Diary Of An ADI - A Driving Instructor's Blog

Nottingham Tram Works – A Case Of Criminal Incompetence!

21/11/2012

ADI, General, News, Roadworks, Transport

If there was ever such a thing as criminal incompetence, the entire staff of both Nottingham City Council and NET (the idiots who run Nottingham’s tram) would be guilty of it.

I woke up this morning to find the city gridlocked. And I mean GRIDLOCKED. Traffic was at a standstill everywhere.

I had a 9am appointment at the Queens Medical Centre following a two-month wait for a GP referral slot. I tried to get there, but a journey which would normally have taken 10 minutes had to be aborted after only managing to travel less than 1 mile in 45 minutes. To make matters worse, when I called the NHS – which has to run the City Council and NET a close second for stupidity – I was told they couldn’t access my records without a password (so I couldn’t even tell them I was sorry that I couldn’t get in), and that this should have been provided with my referral letter from my GP. I explained I didn’t get a referral letter, and that the GP had done it directly, and was told that my surgery would be able to provide it. Of course, when I phoned my surgery the only person with access to the password system was stuck in the bloody traffic!

It turned out to be almost entirely the fault of tram works, which had “over run” – a euphemistic description for yet another total and incompetent balls up by NET workers.

This meant that University Boulevard – already down to one lane at the best of times – was closed. And it was topped off by some wanker over-turning their car on what appears to have been a 30mph road (listening to the traffic reports) near Wilford. All of this was before, during, and after the rush hour.

I tried every possible route to get to the QMC, but gave up in the city centre. The gridlock extended as far south as Bunny on the A60. And the icing on the cake was that all the usual rat runs I know were also snarled up with people trying to bypass the mess – which in itself was made all the more worse by the numerous utilities road works which the idiot council has allowed to take place simultaneously both with each other and the tram works. As I’ve said previously, the tram works already involve numerous semi-permanent or long-term road closures. It took me nearly two hours to get back home again.

While we’re on the subject, I noticed several ambulances stuck also trying to get to A&E and the QMC. I hope anyone who was lying in the back considers suing the council and NET back to the Stone Age. And the police ought to be doing something about it now – it’s gone beyond a joke. It really is becoming a case of criminal stupidity.

Teenager Dies In Crash On Rural Road

19/11/2012

DOAADI

ADI, News

Another sad story involving the death of a teenager who only passed her test a few weeks earlier.

There are no specific details, and police are calling for witnesses, but 18-year-old Hannah Lodge crashed into a telegraph pole on a B-road. It happened during daylight and no passengers were mentioned, but other than that it appears to be yet another “rural road, no one else involved” scenario acted out – with tragic consequences.

An update following the inquest can be found here.

It appears that although the driver was at fault for the accident, the telegraph pole and weather station pole are being blamed simply for being there. The argument is that if they hadn’t been, the crash might have had a different outcome.

We live in a strange world.

New Driver Restrictions – Update

19/11/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, Driving Tests, News, Training

The London Evening Standard has its own story on the proposed restrictions for new drivers.

Its says that three-quarters of the public think new drivers should face restrictions after passing their tests. Three quarters also agreed that there should be restrictions on carrying passengers.

Over half believe that there should be a minimum 12-month learning period before they can take their driving test., and similar numbers support a late-night curfew and think the driving test itself should change.

Nearly half of all 17-year old males have accidents within their first six months of driving.

Meanwhile, the bleeding hearts out there continue to oppose the suggestions as being unenforceable, and as being detrimental to the lifestyles of the little darlings whose lifestyles are such that they want to go out and kill themselves in their cars.

This ITV link gives some useful information linking to a variety of sources.

More 20mph Piffle

19/11/2012

DOAADI

ADI, News

Another “charity” vying for soapbox space during Road Safety Week is clamouring for more 20mph speed limits to be imposed. This one is in Wales, but that doesn’t make their claims any more relevant.

