. It means that the “pass rate” for GCSEs has been above 97% since 1989, and every year you have people walking around with Es, Fs, and Gs pretending – having been led to believe – that they have a “pass”, when the reality is that no employer (or university) in the land is going to be demanding a handful of Gs in order to be considered for a position with them. The only grades that mean anything are the As, Bs, and Cs, and that brings the “pass rate” down to around 60%. Consider also that under the old O Level system, I believe that around 40% of candidates achieved an A-C grade (anything below that was NOT a pass), and you can see how the figures have been artificially elevated – don’t get me started on how GCSEs are far easier than ‘O’ Levels were.
But this is what they are proposing to do with the driving test. They want to make it so easy only a complete moron would ever fail it, and this will bring the “pass rate” up. What they blatantly fail to realise is that the higher pass rate will bear no relation to actual driving standards. In fact, it will mask a serious decline, as candidates will not be required to master more difficult skills and will only be asked to demonstrate much easier ones. Yet these people will be sent out on the roads with full driving licences.
There is mention in the Independent article of “the private sector [being] asked to help to fill any shortages of examiners and test centres.” I can’t get as worked up over this as some ADIs seem to be doing. It doesn’t specify who the “private sector” are, and it’s only the usual bunch of anti-DVSA instructors who are assuming that it means random people taken off the streets.
Another change that looks like it is going to happen anyway is that people will no longer have to declare themselves fit to drive when they reach 70. The age limit will be raised to 75. This is frightening.
I’m sorry, but they’ve not got the complete story. It isn’t just pointless signs, but also ones which are blatantly wrong – erected by incompetent people employed in sinecures at local councils.
In Nottingham, a good place to start when putting things right would be with the “Portfolio Holder for Planning and Housing”. The sooner the clown who holds that position is put somewhere where she can do less damage, the better it would be for everyone.
I’ve already mentioned how she has been directly responsible for hundreds – if not thousands – of 20mph signs being erected in her quest for a blanket 20mph speed limit. But what she also failed to do was make sure the old 30mph signs were removed. The image above is one I took back in May this year, but there are numerous locations where there is the same problem. Most of them are still there. Furthermore, in changing 30mph limits to 20mph ones, the fact that there were already 20mph zones within those areas means that much of the signage is the wrong size.
I believe I am correct in saying that a large sign is legally required at the start of any given speed zone, and smaller repeater signs are used within that as reminders (unless it’s a 30mph zone, in which case the presence of street lighting is the “reminder”). In changing the 30mph signs to 20mph, whole areas now have larger 20mph signs INSIDE the new 20mph zones, which implies that the limit changes at that point. The inconsistent use of 20mph repeaters in the new zones means that motorists could easily be misled.
As an aside, I have been sent some raw data files which show the results of the public consultations on the 20mph speed limit. I won’t spoil it, but watch out for a separate article on that.
lane is marked obe route only do i beed ro ibdicate
I didn’t realise that catching a cold could carry over into someone’s typing. Either that, or they were typing in the dark (I hope and pray they weren’t doing it while they were driving, though that’s an increasingly likely problem these days).
The translation is:
lane is marked one route only do I need to indicate?
What this person is asking is to do with road markings and left-only and right-only arrows. The short answer is no. If the lane only goes in one direction and is marked as such then there is technically no need to indicate.
It’s not quite as simple as that, though. You have to ask yourself if the direction the lane goes is clearly visible to everyone behind you – visitors who may not know what you know, for example. And does the volume of traffic make it hard for people to see the arrows on the road?
I suspect the question is related to someone’s driving test, quite possibly because they have already failed one, or because they’re starting to worry about one they have booked. The first thing I’d do is ask your driving instructor – he should know what to do at the junction in question. If you’re not taking lessons with an ADI then you could phone your local test centre and ask for advice. The examiners are usually only to glad to help and they usually know the area well. Unless you clear it up directly with them, the problem you have is knowing what the examiners expect, and this can vary from centre to centre and around the country. There is no absolute answer, unfortunately.
With my own pupils on lessons, if they don’t indicate in a situation where they really didn’t need to (but could have), I always try to get to the bottom of why – did they decide it wasn’t needed, or did they just forget?
