Driving the Wrong Way

13/04/2011
DOAADI
ADI, World

The Irish Times reports that driving the wrong way (citing a specific motorway in County Limerick) is now “a daily occurrence”.

The report also says:

The most dangerous drivers on motorways, gardaí say, are “middle-aged and older drivers”.

These would be the ones who “learned” to drive under Ireland’s previous almost non-existent (according to my Irish pupils) teaching system. I hope those opposed to Ireland’s attempts to bring their system up to scratch are listening… but I doubt it.

Having some troglodyte coming towards you in the outside lane in the opposite direction isn’t funny. I know.

It isn’t just my take. Noels Brett of the RSA said:

…there were 2½ million driving licence-holders, and the vast majority had had no formal driving instruction, particularly older drivers, who he said may be used to driving in a way that was not suitable for motorways. “If someone misses their exit they may feel it’s okay to do a U-turn, or try and reverse back. One simply cannot do that in the high-speed environment of a motorway,” he said.

It’s frightening, isn’t it? It’s like changing from driving on the left to driving on the right – but doing it gradually.

Highway Code 80 Years Old

13/04/2011
DOAADI
ADI, General

Highway Code circa 1930The Sun reports that the Highway Code is 80 years old – then goes on to take the pee in typical Sun fashion.

Road signs were a bit different back then, and a lot of consideration was given to road users who might be riding or moving animals, or who might be riding vehicles other than cars.

For example, you are advised that if you’re a drover (someone who moves cattle and sheep around on foot) and have someone with you, you should send him ahead so he can warn traffic.

Of course, back then it was customary to use the horn to let people the other side of a bend that you were coming. This gives The Sun all the opportunity it needs to say that a good PARP was all you needed, instead of MSM.

The juveniles who work for The Sun have no concept of anything that happened more than about 10 years ago and take the rise accordingly, in the mistaken belief that it’s humour. Well, it is to other juveniles.

Throughout the history of driving, the current version of the Highway Code has been vital. Back in the 30s the advice it gave was absolutely current. Some of the advice even back then still has validity today if you’re a half decent driver. A couple of years ago I was driving down a country lane and rounding a bend found the road blocked with sheep. A similar thing happened last year driving between Plumtree and Keyworth, as they were moving sheep from a field on one side of the road to the farm on the other. And more than once that stupid cow in Wysall has got out of its field to chow down on the Hawthorns the other side.

Of course, the kind of people who work for The Sun would probably have difficulty recognising a sheep, let alone dealing with a whole flock of them.

EDIT 18/4/2011: This article in the Express also makes interesting reading.

Test Pass: 13/4/2011

13/04/2011
DOAADI
Driving Tests

Tick!Well done Vivek, who passed first time today with 9 driver faults.

It was mayhem at the test centre. We turned up the required 10 minutes early, and since the previous time slot’s tests were just going out the car park was quite full (instructor cars carefully spaced so that there was one empty space between all of them. Cowards). Then, at the end, there were at least two private runners who had decided that they didn’t need parking bays, and that it was OK to stop in the middle of the road outside the centre (no attempt at parking or pulling over).

Still, these are the things Vivek will have to deal with now he’s a full licence holder.

Sun Pillar

13/04/2011
DOAADI
General

Sun PillarI had to get up early this morning (5.15am) for an early morning test at 8.20am. I glanced out of the window and noticed a red sky – “red sky in the morning…” I thought to myself – but then I noticed that there was a sun pillar.

You don’t often see them this pronounced, and the photo I took using my phone’s camera doesn’t do it justice.

This one lasted quite a while, and the vivid red, orange, and purple sky colouring made it particularly attractive.

The “red sky in the morning” thing also looks like being quite accurate on this occasion. It started off sunny, but has quickly clouded over and heavy rain is forecast. It’s also quite cold out there.

More on Test Centre Closures

12/04/2011
DOAADI
ADI, Driving Tests, World

I’ve written several times recently about test centre closures – both real and imagined – and the subsequent behaviour of ADIs in the areas covered by the centres in question.

