Diary Of An ADI

Archive for March, 2010

A new DSA alert just came in detailing the procedure for appealing against decisions made by the ADI registrar. These include the registrar’s decision to:

refuse your application for registration

refuse to grant you a trainee licence

remove your name from the ADI Register

revoke your existing trainee licence

Judging from some of the nonsense I have seen written, these appeals might include those from people who (for example) have nine points on their licence, or who have serious crimes in their not-too-distant past and wonder why that means they are not ‘fit and proper’ for handling money, running a business, or dealing with young or vulnerable people. So it should be remembered that:

The Tribunal has the power to award costs to the Driving Standards Agency if they decide against you and uphold the Registrar’s decision. However, costs are not normally awarded against you if your appeal is reasonable.

You can see the full information on the Business Link website here, along with downloadable leaflets and guidance.

EDIT 01/04/2010: Incidentally, I noticed the search term “driving instructor done a runner” from someone who visited this blog. On that same Business Link website there is information on reporting illegal instruction, so if you have a complaint you could start there (email integrity.team@dsa.gsi.gov.uk). After all, if “doing a runner” isn’t against the terms of being accepted on to the register, what is?

Just one thing, though. The only thing the DSA can do is kick someone off the register of ADIs. If you want your money back you’ll need to go through normal claims procedures via the courts.

Spring has definitely arrived!

The clocks went forward this morning on to British Summer Time (BST), and the weather – as usual – hasn’t followed the path the Met Office said it was going to yesterday (“it will get much colder and lots of places will have snow“). It’s been sunny and warm.

The nice weather, combined with it also being a weekend, has brought the chavs and other bad drivers out in force. And I’ve seen quite a few flocks of prattus spandexius out and about, carefully avoiding the cycle lanes and ignoring red traffic lights, and making a general nuisance of themselves on the busy roads.

Driving through Hyson Green in Nottingham yesterday, I discovered what it is they have been up to these last 3 months – that’s 3 months of total chaos, by the way.

Hyson Green - Missing Lane

New traffic lights.

Naturally, we have the ubiquitous forward area for cyclists – sorry, I mean for taxis… I don’t think they have a road picture for a taxi, so they paint a bicycle instead so the taxi drivers know where to stop.

A cyclist would need his or her head examining to try and cycle down there!

Something you might not notice if you aren’t from the area, though, is the missing right-turn lane. They’ve had to remove this to make way for the new hatched area. So if more than one car is turning right you end up with a queue in a place which is already gridlocked (mainly due to the people who live there and who don’t understand such basic concepts as “you need a licence to drive a car”, ”red means stop” or “don’t walk out with a pram into the path of moving traffic”).

Ah. But you can use the left lane, right? Just like at other lights which don’t have a dedicated lane?

Hyson Green - Typical Parking

You’d think that, wouldn’t you? But of course that doesn’t allow for the typical parking procedure for Hyson Green residents. The photo here shows them being quite conservative in their usual approach of stopping on those yellow lines to go to the bank or one of the shops in the area.

Yes, it is illegal. But that doesn’t help when one of the numerous taxi drivers who park up down there (and who frequently do turning manoeuvres right in the mouth of the traffic lights after they have been to one of the shops to get food or meet up with friends) ignores the fact and causes a major blockage. Or the fact that when there is a queue trying to get into Asda to the left at the lights, people simply stop in the middle of the junction or carry on through on red as it suits them (and the chip some carry on their shoulders). Combine a taxi parked on yellow lines on the approach, one on the other side, a right turner, and some chavs… and you have hell on earth.

I’ve said it before: the councils in Nottingham are a joke.

A question for them: haven’t you heard of box junctions? Or are you afraid that absolutely none of the people you try to cater for in Hyson Green would know what one is?

One of my pupils gave me a laugh the other day. She’s a good driver (passed her test a while ago, but not with me), and she’s doing a Pass Plus course with me at the moment.

What A Detour

One of the routes I use when doing Pass Plus is down the M1 to Leicester Forest East Services (J21), then back up to J23, through Loughborough, then back to Nottingham via the A60 and some unclassified rural roads. When we were in Loughborough, she asked “Are we anywhere near Derby?“. Then a little later when we were in Keyworth, she asked “Are we near Colwick?”