Something I always point out, though, is:
if you signal when you really don’t need to, the worst that could happen is that you’ll get a driver (minor) fault
if you don’t signal when the examiner thinks you should have, you could get a serious fault
Note that I am referring to the exact query made at the start of this article, and nothing else. Your signals should not be misleading. But nor should your lack of signals be misleading, either. And this applies only to learners and normal drivers only – if you’re doing your Part 2 test, signalling when you don’t need to is a driving fault.
If a pupil tells me they decided not to signal (and if they’re correct), I am happy with that. But if they tell me they forgot, then I’d much rather they signalled without absolute need in future (as long as they aren’t misleading anyone) to develop their MSM skills. Instructors just need to face facts that in the real world you are not going to get all your learners (or normal drivers) to make instant and perfect decisions, and sometimes it pays to err on the side of caution with a technically unnecessary signal.
Warning: this is an old article (though anyone reading it in 2023 would be forgiven for thinking it is current).
Back in January signs went up on the Colwick Loop Road near the Victoria Retail Park. They were the standard “screw you” type much loved by Nottingham City/County Council, gleefully declaring that road works would commence on 19 January 2015 for 30 weeks. Naturally, delays were “expected”.
Well, for anyone who has been keeping count, 16 August marked the end of 30 weeks. As I write this, they are nearly two weeks behind, and judging from the temporary lights and rubble-strewn verges they still have several more weeks to go.
What was particularly irritating about these road works – other than the fact that they cut off yet another route into and out of the city – was the fact that the cones and speed restrictions went up at 8am on 19 January, and yet not a single piece of work took place on the Loop Road until the middle of April. So, we had to endure 15 weeks of traffic jams and rush hour delays for absolutely no benefit.
On the subject of benefit, Council’s road works website still doesn’t identify the purpose of these works. All it says is:
Nottinghamshire County Council is carrying out essential works in this area. This is to ensure that we provide a safe and reliable road network to our road users.
This is complete bollocks. The only purpose of these works is to give access to a new Sainsbury’s superstore which is being built on the industrial estate. The works are not “essential” and they are of virtually no benefit to the motorist. In fact, the additional junction on the Loop Road, the extra traffic, and the fact that the railway bridge can still only accommodate one lane of traffic each way all ensure that the motorist is going to get hammered once everything is finished.
I first heard what they were up to from a pupil whose husband worked for the Council. It seems to be common knowledge now, even if the Council is still trying to pretend otherwise. I came across official confirmation that they’re building a Sainsbury’s when I was using Open Street Maps to plot a GPS trace using my GPS tracker recently – the site is clearly labelled, as shown here in the large circle.
As an aside, you have to wonder at the mentality of Sainsbury’s board of directors. The company is suffering falling sales, and after 10 years of continuous growth they have suffered six consecutive quarterly falls in sales. They reportedly cannot compete any further with the price cutting specialists (Aldi and Lidl in particular). Yet here they are building an expensive new store within 500 metres of an M&S Foodhall, a Morrisons superstore, and a Lidl (marked by the smaller circles). They even have the resources to employ a bunch of graduates, who I saw being given the Grand Tour of the site a few months ago (though precisely what business the civil work on the other side of the road was of theirs is anyone’s guess).
But I digress. Another new feature of this development is a roundabout inside the industrial estate on Private Road No. 3 (to the lower left of the Sainsbury circle). It’s worth a special mention, given that it is just a few hundred metres away from the Colwick Test Centre.
Private Road No. 3 is a long, mainly straight, and fairly wide road which gives on to numerous industrial plots. These include BDF (Britain’s largest onshore drilling company), various recycling plants (household waste and building rubble), an aggregate supplier, several commercial vehicle repair companies, cement mixers/suppliers, two major fuel suppliers (it’s hard to miss those fuel tanks from the road), and numerous other companies operating supply and warehousing services. Oh, and the test centre, of course.
Apart from that last one, you don’t have to be a genius to realise what sort of traffic uses this road (I’ll give you a hint: 90% of it is long, heavy, and has more than six wheels) and Private Road No.3’s design – if not purposely made that way – has certainly attracted such businesses, Until Nottingham City and/or County Council stuck its oar in, that is.