I normally have a lot of respect for what BRAKE has to say, but not with nonsense like this.

That’s because there is no evidence that 20mph limits actually cut accidents, but a fair bit which suggests otherwise.

The whole kerfuffle is yet another echo of the bloody Olympics, and put forward by a bunch of Bradley fanboys. BRAKE reckons that “a UK-wide survey of 8,000 children shows 70% of youngsters would be able to walk and cycle more if roads in their neighbourhoods were safer.” Conclusive scientific evidence, as you can see.

A BRAKE spokesman goes on to say:

Everyone in Wales should be able to walk and cycle in their community without fear or threat: it’s a basic right, and GO 20 is about defending that.

The 2012 (Olympic) Games helped us all realise the importance of being able to live active lifestyles. Critical to this is making our streets and communities safe places we can use and enjoy.

Unless you ban cars from roads completely, encouraging people – and especially children – to go on them is just asking for trouble.

They’ve even got some pseudo-scientist spouting nonsense to support their claims:

Dr Catherine Purcell, of the Dyscovery Centre, University of Wales, Newport, has found children find it difficult to judge speed once it rises over 20mph.

Also her latest research has shown that children with learning difficulties like dyspraxia, dyscalculia and autism find it particularly difficult.

Of course, there are places where cars are already banned – we call them “cycle routes” – and if people used those instead of major dual carriageways then there’d be fewer accidents. And similarly, if kids were taught to ride bikes and use roads as pedestrians properly, instead of blindly walking out because they’re hunched over their iPods or phones, even they would be a whole lot safer.

And just get over the bloody Olympics.

Are Learners Taking Their Tests Too Early?

19/11/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, News, Training

This story came in on the newsfeed. The title gives the impression that it is gong to be a learned discussion on whether or not learner drivers take their tests too early – but it isn’t any such thing.

The entire article is based on the single premise that if the national average number of hours taken is 40, then anyone taking their test in less hours than that is doing it too early!

And now, recent research is suggesting that learner drivers are taking the practical driving test too early, in fact, 90% of learner drivers! Basically, the claim is that only 10% of learner drivers are taking the recommended amount of driving lessons before the driving test. Based on the average prices, 40 hours of tuition is worth over £900, which is not including the cost of taking the theory and practical driving tests.

Absolute nonsense, and yet another example of someone who doesn’t understand statistics – but talks about them anyway. That figure of 40 hours is NOT a “recommended amount” of hours – it’s the average number people who pass their tests have actually taken, and therefore includes those who do it quicker than average as well as those who take longer. The author of the article ought to look up the word “average” and try to understand it before using it again.

Personally, I would like nothing more than for there to be a minimum number of hours professional training required before someone is allowed to take their driving test. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case – and it isn’t likely to be anytime soon. Even if they did impose a minimum number of lessons required, they simply wouldn’t dare make it as high as 40!

I would also like every learner to be a bottomless pit when it comes to having enough money to take lessons. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case either.

You can’t fluke your way through the driving test – you’re either good enough to pass it or you’re not. The only thing that the test doesn’t evaluate is experience, and it never has done.

People say that driving today is a lot different to what it was 20 or 30 years ago. Part of me wants to shout “bollocks” to that – in fact, part of me will shout “bollocks”, because I know what they are getting at when they say it. In actual fact, driving today isn’t much different to what it was 20-odd years ago. There’s more traffic, and other drivers are bigger arseholes, but that’s about it. You still steer a car using a steering wheel, and there are still three pedals on the floor (or two if you’re in an automatic). They still use tarmac on the roads, and lanes have things called “white lines” between them. Apart from what you keep reading about the Google driverless car, we’re nowhere near having them out there alongside us yet, and cars still only employ two dimensions when travelling – not three, like in Blade Runner.