OK. I suppose it depends how you define the word near. Loughborough is near Derby (20 miles) - as long as you work on the basis that the moon is a long way away, and compare other distances with that. And Keyworth definitely is quite near Colwick (10 miles) - certainly when compared with the Loughborough/Derby thing.

But while we were talking about that she told me what had happened when she and her boyfriend had set out to go to the Meadowhall Shopping Centre from Nottingham.

You can see from the map on the left that Meadowhall (the red dot) is north of Nottingham. About 41 miles north, to be a little more precise.

Apparently, after some time they found themselves at Watford Gap Services (the blue dot). Watford Gap is 51 miles south of Nottingham.

I told her that that was definitely going on my List Of Things To Tell Pupils in future. Like I said, she’s a good driver – but simple navigation (or lack thereof) is a real problem for many new drivers.

But it does probably highlight why the DSA plan to introduce an independent driving section to the test from October 2010 is a very good idea – only opposed by fossils who are just anti-DSA, no matter what.

I’ve already mentioned one of my current learners, who insisted she couldn’t drive and look at the signs as well. Although we fixed that, if we hadn’t have done then she would have gone out on her own after passing still with the same inability to navigate in the most basic of ways.

Merging

And it’s the same with a lot of others. I was explaining to one today (not that far off test standard) that when he sees a road sign it has to speak to him in words. We were joining a dual carriageway from a slip road, and the merging sign was clearly there warning of the merge – but he didn’t respond to it, even though he saw it.

And it was the same a few miles later when we came to a roundabout. I asked him to turn right, 3rd exit (and stressed the road name so he could follow the signs and road markings). Apart from the big roundabout sign there were lane signs telling you which lane to use – but again, he just didn’t respond.

In fact, I often find that those doing Pass Plus don’t actually know what many road signs mean. Once they pass their Theory Test many of them just seem to forget the Highway Code completely.

It would certainly explain the standard of driving you see on the roads each day.

I heard this on the radio, then found the news story.

Obviously, it is tragic. What caught my attention was that Smooth Radio (in one of its rare periods of broadcasting something other than silence or adverts superimposed over the news) reported that her parents “blamed the accident on peroxide that had leaked in her car“. Indeed, if you Google the story, you’ll be inundated with such headlines as: “Tragic hairdresser killed in hydrogen peroxide explosion“, “Hairdresser Killed As Bleach Blows Up Her Car“, “Hairdresser killed as bleach bottle catches fire“, and so on.

It seems a little unfair to point out that it was the cigarette she lit which caused the fire and not the peroxide. Mind you, the parents are asking that other hairdressers be made aware of the risks – presumably about peroxide, and not smoking when you are driving.

Smoking whilst driving is far more of a risk than having hydrogen peroxide leak into your car.

Just to clarify a point: hydrogen peroxide is an oxidising agent. In itself, it isn’t flammable (it is classed as non-flammable), but it provides a source of oxygen which makes other things much more flammable than normal.

Still a real tragedy, but it’s important to make sure that the blame is doled out appropriately. But it does tie in with the news this week about banning smoking in cars.

I got this in an email alert on Tuesday:

Chief driving examiner welcomes the publication of scientific study

Chief driving examiner and director for safer driving Trevor Wedge has welcomed the publication of a new scientific study into how driving instructors can develop their coaching skills.

The EU-funded ‘High Impact approach for Enhancing Road safety through More Effective communication Skills for driving instructors’ (HERMES) project began in March 2007 and was completed in February 2010.

Its main aim was to create a short training course for driving instructors to allow them to develop their communication and coaching skills.

In addition, a number of coaching scenarios have been developed to enable instructors to coach in on-road training, track training and the classroom, and to meet arange of goals in the driver education process.

Since the successful 2008 consultation ‘Learning to Drive’, the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) has been working hard on modernising driver training.

Trevor Wedge said: “DSA has followed the work of HERMES closely over the past three years, and we welcome the publication of its findings.

“Coaching offers the potential to develop self-responsibility and awareness in learner drivers at a very early stage during training.”

Details of the project, and the full report, can be found at http://alles-fuehrerschein.at/HERMES/ 

I suppose they have to say this, don’t they? If they’re going to say anything at all, of course.

But the fact that they did say something means they really mean it. And that has me very, very worried.

Coaching is the best way to train people, but I’m worried that the coaching they are talking about here isn’t the kind you might think of from football or other sports. My biggest worry is that it turns out to be something I’ve met head on before  during my days in industry.