BDF, Wastecycle, and all those other people who have operated large commercial vehicles out of the industrial estate for decades in order to ply their trades will no doubt be surprised to learn that they don’t need a straight road after all. Obviously, what they they really needed was a tight roundabout, about 10m across and offset from the line of the road, so that anyone using to continue along the road has to travel more than three-quarters of the way round its circumference, successively pointing at almost all points of the compass as they do. But hey! It’s Sainsbury’s, right? I guess that someone somewhere is going to be benefitting from all this, but it isn’t you or me as the motorist.
I don’t think anyone would be so stupid as to make this back entrance to the Sainsbury’s site one of the ways into its customer car park (I assume it will be for deliveries only), but I do think there are plenty of stupid people out there who shop at Sainsbury’s and who “get lost” often enough to end up trying it. And if they’re stupid enough to get in there in the first place, they will easily be stupid enough to cause further problems when they encounter the lorries they are holding up as they try to turn around.
Something else that isn’t immediately apparent (you can’t see it on the map above, but it’s there) is that to the lower right of the Sainsbury’s circle there is a cycle route which goes down to the river. As you approach the roundabout, the most obvious route (if you’re a cyclist) is anticlockwise on the roundabout – it’s about 80% shorter than doing it legally. Consider also that the major users of this cycle route are both cyclists and fishermen and you can easily see that the short route will be taken more frequently than the longer one.
Consider also that the kind of people who work at some of the places on the industrial estate. It helps if you know that they drive Audis, BMWs, and Corsas. For these people, speed limits are less than advisory, and Private Road No.3 is their own personal drag strip. I mention this simply because I’ve seen them going “the short way” already on weekend afternoons.
So there you have it. Another Council cock-up as far as overblown road works is concerned. And goodbye to another two simple routes, as they’re turned into convoluted junctions with yet more traffic lights.
One final thought. Don’t expect the “temporary” 30mph limit to go back to 40mph – especially not near the new Sainsbury’s junction. Even if it does, don’t expect it to stay there for very long after the first few serious accidents caused by dolts “getting confused” as they try to take their shopping home.
I’ve been using Windows 10 for almost a month now and I’m very impressed with it. I’ve not had a single crash, and every piece of software I have works on it.
Something I want to start making more use of is speech recognition and speech-to-text (for dictation purposes). I looked around for a decent headset (headphones + microphone), but I couldn’t find one I liked. To be honest, their appearance put me off more than anything, with the boom microphones just looking like flat strips of plastic. I was really after something like my Sennheiser HD 205 phones, but with a mike fitted. And then I thought: why not fit a separate mike to my Sennheisers?
After some searching I came across the AntLion ModMic. I checked out the reviews and decided this was the way to go, and a little more searching revealed that it is distributed by several companies in the UK. I chose LimeXB because they had the lowest price).
Once I’d fitted it – and it fits well – I started testing it. The first thing I noticed was that the sound level from the mike was very low. Windows could pick it up, but it was advising that I either speak up (which could have resulted in my lungs being expelled from my body, since I was already shouting), or move the mouthpiece nearer my mouth (which at that point in my testing would probably have meant inside it).
I’ve been through all this before with Windows. It’s not an actual fault with either hardware or software. It’s a settings issue. And I discovered that Windows 10 has a setting I’ve never seen before which fixed the problem immediately. Here’s what to do.
Click Search and type “sound”, then press enter. This opens up the Hardware & Sound app. Alternatively, open the Control Panel and select the app from there, then click on Sound. This dialog box (or similar – you may see different devices listed) appears:
Click the Recording tab and you see this (again, you might have different devices listed):
Double-click the Microphone device and this dialog appears:
Now click the Levels tab and you will see this:
You’ll probably find first of all that the Microphone level is set to less than 100% (mine had defaulted to 80%). Set this to maximum. The interesting one is that Microphone Boost slider – I’m sure I never saw that in Windows 7 or earlier versions, though I’ve not really bothered with using a mike much in the past. Set this to maximum, too. Then click OK to close all the dialog boxes.
