Young drivers urged to take Pass Plus test

YOUNG drivers are being urged to go on a safety course to help slash road deaths.

A 17-year-old boy is reportedly seven times more likely to be involved in a crash than any other age group.

And figures show that last year, 14 people aged between 16 and 20 died on Cumbria’s roads — nearly a quarter of the total fatalities in the county.

Now Barrow Borough Council and other organisations such as Driving Instructors in Bedford belonging to Bedford and District Driving Instructors Association and are promoting a scheme called Pass Plus.

It is on top of the standard driving test and features practical modules covering driving in town, in different weather, on rural roads, at night, on dual carriageways and on motorways.

It is claimed the scheme helps drivers gain valuable experience, develop new skills, improve their confidence and reduce their risk of being in a crash.

Safer Roads For Cumbria — which aims to reduce death and injury on the county’s roads — is currently offering �60 vouchers towards the cost of Pass Plus to people between 17 and 20 who have passed their test in the past 12 months.

A spokesman said: “Each year young drivers, their passengers and third party drivers and passengers are killed or seriously injured, with inexperience and excessive or inappropriate speed being key causation factors.”

“It is widely acknowledged that the current driving test does not fully prepare young drivers for the reality of motoring away from the artificial driving lesson environment.”

“Driving instructors often tell their successful pupils: ‘You have passed your test; now you must learn to drive’.”

“Pass Plus is more than a bolt-on addition to the standard driving test.”

“It teaches vital skills that will help you become a better, safer driver and could save your life.”

Councillor Ray Guselli said: “I think it’s a great opportunity for them and I think they should take advantage of this course because there’s always something else to learn.”

Driving Instructors in Bedford are currently in discussions with Bedfordshire and Luton Casualty Reduction Partnership to run a similar scheme for potential pupils seeking Driving lessons in Bedford. More information about the scheme will be published on the BADDIA website in the near future.

Taken from a Publication by North West Evening Mail on 29/05/2007

Actress Jade Goody has been charged with driving without licence and insurance certificate.

According to reports, when the police stopped the ‘Big Brother’ star’s BMW X5 at a M1 service station in Newport Pagnell, Bucks on Sunday night, she was carrying neither her driving licence nor the insurance certificate.

Goody, who was vilified in the media for her racist slur on Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty on Celebrity Big Brother, is due to appear before Milton Keynes JPs on June 20.

“I’ve been stopped a few times but I don’t know about a court appearance,” the Sun quoted her as saying.

The actress had got a similar charge rejected last year too, when she claimed to have passed her test on Celebrity Driving School, but she famously failed on the Comic Relief show in 2003.

She was seen taking driving lessons at the Harlow-based Lady Driving School in November 2003, and in August 2004 she was reported to have passed the driving test.

Copyright Dailyindia.com/ANI

This proves that even if you are a ‘Z’ list celebrity, you cannot escape the long arm of the law, even in Bedford and Northamptonshire.!!

For years, Bedford driving instructors have complained about the poor condition of the road markings in Newnham Avenue at the junction with Wendover Drive and Rosamond Road. The whole situation is complicated by the turn into the petrol station adjacent to Wendover Drive.
But finally now, with the perseverance of BADDIA members, the highways agency has finally re-marked the junction.
Here’s another example of how Bedford And District Driving Instructors Association is helping to improve the quality of Bedfordshire’s roads for all that use them including our driving schools and their pupils taking driving lessons.

A SERIOUS road accident that left a young man with permanent injuries paved the way for him to become one of the country’s youngest driving instructors.

Carl Green became a qualified driving instructor at just 22, nine months after he was involved in a crash on a country road.

Now he hopes his youthful experience will help other young drivers stay safe.

Backing the Telegraph’s Wasted Lives campaign, Carl said: “Racing around is not worth it. I would be devastated if any of the young drivers I had taught were involved in a serious crash. The Pass Plus training scheme for new drivers should be compulsory. Not enough people take it up at the moment. Wearing P-plates after you have passed is also a good idea because it allows other road users to give you more time and space.

“Too many young people pass their tests, jump on mum or dad’s insurance, grab the keys and off they go.

“Within five minutes they’re driving far too quick and way, way out of their talent bracket. Speed is not the killer; it’s the environment and the attitude of the driver.”

Carl, now 25, said: “I used to work in a vet’s and one day I was driving through Hebden Bridge when a stationary car on the other side of the road indicated to turn right. I thought it would wait until I had gone past but it smashed into the side of my car and sent me crashing into a field.

“The accident wrote off my new MG, which was my pride and joy, and left me with permanent back and shoulder damage.”

Driving Instructors must have four year’s driving experience before they can sit their exams - the youngest age they can sit them is at 21.

