Lancs Teenager Jailed for Death by Dangerous Driving

Predictable. Not surprising. How many more times? Typical. All of those describe this story in Click Lancashire.

Just look at this next sentence, which describes what happened:

Zahid Ali, 18, was speeding in his red BMW at 9pm when he collided with a wall and two parked cars, resulting in the death of two (ages 16 and 19) of the four (the other man was age 20) occupants in Lancashire.

How many clichés or stereotypes about young (usually male) drivers involved in accidents could you get into one sentence?

Ali was jailed for 5 years, banned for 7, and ordered to take an extended test. It was bloody quickly sorted, too, as the whole episode began in March.

The sad thing is, it won’t change anything. This kind of tragedy will still happen.

LC06 WXD – Royal Mail Driver

LC06 WXD - Royal Mail DriverTonight, at about 5.15pm, this Royal Mail idiot pulled out in front of me on the Nottingham Knight roundabout. I had to brake hard to avoid him – particularly as he was trying to avoid the van in front who he was tailgating.

He turned into Landmere Lane, with his arm hanging out the window, if his employers are even remotely concerned about what their staff get up to.

I’ve mentioned it before, but the Royal Mail’s standard of driving has dramatically – and obviously – deteriorated over the last couple of years. They park anywhere and break speed limits all the time, and behaviour such as that mentioned above is absolutely normal these days. You’d think they were working to official deadlines, or something…

ADI Tests – Failed 3rd Attempt

This is an old article from 2011. It is still correct, but I suggest you take a look at Should I Become A Driving Instructor for more information.

Someone found the blog on the search term “what happens if you fail your 3rd adi test”?

You have two years to complete all the training from the date when you pass your Theory Test (Part 1). Obviously, you can do as much training as you like before this, as long as you’re not giving lessons for money – and you can have as many goes as you like at Part 1.

Part 2 is the driving skills bit. You can have a maximum of three tries at this within the two year period mentioned. If you fail a third time, you have to wait until the two years of your Part 1 is finished before starting all over again – with Part 1.

Part 3 is the instructional ability bit. Again, you have a maximum of three tries within the two year period and – irrespective of how many tries at Part 2 you had – if you fail a third time you have to wait until the two years from when you passed Part 1 is up. Then you have to start with Part 1 all over again.

There is nothing which says you can’t do Part 3 training while you’re studying for Parts 1 and 2 (and ditto with Part 2). There is nothing which says you can’t teach people for practice purposes at any stage throughout this (every parent in the country would be committing a crime otherwise). The only thing you cannot do is take money for it – you need a PDI (trainee) licence to do that.

Copyright Laws to Change

Music CD IconI’ve been hearing this on the radio all day (Planet Rock, of course). It’s appearing on the newsfeeds now.

The government is to modernise the intellectual property (IP) laws – for most of us, that means that copying your own (purchased) CDs to your computer of MP3 player will no longer be technically illegal, as it is at present.

On the radio, ministers were using the argument that technology has moved forward in such a way that an overhaul is urgently needed. I couldn’t agree more.

Mind you, it is only a change in name. Most people have been recording their stuff since it came on vinyl. I’ve got to be honest and say that I always transferred my vinyl straight to cassette tape back in the days when that was all we had. I did it for two reasons:Cassette Tape Ravelled

  • I didn’t want to damage the vinyl
  • I wanted to listen to it in the car

Cassettes were notoriously unreliable. If your play heads got dirty, the crap transferred to the tape and it was virtually ruined as far as the sound was concerned. If you left cassettes in the car, the heat in summer was liable to weld the tape on the spool, so the chances of a major ravelling episode was high. And the sound quality – even on the few I purchased as originals – was inferior to that of the vinyl.

Of course, there was the added bonus that if you made your own tapes, if any of the above happened then you could just make another one.

I’ve never purchased a pirated copy of any album, and I’ve only recorded or ripped those that I own.

Now, in the Napster days I did download some stuff after I got my first MP3 player in the late 90s. But the quality of some of the stuff on there was appalling, and people lied about their connection speed – you’d have some yokel in rural America claiming he had a T1 connection, when he was connected by a piece of wet string and two coconut shells. It could take days to download a single track you were after. Or you’d wait hours to get something, only to find that it was a version by the idiot hosting it on his Bontempi organ or Stylophone.

And then there was that time I downloaded a track, only to find it was a VBS file named as the track in question (I didn’t open it).

Too Stupid for Words (or a Licence)

This classic yarn is covered by The Guardian. Also in the Daily Mail.

Hadi Mohammed had failed his test five times, so he got Derbas Hamed (who had a full licence) to take the test for him. Mohammed is a former Iraqi police officer.

What happened was this:

  • Hamed drove to the test alone
  • He took the test as Mohammed, but failed with 16 faults
  • Suspicious staff called the police

The article says:

When the police interviewed Mr Hamed at first he gave his name as Mr Mohammed but when he was arrested he confessed. When Mr Mohammed was also arrested he said he had been too tired to take the test.

I love this part. The usual idiotic mitigation spiel by Mohammed’s lawyer:

My client did not actively commit the deception and played a secondary part.

It was an extremely unsophisticated fraud, ridiculously unsophisticated and amateurish. He got nowhere near succeeding and is thoroughly ashamed.

Utter bollocks. He had every hope that it would succeed, but was too stupid to realise it probably wouldn’t the way he was doing it. The frightening thing is that with a few tweaks it could easily have worked. The lawyer adds:

Since coming to this country from Iraq he is desperate to find work and needs a driving licence.

Exactly.That’s why he did it. It’s the only reason: it was for his benefit.

Even better is the Recorder’s summing up:

This is a very serious offence and had you both been successful a completely unqualified driver and not a very good one at that would have been let loose on the roads.