In that case, you could always rest assured that whatever you were doing, however you taught, it was always absolutely and totally wrong until you had paid for and taken expensive courses in how to coach (and these involved role-play scenarios and all kinds of childish activities more suited to a nursery school).

I am totally in support of modernising driver training – if it improves driving skills.

I am totally in support of CPD – if it improves the standard of instruction out there (and gets rid of poor instructors).

I am totally opposed to anything which thinks it can change the way a chavvy little thug (or thugette) chooses to drive when he (she) passes his (her) test, by putting the onus on the driving instructor.

The DSA really does have to return to Earth over this, and acknowledge that lunatic thugs in souped-up chavmobiles are not created by ADIs, nor are ADIs going to be able to prevent them in future. Society creates them.

ADIs have access to these people for less than 50 hours over of a period of 3000 hours of their lives (i.e. 4 months of training). No amount of “coaching” is going to stop them driving like maniacs into trees on country roads.

There is much more needs to be done.

I’ve been looking at a few threads on various forums – this topic crops up with monotonous regularity.

Here’s the scenario: “someone” (i.e. the resident shit stirrer on the forum), has “seen” a car (i.e. knows full well the school car and the person who owns it, or considers the franchise to be a local competitor), which has “5 lessons for £25” written on it (or some other offer). He starts a new thread and everyone else pitches in with their “opinions”.

The latest incarnation of this is funny. As usual, it is running to multiple pages, and if you look at the school’s website (I’m not providing it here – they will be getting enough traffic from the site which is bad-mouthing them) their normal hourly rate is £21. Since they are based in Yorkshire, this is actually a decent going rate for a lot of towns and cities up there.

So what we have is a driving school (franchise) which charges £21 an hour when a lot of the local independents will be charging £17-20 (or sometimes less). They offer an introductory 5 lessons for £25 as a marketing thing.

Of the people to wade in with their opinions on this shocking and unprofessional advertising is one guy who has introduced a “6 lessons for £99” offer for his own school due to falling enquiries. Another one based not far from me works for a school which advertises “3 hours for £29“, and which charges £1.50 below the national franchise rate for the area.

Let’s just do a quick comparison, based on the assumption that a new pupil is going to end up doing 40 hours with a school before passing their test.

The original school would take £760 from the pupil for this course of lessons – including the Special Offer. And their lessons are priced at the local going rate.

The school near me would take £843 (its hourly rate is £1 more than the school from Yorkshire). Even if you leave it at this, it is hardly an end of the world situation, is it? I mean: one school brings in £83 less than another per pupil over a 3-4 month period (a normal and typical learning period)?

But apply the fact that the “superior” school is charging £1.50 below the national franchise rate for its area, and that same school would be only taking in £750.50 if it was in direct competition with the northern school. Slightly less, but – for all practical purposes -  the same.

Once again, we see that most ADIs are incapable of seeing the world through anything other than their own vari-tinted, internally-mirrored varifocals!

Just saw another post on a forum where someone is complaining about BSM charging “10 hours for £160″ in his area.

He says:

When I started with BSM in 1998 they were charging £18 per hour. That means that they are charging less than they were last century.

I think he will find that BSM is subsidising this offer (presumably using the profits it makes from the franchise fees), so the franchisee still gets the standard hourly rate (around £24). He misses the fact that it is a Special Offer. A marketing ploy.

And nothing like how some independent ADIs charge a consistently low price in the mistaken belief it will get them a full diary.

Fair enough, I can understand how independent ADIs might feel they cannot compete with the big boys in this way, but you still need to make sure you have your facts straight – and that you understand them!

Funny, isn’t it? It’s all right for an independent ADI – desperate for work – to drop his price (undercut) to steal all the work away from everyone else (in his dreams). But it is wrong for anyone to provide a better offer.

There’s nowt so queer as ADIs.

In Part 1 of this thread, I mentioned how Le Cirque du Nottingham City et County Councils were responsible for a current run on idiotic roadworks. In particular, I mentioned the changes being made to the area around the Chalfont Drive Test Centre.

It’s worth pointing out something here: when I did my Cycling Proficiency Test many years ago, and when I studied the Highway Code while I was learning to drive, it was taken for granted that cyclists would negotiate roundabouts in much the same way as a car would. In other words, if a cyclist were going right at a roundabout, they would use some sort of hand signal to move over and then position themselves in such a way that their intention was not in doubt.