“I had passed my test on the second attempt when I was 17,” said Carl. “I had a few speeding tickets and a few scrapes. After the accident I knew I wanted to do something to make the roads safer, which is why I trained to become an instructor.”

Carl, of Browhead Road, Burnley, worked as an AA instructor for two years before starting up his own company Fast Pass Driving School.

Carl said his age is a positive teaching tool and said: “I can teach them from my own experience, especially on local roads. An older tutor can sound like he is giving a lecture but I am on their level. It’s not smart to drive fast if you are going to end up wrapped round a tree.”

If you are a Driving Instructor in Bedford or a pupil looking to take Driving Lessons in Bedford, what do you think about Carl’s experience? Please comment.

The government has come under fire for failing to stop departments profiting from 0870 telephone numbers.

Research by Liberal Democrat peer Lord Tyler revealed that government ministries and agencies had made more than �6m from the “non-geographic” lines since 2004.

The practice is more expensive for consumers than the national or local rates the lines are advertised as.

Profits included �3.73m from calls to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Swansea and a further �1.82m for calls to book driving tests with the Driving Standards Agency.

The money was made despite the practice being discouraged by guidance from the government’s own Central Office of Information.

Parliamentary answers given to the peer also revealed that some departments had been failing to take up the “revenue share” option included in the contracts with the private phone line operators.

Lord Tyler said: “This is a diabolical tale of incompetent departments swindling citizens, who are entitled to free information, against the specific advice of the government’s own COI.

“It is now more than two years since I first raised this issue in Parliament, and I have received repeated reassurances that ministers will sort their departments out and follow the government’s own guidelines.

“Instead, we find that of the departments that can actually account for the revenue, some six million has been raked into government coffers through taxpayers’ telephone lines in just two years.

“The figure could be larger still were it not for the considerable number of departments who think it is better to let their share of the revenue go to a private company.”

We all use an 0870 number to book driving tests so what are your thoughts on this?

Most UK motorists check their tyre pressures at fuel station pumps - and that’s a bad thing.

So say the IAM Motoring Trust, which points out that the drive to the station warms up the tyres and therefore increases the pressure of the air inside them. Recommended tyre pressures are quoted on the assumption that the tyres are cold, and the result is that we’re likely to be driving on under-inflated rubber.

This in turn leads to overheating, increased fuel consumption and CO2 emissions, handling problems and a greater rate of wear. The Trust is therefore suggesting that car and tyre manufacturers should quote “warm” tyre pressures instead.

Alternatively, drivers should buy a digital pressure gauge and an air pump (sometimes available as one unit) and check the tyres when they’re cold - preferably at least once per week.

Bedford and District Driving Instructors Association recommend all drivers should follow the guidlines set out by the IAM Motoring Trust.

What do you think?

Proposals to drop the word “accident” from the new Highway Code have been welcomed by some, while others have dismissed the move as “political correctness”.

Accident has been replaced in the new draft Code, published by the Driving Standards Agency (DSA), by the words “collision”, “incident” or “crash”. The new Code, which is still to be considered by Parliament, is expected to published later this year. The change reflects a growing trend to replace the word, with some police forces already referring to “road traffic collisions” instead of “road traffic accidents”.

However, this week the Association of British Drivers (ABD) spoke out against the change, claiming that it would add pressure to the already heavily burdened motorist. Paul Biggs, of the ABD, said: “It implies that people do things on purpose when there are genuine accidents. As long as you have humans driving cars, and humans making mistakes, then you will have accidents.

“I think that it is more political correctness really. There is an underclass of illegal drivers, but most ordinary people don’t want to go out and kill people. The most common cause of accidents is inattention or failing to look properly. The more pressure they put on drivers the more likely they are to make mistakes.”

Incidents will happen

Road safety group Brake was one of the main organisations which pushed for the alteration after many years of campaigning. It believes the change would help shift people’s thinking away from viewing crashes as mere “mishaps”.

A spokeswoman for Brake said: “We believe that the word accident implies that road crashes are unavoidable mishaps which of course they are not. Virtually every road crash is avoidable and preventable and using the word accident undermines any attempt by us or the Government to encourage road users to take responsibility.

“Even when a driver fails to look properly at a junction it is still their responsibility to look and something that is written in the Highway Code.”

What do you think ? BADDIA would be interested in your comments!!

Britain’s senior road safety campaigners are calling for a ban on smoking while driving, in an attempt to cut the number of crashes.The Department of Health said last night that it would seriously consider a ban, which is also being looked at in Germany, Australia and America. The move was backed by anti-smoking campaigners but drew criticism from others as an attack on personal freedom. From 1 July, England will join the rest of the UK by introducing a ban on smoking in enclosed public places and at work.