The bottom line is that – give or take one or two over the years – all of my pupils take their tests when they’re ready. If one is ready in less than 20 hours, then I will not stop them. Yes, there are some people out there – often immigrants desperate for licences, but not smart enough to realise how much extra it is costing them doing it their way – who take test after test but no formal lessons. But it sure as hell isn’t 90% of all learners.

Radical Changes To Driving Test Demanded

18/11/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, Driving Tests, News

This hot story from the news feeds says that insurers are tomorrow going to demand radical changes to the driving test as accident statistics reveal the risks posed by rural roads.

Insurers are demanding:

six month ban on carrying passengers after test
11pm to 4am curfew
retest after 2-year probationary period

Insurers are meeting ministers this week to discuss road safety. As the report states, any reduction in accidents will bring down insurance premiums.

The report also states that the public supports change, with 76% agreeing some driver restrictions are needed. Obviously, that 76% doesn’t consist of any ADIs if what you read on the forums is anything to go by. The typical ADI is programmed to follow the “if-I-didn’t-think-of-it-then-it’s-a-crap-idea model.

Proposals for change already face an uphill struggle with people like this on the case. This woman’s “expertise” appears to derive from the fact that she was disabled in a car accident nine years ago (and that she’s a paralympian). Somehow, this gives her the insight necessary to claim that imposing restrictions on young drivers will prevent them getting the experience they need to become better drivers. She admits in this interview with Channel 4 that she was a “stereotypical” new driver, driving home from a party with a car full of friends.

She misses the point completely, having fired her gun in the exact opposite direction to the target! Like her, they are having accidents. But do they all need to keep having crashes and maiming themselves in order to “gain experience”?

And the AA also stoked the flames of opposition by claiming restrictions would be “impractical” and hard to police. They reckon more extensive driver training is the answer. Quite how they imagine “more extensive training” is to be policed is open to guesses.

I’m not singling out the AA here, but what we have is group after group after group trying to stake its claim on the road safety map with totally opposing views to each other. Actually cutting accident statistics comes in way behind just talking about it.

Young people have most accidents on rural roads at night, on bends, with a car full of passengers, with no other car involved. This is a simple fact. They are not taught to drive recklessly by their instructors, but they do drive recklessly through their own choices.

“More extensive training” will not change that! Not one iota.

Absolutely nothing so far has managed to control the way young drivers drive. All the namby-pamby stuff about coaching them in their lifestyle choices is like trying to knock down a wall with a feather. It hasn’t happened. It isn’t going to happen.

The time has come to just put a complete manual stop to the main causes of accidents – bravado, inexperience, and distraction (i.e. attitude). By all means try and deal with those issues separately, but you simply can’t let the carnage continue while every New Age initiative in the meantime fails miserably to change those attitudes.

However, the AA does have a valid point – a separate, and well-concealed point – when you consider this report in The Scotsman. It’s part of the same clutch of ABI (Association of British Insurers) press releases ahead of their week in the spotlight. The Scottish story explains that most accidents occur in the rural north east of the country. It tries to explain this away as being due to affluent drivers in fast cars and the rural location per se. What it doesn’t touch upon is the limited amount of driving learners in such areas are going to be asked to do prior to and during their tests.

I’ve reported before that test centres in these extreme rural locations have some of the highest driving test pass rates in the UK. They also have some of the fewest roads to drive on (the picture above shows the largest road in Mallaig, whose test centre has the highest pass rate in the UK). Laughably, instructors in these areas have suggested that it’s because they’re better trainers than those in dense urban areas with much lower pass rates (and high numbers of immigrants and cash-strapped people desperate to pass without paying for lessons). I wonder how they explain the high accident rates?

Everything in the Scottish story points to inexperience again. If you learn to drive and pass your test in an area with perhaps 10km of available road then you’re getting even less experience than those in more expansive areas – and we already know that they are often still inexperienced when it comes to driving on their own (because of perhaps only being taught test routes).

To be fair to Mallaig, it isn’t mentioned in the latest stats for accidents, but it is tucked away in a sparsely populated region. The data in the Scottish report relate to higher population density locations within these rural locations.

