Diary Of An ADI

I mentioned in a recent post an ongoing case where Keisha Bianca Wall crushed an elderly pedestrian against a wall. It is said that she received a text immediately before the accident occurred.

In an update to the ongoing case, it is reported that:

A Jury will be asked to decide whether a young driver responded to a text message on her phone at the moment her car veered off the road and killed a 63-year-old woman.

The evidence given says that:

…Wall had been sent a text message – “If you can think of something to do, we will do it” – at 12.39.04pm.

The first 999 call to the ambulance service was timed at 12.40.06pm.

Mr Ward-Jackson said when the police seized Wall’s phone later it was clear the text had been read, but there was no way of knowing at what time that had happened.

British law is full of loopholes. Witnesses to the accident also gave evidence:

[witness Melanie Duggan] said: “She said something about a black car swerving. ‘Did you see the black car? It was driving in towards me’.”

She had also seen Wall using her mobile phone after the collision, she told the court.

Mrs Duggan’s sister Kay Grigg was a passenger in her BMW and she described what Wall said at the scene. She said: “She said numerous times ‘Did you see the black car, I need a witness. I swerved from the black car’.”

However, Wall’s evidence given in Court doesn’t mention the black car. The case continues.

And there is another story – this one from America – of an accident where texting has also been cited as the cause. Read some of the comments people have left against the story.

Don’t worry – it’s a story from Ottawa, Canada on CBC News.

It appears that Canada has the same problem we do here in the UK. Namely, inferior politicians trying to jump-start their careers.

In a nutshell, people who live near a test centre have complained, Councillor Maria McRae has listened, and she has tabled a motion to ban driver training near to the test centre in question. It could be taken straight off the noticeboard in any test centre in the UK, couldn’t it?

Mind you, another thing Canada shares with the UK is the attitude of many of its driving instructors.

Local driving instructors were sent a notice from the city to stop driving in the area last month — something they said is unfair.

“Other people practice with their kids without a roof sign,” Rite-Way Driving School instructor Jamal Kassabry said.

“How are they going to stop that, too?”

That one could come straight out of an ADI association’s meeting minutes, couldn’t it? We have them over here where if there is a request not to use a certain area or location posted at the test centre, some ADIs will go there deliberately. We don’t help ourselves, sometimes.

The best quote comes in the comments at the bottom (and there are 10 pages of them):

I live in this area, in fact I live on a street which I drove on during my G2/G driving tests taken at Walkley. There are, without-a-doubt, A LOT of driving schools practicing in the neighbourhood – while waiting on the street corner for the little one’s school bus I’ll quite often count as many 1 in 3 cars being driven by new drivers.

In spite of this, I wouldn’t by any means consider it a problem. Sure, there’s arguably more traffic than there should be, but these drivers drive extremely slow (at times half the speed limit) and are barely dangerous. The only traffic I ever see is caused by the dozens of parents dropping off and picking up kids from school. With all of the gang-filled-ghettos that border this neighbourhood, kids practicing their driving is the least of our worries.

That sums up the whole issue in one. When Councillor McRae refers to “residents’ complaints” she actually means “very few residents” or “not a high percentage of residents”.

EDIT 18/3/2011: There’s an updated story at yourottawaregion.com.

I have to say, the combination of the typical intellect and attitude of a driving instructor and the career aspirations of a no-name local councillor is a potent one indeed. It seems to be the same the world over.