The Local Authority Road Safety Officers’ Association, which represents councils - responsible for the majority of Britain’s roads - will meet transport officials within weeks to ask them to pass a ban on smoking at the wheel.The association claims that drivers are in danger when they take their hands off the wheel to find, light and smoke cigarettes, and are particularly at risk if a lit cigarette or ash falls in the car or is blown back through the window. The organisation, which represents 180 of Britain’s 200 local roads authorities, fears that once people who drive are stopped from lighting up in other places from 1 July, they will smoke more while in their own cars.

‘Driving is a complicated business, especially with the high volume of traffic motorists have to contend with these days. It’s not an area where you can multi-task,’ said Simon Ettinghausen, a spokesman for the association. He said the existing law banning the use of hand-held mobile phones in cars showed special bans were more effective than general road-safety legislation.

‘In this country, we’re libertarians, we like to give people freedoms, but if you are distracted unfortunately your freedom to do these things can affect other people’s lives,’ he added. Last year there were 3,201 deaths on Britain’s roads.

The Department of Health said it was ‘looking at how we can get further momentum towards smoking cessation beyond the introduction of the smoking ban in England’.

‘We are looking at further proposals and this could be one of them. If the road safety officers put information and evidence before us about this, and explain the case for it, we would study it,’ said a spokeswoman.

Amanda Sandford of the campaign group Action on Smoking and Health said: ‘We fully support this proposal. Not so long ago it would have seemed inconceivable that we would have a total ban on smoking across the country, but in a few years time people will think it’s inconceivable that we allow people to continue to smoke while driving.’

Andrew Lansley, the Conservative shadow Health Secretary, condemned the plan as a denial of citizens’ rights to decide how they behave in their own personal space. ‘Parliament hasn’t accepted the completely anti-libertarian view that people can’t do what they like in their own homes and own cars,’ he said.

This was wittern by:

Juliette Jowit and Denis Campbell
Sunday May 13, 2007
The Observer

Ryder Plc is working with the RoSPA and Silverstone to recognise high safety standards among its occupational drivers.

Ryder, one of the UK’s leading commercial vehicle, fleet management and supply chain companies, selected 50 of its employees who drive as part of their job to take part in the Ultimate Driving Experience at the historic motor racing circuit on Sunday (May 13).

Around 900 of the company’s drivers competed for places and the successful candidates were chosen because of their ‘low risk’ classification in driver assessments and their blemish-free accident and endorsement record over the past year.

The Ultimate Driving Experience, which has been put together by Ryder in conjunction with RoSPA, is the latest element to be incorporated into the company’s comprehensive driver training programme that covers all members of staff who drive for work.

Activities at Silverstone will focus on developing participants’ driving skills, including precision light goods vehicle manoeuvring sessions run by RoSPA driver trainers. There will also be opportunities for drivers to learn the skills needed to manage high-performance vehicles in a safe environment, as well as experience off-road driving.

Ryder’s driver training programme, which was developed with RoSPA, means that the driving skills of 900 employees are assessed each year, and 20 lead drivers are being trained to become in-house assessors.

All drivers work through RoSPA’s online Driver Profiler software, which measures their strengths and weaknesses behind the wheel, and those identified to be ‘high risk’ undergo one-to-one defensive driver training with RoSPA.

Ryder staff also take part in RoSPA’s National Safe Driving Awards, through which their driving records are held and updated annually with rewards for those who have been accident-free.

Errol Taylor, Deputy Chief Executive of RoSPA, who will attend the event, said: “Organisations with employees who drive as part of their job are expected to have a systematic approach to dealing with at-work road risk.

We are thrilled to be working with Ryder on the Ultimate Driving Experience and the day is just reward for those employees who have demonstrated high levels of safe and responsible driving over the past year”.

Simon Head, Health, Safety, Environment and Security Manager at Ryder, said: “Ryder is committed to investing in driver safety and as part of our system to manage at-work road risk, we wanted to congratulate those employees who have demonstrated a culture of safe driving.

“We hope the Ultimate Driving Experience will become an annual event that serves as an incentive to all our drivers to stay focused on road safety.”

Up to half the 130,000 new drivers banned by a law designed to crack down on young tearaways have gone back on the roads illegally, shocking figures reveal.Magistrates are demanding action to tackle the flouting of the New Drivers Act by mainly young ‘rogue’ motorists which is putting millions of lives at risk.

The law automatically revokes the licences of those who run up six penalty points in their first two years on the road. They must retake their test after the ban.

Around 1,000 new drivers a month are banned under the law, of which eight out of ten are under 24.

This story first appeared in the Daily Mail
(more…)