The problems all come down to inexperience and immature attitude. Forcing new drivers to take it easy for 6 months, then get re-tested after two years (that’s not going to happen in a million years), would be a great way of giving them vital experience. Increasing the minimum driving age would also help (especially for young males, who are frequently mentally aged 13-15 when their real age is 17. Stuff their “liberties”. Driving is a privilege, not a right.

Parents Teaching Driving Skills To Kids

18/11/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, General, Training

I often wonder to myself why it is that so many instructors are dead set against parents or friends teaching people to drive.

Any learner driver has got to attain a certain level of competence in order to pass their driving test. If the parent does a bad job of teaching, the learner simply doesn’t pass the test. However, if the learner does pass, then the parent must have provided at least the bare minimum of tuition in order for them to do so. Where that bare minimum actually comes from is irrelevant. It’s not rocket science working this out.

Indeed, in most cases the parent will have provided a level of worldly wisdom concerning driving that most ADIs would struggle to achieve in the limited amount of time they spend with their typical pupil.

The suggestion that parents are not capable of teaching their kids is laughable. Some might not be – but as I say, the learner usually fails if that is the case. A parent might not know all the buzzwords, or have fancy briefings and lesson plans to pore over, but if they themselves know how to handle a car and other traffic then if they can convey that – however inefficiently compared to SuperADI – to their offspring they are adequate trainers.

When it comes down to it, I would guess that most parents are actually better driving teachers than quite a few ADIs out there. They might not pass Part 2 or 3, of course, but what of that? It’s not the issue.

I actively encourage parents to come out on lessons with me and the pupil so I can show them what to look for. I also explain how what they were taught – and the way they’ve come to do things since then – might not be the best way nowadays, and giving the learner mixed messages just makes it harder for them. These are parents who have chosen not to teach their own kids, but who are going to supervise private practice, so I don’t really want them trying to “teach” because of those mixed messages.

In the past, though, I’ve had quite a few people who have been taught by parents and then sent to me to be “finished off”, and quite honestly none of them have turned out to be homicidal maniacs who can’t even get in the car without stalling it. They’re usually lacking mirror checks (or doing too many) or not very good with roundabouts, say. But nothing to suggest that the parent has done a bad job. And like I say, if they went to test like that they’d just fail.

As recent posts have intimated, though. The biggest problem with new drivers is what their parents didn’t teach them in the sixteen-plus years before their driving test.

Why Pass Plus Was Devalued

18/11/2012

DOAADI

ADI, General

Assuming it’s true, I saw this on a forum frequented by student learner drivers:

My instructor was the best, he used to let me drive one handed, with a driving lean, windows wide open, own songs playing loud (not too loud though) through AUX, he used to go buy couple of snacks and drinks. and We used to cruise all over the city on the lessons. He used to tell me race past cyclists, and even at traffic lights he used to let me have a little drag race with the car nex to me. He was probably the best instructor everywhere. So much fun i had with that guy, was the best

He even sold me a Pass Plus certificate for £50 one week after i passed, without doing the course. Which was a bargain for me.

That last paragraph illustrates why Pass Plus was so devalued, when it really could have (could still) contributed significantly to these issues of young drivers killing themselves so frequently.

Can you imagine an ADI advising a pupil (and an inexperienced driver, at that) “race past” cyclists and “drag race” other cars? How well would you say such an instructor had handled the issue of attitude in such a driver?

When the above poster was challenged over his post (and accused of trolling), he/she replied:

I’m afraid not mate [not trolling], there’s another guy in my local area that does lessons in a car that’s really sporty, lowered, has limo black tints on back, lets you speed, lets you play your own music, and the instructor smokes whilst on lesson, and even gives lessons to 16 year olds!!

Remember that in order to be an ADI you have to be considered “fit and proper”. Go figure.

