{"id":13022,"date":"2013-06-19T16:23:39","date_gmt":"2013-06-19T15:23:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=13022"},"modified":"2013-06-19T16:23:39","modified_gmt":"2013-06-19T15:23:39","slug":"autoexpress-fuels-the-fires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=13022","title":{"rendered":"AutoExpress Fuels The Fires"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article in AutoExpress trumpets that \u201cyoung drivers could face wait to take test\u201d<\/a>. It\u2019s really annoying that publications can put out rubbish like this without applying any critical editorial comment. They could have at least asked a few driving instructors\u2026 oh, wait. Maybe not.<\/p>\n

Steven Hammond, the Transport Minister, gives a brilliant demonstration of why he should just talk plainly and clearly, and not try to be so clever when he says:<\/p>\n

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You are about to see from this Department a big piece of work going out to consultation on some ideas, and the meat and drink will be around people aged between 17 and 24.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What the hell does that mean? Why couldn\u2019t he just have said \u201cwe are putting out a number of possible considerations to public consultation\u201d? In any case, the last announcement of this kind involved driving instructors being able to take learners on motorways, and I think we all know how far that one got. But back to this particular set of nonsense, Hammond states the obvious, whilst simultaneously implying that he though of it first:<\/p>\n

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There is some interesting evidence that suggests we ought to have a period of time between gaining your provisional licence and taking your test, so you gain experience of the road.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ve been saying that for years, and so have a lot of others. It\u2019s not a major new discovery – it\u2019s just common sense. But he then says:<\/p>\n

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When we put the consultation document out, we\u2019ll leave that [the timeframe] open to some people\u2019s suggestions, but I\u2019d suggest somewhere between six to nine months is appropriate.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So, the only people who will be affected will be the ones likely to pass quickly anyway. With official statistics putting the average number of training hours before test at around 45 hours, and with more and more people only able to average 1\u00bd hours per week, many people are already taking 6 months or more to learn, so it would be no change. (Yes, I know that some do it quicker – I already said that, so don\u2019t write in about it). He adds:<\/p>\n

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Other suggestions being considered include insurance premium reductions and looking at how young drivers use cars once they pass their test.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Oh, wow. Another great idea no one has ever thought of before. Black boxes, anyone?<\/a> So it\u2019s taken the government over two years to catch up. He digs his hole even deeper:<\/p>\n

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We\u2019re looking at working with the insurance industry in terms of potentially offering some incentives to do a post-test lesson on motorway driving or night-time driving, alongside an insurance fee trade-off. Or if not, how we could encourage people to do it as part of their post-test training.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Brilliant! And we could give it a snazzy name. How about \u201cPass Plus\u201d? Hammond should really give up on trying to add spice to his language:<\/p>\n

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There is also an appetite for looking at who is driving and how many people should be in the car in your first couple of years of driving.<\/p>\n

We do see tragic accidents quite often where four or five young people in a car all get killed and quite often the driver isn\u2019t over the limit, but is egged on by a number of people who are.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Another unique idea that hasn\u2019t been mooted for at least the last two years, and mangled by his own way of badly wording things.<\/p>\n

Hammond is on a different planet (like the rest of his party) – and AutoExpress is clearly flying out to join him by not applying any critical editorial to this story.<\/p>\n

Anyone reading this should bear in mind that the consultation has not yet started. You can allow a year from when it does, and another year to implement any changes (bearing in mind that it will require changes to the law). Also allow for the fact that the usual radical groups will be all over it like a rash, and this may create further delay or result in some ideas not being implemented. So we\u2019re looking at at least two years from today for anything to realistically happen. The next General Election is just less<\/strong> than two years away\u2026<\/p>\n

So, it will either be a cynical attempt to get votes (started early to see how it pans out) or something to forget and blame on the next party to get in (because there\u2019s a good chance it won\u2019t be the LibCons again).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article in AutoExpress trumpets that \u201cyoung drivers could face wait to take test\u201d. It\u2019s really annoying that publications can put out rubbish like this without applying any critical editorial comment. They could have at least asked a few driving instructors\u2026 oh, wait. Maybe not. Steven Hammond, the Transport Minister, gives a brilliant demonstration of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80,87,82,92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adi-related","category-news","category-training","category-transport"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}