In my previous post I mentioned how I found myself in the middle of two cycle lanes on a roundabout last week, where there had previously been a lane for cars - and here are the slides:

Looking at each slide in turn (these represent a circuit of the affected area):

• #1: This one shows the state of the original lines (all faded), but you can clearly see the parking area (big enough for cars to fit in) and the cycle lane in the middle of the road.
• #2: Notice how they have repainted the lines on the approach to the roundabout. There used to be two lanes at this point, as the cycle lane ended, but now we have yet another hatched area.
• #3: This is the first entry on to the roundabout – those two lanes on the left (one turning left and one carrying on around the roundabout) are both cycle lanes. You’ll see it more clearly in slide #10
• #4: Coming back up the other side, note how the parking area is now barely wide enough for the cars. Any cyclists are now likely to have to swerve outwards into the path of moving traffic.
• #5: Here is one of the chicanes they have installed (this one has a bus stop on it). Judging by the narrow parking area, which is flush with the chicane, someone somewhere didn’t do their measurements properly.
• #6: Here’s another chicane on the approach to the roundabout coming the opposite way to that shown in slide #1. You can just see the start of the two cycle lanes this side to the right of the Portaloo in the distance, and note the hatched area (yawn) just in the foreground.
• #7: Directly across the road, you can see another chicane under contruction. This was a two lane road until two weeks ago.
• #8: Now we’re on the roundabout, you can see two cycle lanes. Arguably, just where that car is parked there are actually three cycle lanes!
• #9: Another quarter of the way round and you see the two cycle lanes branching off (I think someone forgot to paint hatch marks in that triangular shape). Note the cycle lane continuing around.
• #10: And here’s a clearer view of the entry road in slide #3 from the roundabout itself.

It really is a joke. Apart from having made the parking area too small so that cyclists will inevitably be forced into the path of traffic if someone parks anywhere other than brushing the kerb, they are also forcing all cyclists to go around the outside edge of the roundabout!

Given the area – both in terms of the residents, and the estates it acts as a rat run for – this is a recipe for disaster! But someone – probably with a new set of crayons - decided that because someone had once been knocked over around there they should design something groovy.

Haven’t they heard of K.I.S.S? Keep It Simple, Stupid!

In the third slide you can see two hoodies crossing the road (it was warm outside today, so goodness knows why they needed their hoods up). The place is awash with them, and if they aren’t racing pratmobiles up and down, throwing pairs of expensive trainers over telephone lines, or setting fire to chip papers and spitting outside the chippie, you’ll see them on BMX bikes. Specifically, on BMX bikes on the pavement and racing across roads without looking!

There is positively no way that actual usage in any way warrants the spend the councils make on cycle paths or cycle routes in Nottingham. Not the ones on main roads, anyway. The number of people using them is tiny in comparison to the amount it costs to build, maintain, then keep changing them – and yet one cyclist can cause a mile-long tailback when they refuse to use the cycle lanes provided for them.

Meanwhile, the potholes continue to get worse.

As I was flipping through a couple of forums when writing that last article, I came across another post which made me smile at how ready ADIs are to believe the worst about others.

It was to do with parallel parking. Someone has noted that last week they had a pupil who didn’t know which way to turn the steering wheel when doing this manoeuvre because her instructor had the instructions stuck to the dashboard. It is clear what point this poster is making about the previous instructor.

Let’s just do a quick reality check. Sometimes (surprisingly often) you get a pupil who simply cannot work out which way to steer when going backwards. The reasons are quite complex, and it’s easier to fix in some pupils than it is in others. I’ve had people for whom it is a major stumbling block – I can get them to reliably tell me where they should steer, but the second they are on their own they automatically (and amazingly consistently) steer in the exact opposite direction.

On more than one occasion – and in an effort to try and move the pupil forward somehow – I have used simple written instructions or glyphs they can refer to. The aim is to get them into a successful routine which then becomes habit. They can easily be demoralised by failure if they have a fundamental problem with a concept, so it is important to find something that works and so prevent this happening.

It is quite possible that the previous instructor referred to was actually looking for ways to deal with a pupil who had a genuine problem (highly likely, given that the pupil clearly couldn’t do it). Instead, it is being implied that he was wrong.