This report in Herald Scotland pushes further the idea that tests could be conducted from a variety of locations – supermarkets, libraries, community centres, and so on.

The article says:

The test centres are self-funding, with costs paid by learners sitting their tests. But is thought the savings would help pay for the £71 million cost of building 66 multi-purpose test centres across Britain.

I’m not sure if that is quite correct. MPTCs were not built to be LESS efficient than what was there previously. They were built to be MORE efficient. It stands to reason that ONE MPTC on an industrial estate is going to cost less to run than TWO or THREE community-based test centres shoe-horned above shops and into converted terraced houses in run-down estates. The explanation given above is another Mickey Mouse coalition way of trying to blame things on Labour.

And let’s not forget something no one else appears to be mentioning. The publicity may be centred upon the ramblings of certain self-styled community champions (“we MUST keep a testing facility in our village… won’t someone PLEEEASE think of the children”), but 90% of the public detest learner drivers and would like nothing better than for the test centre next door to bugger off somewhere else.

Driving 15 miles to the nearest test centre is not the problem people like Mike Weir and Sandra Osborne suggest. Some people have to do that anyway (I had one last week who lived 17 miles from the test centre, and several more greater than 10 miles away), and I’d like to see where it is written that no one should ever have to end up travelling further than they do now just because their local centre moves somewhere else.

Commonsense is being swallowed up and masked by amateurish political schemings.

I wonder if those supermarkets, libraries, and community centres will “allow” tests to be conducted for free?

And one more thing: test centres being further away would be less of a problem if local councils did their bloody roadworks more efficiently instead of digging big holes, putting up barriers and lights, and then doing naff all for two months. The biggest worry when travelling is not the distance, but the time.

Make Sure You ALL Understand the Same Thing

12/04/2011
DOAADI
General

Writing about cyclists recently reminded me of a bike ride I did a few years ago.

At the squash club I used to play at, a group of them were serious cyclists and every year they did a run to Skegness (about 80 miles). Some of them were serious racers, and one of them was able to do the journey in around 2½ hours.

Anyway, I’d been doing a bit of training with them on my mountain bike and was going along. The night before at the club, they said “you know how to get there, don’t you?” I used to go there every year when I was a kid and knew the route – one of them – so I said “of course”.

Next morning I turned up to the meet and had a small rucksack with me. It had bottles of Lucozade and Mars Bars. They said “you can’t ride all the way with that weight on your back. Throw it in the van and you can get stuff out when we stop at different points”. Fair enough, so off we go.

We averaged 23mph between West Bridgford and Grantham. I thought “I’m not going to keep this up for 80 miles”, and when we got to Grantham Hill (not sure if it is really called that, but it’s a hill and it’s in Grantham), I thought “screw this” and got off to walk up. I said to them “don’t worry, I’ll see you later when you stop”.

So, I get back on and start riding. I went via the route I used to go by when my family holidays were spent there every summer. I expected to catch up with them, but there wasn’t a peep.

At about 30 miles I checked my phone and there were missed calls. Signal is erratic out that way, but I got in contact with the support van and they had been driving back and forth trying to find me. It turned out that my route and theirs weren’t quite the same – mine was the more obvious A52 via Boston, whereas theirs was the cyclists’ A153 route via Sleaford.

I had no money on me to buy anything with sugar in it, and only my water bottle – which I kept filling up on garage forecourts. It was quite a warm day (but with a breeze), and at one point out around 60 miles I lay down in a field of cabbages and slept for an hour. Every time a farm truck filled with onions went by my stomach started rumbling. I was looking for trees with something to eat on them. I was starving.

I made it in the end. When I got hold of that rucksack I drank four bottles of Lucozade and ate six Mars Bars in one go.

So the moral is: make sure that when you give instructions you avoid ambiguity!

Gypsies Stripped of Licences

12/04/2011
DOAADI
ADI, DSA, World

I hope it isn’t just gypsies who have this happen to them – it should happen to anyone who is found to be involved in the same type of fraud.