You should now find that your microphone is ultra-sensitive. You may even have to adjust the boost to a lower setting as it might be too sensitive, but you can do that as needed.
I’m just getting to grips with Windows 10’s speech recognition. Even without any training (the computer needs to learn how you speak) I can open, close, and manipulate various apps. And dictation (which IS going to need some training) looks like it could be great fun.
How do you pin microphone levels to the task bar?
I’m not sure exactly what you mean, but they’re already pretty much there. If you look at the end of the task bar, you’ll see the speaker icon. Right-click it and you’ll get a menu like this (note that I have my task bar on the side of my screen):
Task bar speaker icon
If you select Recording devices it takes you straight to the dialog box with the Recording tab I discussed above.
I nearly choked when I saw it. An email alert from Nottingham City Council says:
History made as new tram routes open
Nottingham’s new expanded tram network will open to the public on Tuesday 25th August 2015, it was announced today.
History will be made at 6am tomorrow, when the first trams on the new lines to Clifton and Chilwell commence passenger service.
Councillor Jane Urquhart, with lead responsibility for NET at Nottingham City Council, said: “This is a really great day for Nottingham. It marks the dawn of a new era when NET becomes a true network and, with trams running from every seven minutes, it is all set to provide easier access to key locations right across the city.
“The tram provides the backbone to the city’s integrated transport network, underpinning all the efforts to reduce congestion, improve the environment and make Nottingham an even better place to live, work or visit.”
It’s bollocks. I drove down Robin Hood Way with a pupil this afternoon, and at the Arkwright Street traffic lights – where the tram cuts across – the road is dug up. No one was working on it, and there is no way it will be gone by tonight. However, it isn’t actually on the tram lines, which explains why Nottingham City Council can make outlandish and blatantly false claims. But it is causing hold ups to traffic because only one car can pass at a time – and not even that if there is a bus at the bus stop which is almost opposite the junction. There are numerous locations where restrictions to everyone else are still in place.
I also drive down Beeston High Road this morning with another pupil. It was dead, and most of the shops were closed. Maybe when the tram starts running tomorrow we’ll see Jesus appearing with the Heavenly Host and everything will be all right again. More than likely, though, we won’t.
Let no one ever forget the incompetence that Nottingham’s tram system is built upon. Let no on ever forget that it is almost a year behind schedule. Let no one ever forget that it has cost them an arm and a leg in costs associated with traffic jams and additional fuel costs. And let no one ignore the fact that it will continue to do so for some months yet while they continue work which is not really complete after all.
I just saw an advert for Colgate Max White toothpaste. It was filled with catwalk models with teeth so white you needed sunglasses.
The fun part – if you don’t include how it was shot in pseudo-black & white to emphasise the whiteness – was in the small print at the end which says it contains 0.1% hydrogen peroxide. This is the maximum amount allowed in consumer products in the UK (well, the EU).
When a dentist uses it, he may use up to 35% concentration. So Colgate’s toothpaste is 350 times weaker than the stuff a dentist would use. And that’s before you take into account hydrogen peroxide’s instability, which means it will be weaker than ever by the time it gets anywhere near your teeth.
There is absolutely no way – no way whatsoever – that the models’ teeth became that white simply by brushing with Colgate. However, being models, there is close to a 100% probability that at some point they have paid around £1,000 or more to have their teeth whitened professionally – either by bleaching, or by the application of some sort of coating (veneer) which hides the stains. We’re talking military-grade orthodontics, here. Judging by how goofy they always seem to look, my money is on the veneer option – where a thin porcelain shield is glued on to the tooth to hide what’s behind it (often needing some tooth grinding so the goofiness isn’t too apparent).
I was shopping in Asda tonight. I paid for my items at the self-checkout by debit card, and also requested £30 cash back. I loaded my bags into my trolley, but I forgot to pick up my cash from the tray.
Let’s just say that there was a bloke behind me who didn’t call me back, and who hasn’t handed the money to anyone at the store.
Let’s also just say that I’d recognise him if I saw him again, and he’d better have a really good excuse if I do – though thieving scum like him don’t usually have to worry about excuses.