This would have meant a danger to other road-users and only a custodial sentence is justified. I do not accept Mr Hamed’s contention that he failed the test deliberately.

So Hamed reckoned he failed deliberately! I wonder how much he was paid?

Mohammed was jailed for two months, and Hamed (already with form for fraud whilst impersonating someone for the theory test) for three.

You couldn’t make it up, could you?

Young Males Priced off the Road

This is coincidental. On a forum frequented by young, new or learner drivers, someone is shooting his mouth off about older drivers and suggesting there is nothing wrong with younger ones.

And then, this article comes along.

Young male drivers are being all but banished from the roads with news that the average insurance policy for guys aged 17-20 years now exceeds £4,000.

The article explains that by getting married and putting his wife on the policy as a named driver he’ll likely get a £1,000 reduction!

However, what the article doesn’t explain is why the average young male has to pay this kind of money in the first place. You need to look elsewhere for that…

A look at road accident figures helps explain why insurance premiums are so high for young drivers.

Five facts about accidents involving young drivers

  • 1 in 5 drivers are involved in a crash during their first year on the road
  • male drivers aged under 21 are 10 times more likely to have a car accident than male drivers aged 35 or over
  • young drivers have a higher proportion of crashes at night than older drivers
  • 1 in 8 British drivers are under 25, but a quarter of drivers who die in traffic collisions are in this age group
  • In 2007, 40% of passengers killed or seriously injured – meaning lost limbs, paralysis, brain injury and other life-changing injuries – were in a car driven by a young driver*

Being aware of the risks that come with being an inexperienced driver can help you to think about how you can improve your driving.

* Young driver accident statistics

  • Road Casualties Great Britain 2006, Department for Transport
  • DSA, The Schools Programme, Driving Standards Agency, 2000
  • Association of British Insurers, 2007
  • Night-time Accidents, H. Ward, Centre for Transport Studies, University College London, 2005
  • Road Casualties Great Britain 2007, Department for Transport

Is any more proof needed? These are not just made up figures – they’re real ones recorded by major players in the field.

On the forum in question, young drivers are revealing exactly why these statistics exist. They talk of “having to overtake” people who aren’t driving at 60mph in a 60mph zone. They talk of getting angry at a slower, older driver in front of them, and at having to get past them.

Which of thse has the greater benefit?

  • getting angry and overtaking
  • getting angry and just staying behind for the short time involved

For young people, it’s that first option.

And that’s why they have to pay huge sums for their insurance.

Update: On the forum I mentioned, someone has started a thread asking why insurance for young drivers has gone up so much over the last few years. Honestly, it’s like banging your head against a brick wall!

One more time:

  • young drivers have more – and more serious - accidents than older ones

It’s that simple. It’s got little to do with fraud (as someone is claiming on the forum – they’ve got their stories mixed up there). Just saying “but I’m a safe driver” doesn’t alter the fact that you’re also 17 and the ink is still wet on your licence. You cannot prove that you are different to any other 17-year old, therefore you have to accept being treated like any other 17-year old.

If you want to be seen as different, then prove it. Then your no claims discounts will bring your insurance down.

Points? What Points?

This article suggests that people failing to declare points on their licences, or mention previous accidents, when applying for car insurance is a problem.

Anybody who has had an accident in the past and not reported it, or indeed anyone who has had points added and not reported that either, can discover that their insurer refuses to pay them for incidents and claims. As such, if they then drive without insurance, they will again be operating in breach of UK law.

This seems to be a very complicated way of saying that if you lie on your application, your insurance is void. And if your insurance is void then this means you have no insurance.

People seem incapable of comprehending this – it’s the same with the issue of “fronting” (where young drivers get their parents to insure the car, and they are a named driver).

Just because you have paid money doesn’t mean you are insured if you lied to get the price down.

NJ09 YYL – Dangerous Driver

Licence Plate - NJ09 YYLAny employers out there checking up on their staff should be aware that the driver of a black VW (Passat or Bora, think) – registration number NJ09 YYL – likes to break speed limits and cut people up dangerously at traffic lights (just after 4pm today, Radcliffe Road, Nottingham).

The driver has a shaved head (looks like an anaemic match)… and doesn’t give a toss about anyone else.

I feel better for that.

One Small Whisky?

Single WhiskyWhenever I see these stories about people being banned (or prosecuted) the idiotic mitigating pleas their defence lawyers come out with always make me laugh.

Artur Lobacs allegedly had a row with his girlfriend, shot two red lights in front of an unmarked police car, then reversed aggressively after turning into a dead-end street, wove from side-to-side, and nearly collided with parked cars.

When pulled over, Lobacs was unsteady on his feet and failed the breath test. He was found to be nearly twice the legal limit. He was arrested.

In court, his lawyer said he had argued with his girlfriend and drunk one small glass of whisky.

It must have been one hell of a small glass. Working on the approximation that two pints of beer is the maximum you should drink if you’re driving, that would be equivalent to 4 units. Lobacs was twice the limit, so had consumed 8 units. That means his “small glass” was equivalent to four double whisky measures – or 200mls of the stuff!

That’s nearly half a pint of whisky in his “small glass”.

His lawyer still got paid, no doubt, even though the court didn’t swallow any of it and banned Lobacs for 17 months, and fined him a total of £350.

Horslips @ Cropredy Festival, August 2011

Damn! I can’t go – I’ve got someone with a driving test that day.

Horslips are playing the Cropredy Festival on August 13th, 2011. Mind you, apart from Fairport Convention, I’m not to fussed about the other acts on the same day.

Update: Picking up a few hits the day after the festival. If anyone has any photos (and would like to write a few words) I’d be more than happy to put a few up.