New Driver Restrictions – The Voice Of Youth

17/11/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, News

As you can imagine, the proposals being considered restricting the carrying of passengers by new drivers has got a few feathers ruffled. Here’s a sample from a forum frequented by the very people the restriction is aimed at.

They better not consider such a stupid proposal………..what if I need to take a passenger who isn’t family, plus who is considered family as mine is extensive or how would they even check

Well, there goes my car sharing plan for uni… it’s a ridiculous idea and unless they have everyone’s family trees or something then I’ll just gain a few extra cousins every time I need to go somewhere

Absolutely retarded. How are they even going to enforce this? Stop every driver who looks under 25 and who is carrying a ‘person that doesn’t seem like their family member’?

What an incredibly stupid idea. Some drivers (of any age) will drive badly whether they have passengers or not… Some may even drive better with passengers. What’s to stop young drivers meeting up in separate cars?

To me, it just seems like another excuse for insurers to not pay out.

My thoughts exactly.. if young drivers were THAT bad then surely it’d be better to just increase the driving age?

I’ve noticed that every time one of these stupid laws is thought up, it’s always the idea of the insurers. They only want these laws so that they have more reasons to not pay out.

You see what I mean about modern youth being so readily prepared to break the Law by lying if it suits them?

It is not an excuse for insurers not to pay out – if you’re insured and driving legally, they will pay. Premiums for young drivers are currently so bloody high because insurers are paying out too much and too often – and ever more frequently paying out to the next of kin while the insured driver (and his or her passengers) lies in a morgue somewhere.

If such a ban were imposed, and you flaunted it – that is, broke the Law – then they wouldn’t pay, and it would serve you right. But a significant number of people would abide by the new law, so there would be a benefit that isn’t there at the moment, and that would lead to lower premiums in the longer term.

None of these people ever stops to consider that young drivers often do have the wrong attitude, and this does lead to accidents, many of which are fatal, which does push premiums up. None of them can accept that the most common accidents involve young males, with passengers, at night, on quiet roads, where distraction and arrogance combined with inexperience are the causal factors. None of them can accept this, in spite of the facts.

And finally, the restriction would only be in place for a period of time during which experience would be gained. Unfortunately, whereas inexperience can be fixed in time, arrogance cannot.

If the Law were changed, it would almost certainly not apply to anyone who passed their test even as recently as today! The only people who should be concerned are those who pass once the Law has changed – and there’s no guarantee it will. It’s all just talk at the moment.

Scottish Council Cracks Down On Lunatic Parents On School Runs

17/11/2012

DOAADI

ADI, Bad Drivers, News

I’ve written before about how badly parents drive around schools when they’re taking their own brats to and from them. Indeed, this chicane system in Nottingham is close to Hollygirt School, and in the mornings and afternoons parents park on both sides, on the yellow lines, on or off the pavements, and even on the chicane area itself if there’s nowhere else to stop. And since the chicane is on a bend, and has “give priority to oncoming traffic” signs at both ends, this makes driving through there extremely difficult and dangerous. And when they want to pull away they just do it.

Well, a Scottish Council is poised to show what must be the most humongous amount of common-sense ever by considering imposing complete bans on driving on certain roads (except for residents) during school run times.

School run maniacs in East Lothian would be forced to park 300m away from the gates.

The proposal has been blamed by the local council on parents desperate to park within feet of the school gates.

This is a story repeated outside thousands off schools across the entire UK every day of the week during term times. A spokesman for the council said:

The behaviours of these drivers, who make dangerous turning and reversing manoeuvres and contribute to congestion, cause difficulties for the majority of pupils and parents who walk or cycle to and from school.

It is totally inappropriate to try and carry out these sort of manoeuvres close to schools where there is a great number of schoolchildren present.

Following representations from the parent councils of the three schools, it was agreed to introduce the experimental traffic regulation order.

The AA warned it would just move the problem elsewhere – totally failing to appreciate that it would move the problem away from the school gates, which is why it is already such a big a deal in the first place.