This story in the Daily Mirror reports that almost 150 Irish travellers paid around £500 per test to have some one do it for them, netting the crooks doing the impersonating somewhere around £150,000.

Two women and a man have had to flee their homes as angry gypsies try to get their money back (obviously, these gypsies aren’t bright enough to realise their own fraudulent position in all this – there is no money to “get back” because the people paying it are as guilty of fraud as those taking it).

The three criminals will be sentenced later this year.

According to the DSA, around 5,000 fraudulent driving tests of this type take place.

Keisha Wall Sentenced to Prison

12/04/2011
DOAADI
ADI, World

I wrote a few weeks ago about the case of a woman, Keisha Wall, who read a text message on her mobile phone shortly before ramming into a pedestrian and killing her (here, here, and here).

This article in the Daily Mail reports that she has been jailed.

She arrived at court holding a mobile phone! She’s been jailed for 2½ years.

As reported previously – and repeated in the article here – she was sitting next to her mother, Constance Wall, who is a driving instructor. Let’s hope that “is” soon becomes “was”, because her mother did not at any time appear to tell the truth during the case (I base that comment on the decision made by the jury). I’ll correct that, because I just saw a more detailed account. There’s something weird going on, because her mother wasn’t called on to give evidence. I don’t know about you, but I’d say that the person sitting right next to the accused at the time of the then-alleged crime (i.e. the passenger) would be a bloody good first choice witness!

Wall’s defence said:

She will have to live with the circumstances of that very short episode for the rest of her life.

She is extremely sorry and remorseful for what has happened. That remorse is deep felt, genuine and long-lasting. She is law abiding and supportive of her younger siblings.

No she isn’t. She’s a filthy liar who killed someone. She lied in court, which hardly makes her “law abiding”, and being “remorseful” didn’t stop her from lying, did it?

Still, she’ll be out in little more than a year.

Dangerous Cycling Law

11/04/2011
DOAADI
ADI, General

Uncle AlbertThis one is timely. With the sun, and the first leaves appearing with the Cherry blossom, prattus spandexius is now out of hibernation.

You’ll see him – typically with a full-face beard and/or the physique of Thunderbird 2 – pretending to be fit on country lanes and other places where he can cause maximum inconvenience. On weekends, he’ll be part of a gang – almost invariably with one of the gang members being a dead ringer for Uncle Albert and riding one of those lie-down bikes – deliberately riding two or three abreast to hold traffic back.

So this story in the Guardian is interesting – maybe not for exactly the reasons I’d like to think, but it should give prattus spandexius something to think about next time he tries to act like a rolling road block if it ever actually happens.

In 2008, a cyclist hit a teenager and killed her. He was found guilty of dangerous cycling – he shouted to a group of teens “move, because I’m not stopping”. He didn’t, and he killed the girl. He was fined £2,200. There isn’t a specific law covering dangerous cycling like there is for driving.

It’ll be interesting to see how far this goes.

Ten Year Ban “Excessive”?

11/04/2011
DOAADI
ADI, General, World

One from Canada. The Winnipeg Sun reports that a woman who killed two men and seriously injured a third is appealing against her 10 year ban – saying it is “harsh and excessive”.

Apparently, she hit the accelerator thinking it to be the brake. She accelerated suddenly and swerved across the street, hit another vehicle and tore out a fire hydrant. She pushed the other vehicle into a pedestrian, who was seriously injured. Her own vehicle carried on across the intersection and hit two men, who died at the scene.

Her defence lawyer argues that she is a capable driver who suffered momentary inattention.

This seems at odds with the fact that at the original trial she appears to have been an inexperienced driver who had taken refresher lessons.

It’s obviously a tragic story (for those who were killed), but what caught my eye was the length of the ban. Ten years is a hell of a long time.

I just wish they did that over here. Ten years? It isn’t long enough. Some people simply shouldn’t be allowed to drive.