I may be the Greatest Driving Instructor in Bedford, (Possibly) but that doesn’t mean I’m equipped with infrared eyesight or super-human abilities to read peoples minds!

So, why do cyclists insist on riding their bikes around Bedford at night without lights? Come to that, not only do they not have lights, but the really mentally impaired ones also tend to wear dark clothing!

Of course, then there are the particularly advanced cyclists. You can spot those easily, because they won’t be riding on the road, or cycle path. They will be the ones who ride on the pavement, often with no hands on the handle bars and very often on their mobile phones as well. (That’s when they are not listening to their MP3 player glued into their ears)!! Oh, and the top award for idiocity goes to the ones who do all of the above AND, they swerve off the pavement into the road (without warning) back onto the pavement and then turn into the road and go up a one way street, IN THE WRONG DIRECTION! You can tell they are particularly advanced in the art of Cyclopathy‘cos they have a stupid aerodynamic hat in fluorescent pink strapped to their heads. At least their half a brain cell will be well protected, even if the poor pedestrians suffer permanent brain damage as they dive for cover from the marauding masses of two wheeled terrorists.

And where are the

Police in all this? How many dangerous and inconsiderate cyclists have they booked, taken to court and fined for dangerous cycling? I suppose they are too busy counting their revenue from speed cameras. (Yes, I said SPEED CAMERAS), not safety cameras, but speed cameras, or what we used to call speed traps.

The whole emphasis on road safety it seems is placed firmly on the poor, beleaguered motorist. As a driving instructor in Bedford, of course I teach driving skills to the best of my ability. I teach defensive driving and yes, to a degree, I even teach my pupils to read the minds of the other half-witted road (and pavement) users out there.

Well, enough is enough. It’s time that the “Authorities” (Ha!), cracked down this pedal powered plague. Lets put a special purchase tax on cycles, ( to sign the petition on 10,Downing St web site follow the link), say a one off £20 tax. Make cyclists pay insurance. Confiscate offenders bicycles, crush them (the bikes that is ….actually, erm …no, yes, I do mean the bikes), fine offending riders, in fact, make them accountable for their actions in exactly the same way as car drivers are. And then, maybe they would take their responsibilities more seriously.

These views are my personal views and DO NOT necessasarily reflect the views of BADDIA as an a association or its membership. If you disagree with me, please feel free to comment here.

Paul.

A motorist who repeatedly slammed on her brakes as she crawled along a motorway at 10mph has been banned from driving.

Stephanie Cole, 57, from Bristol, was caught straddling the hard shoulder of the M32 with a sign on the back of her Perodua Kenari, a small MPV vehicle, reading “I do not drive fast, please overtake”.

Officers pulled Mrs Cole over only to be told: “I’m scared. I’ve no confidence on the motorway. Last time this happened the policeman drove me there.”

Mrs Cole, from the Fishponds area of the city, who had previously pleaded guilty to driving without reasonable consideration, was banned from driving for a week and told she must retake her test.

North Avon Magistrates’ Court heard previously that Mrs Cole’s GP had been treating her for “fear of driving” for the past three-and-a-half years.

She was travelling from her home to a Staples stationery store when she was arrested by police on August 30.

The officer had followed her as she drove between the hard shoulder and the motorway at varying speeds of less than 10mph.

Source: The Daily Telegraph website 06/01/08 By Emma Henry and agencies

Any thoughts from driving instructors who are members of BADDIA (Bedford and District Driving Instructors Association) giving driving lessons in the Bedford area?

She should have had some motorway lessons with a BADDIA instructor.

Driving while talking on a handheld mobile phone has long been considered a danger.But even motorists who use handsfree devices are a nuisance – because they are slowing everyone else down, according to a study.

Drivers talking on their phones go about 2mph slower on clogged roads than others, and fail to keep up with the traffic flow, say American researchers.

That adds 20 hours a year to the commuting time for drivers who have a half-hour drive to and from work each day.

The trouble is that people talking on the phone are distracted, says the study’s author David Strayer, a psychology professor in Utah University’s traffic laboratory.

His team studied volunteers driving on traffic simulators in the laboratory. They used hands-free phones for half the time and no mobiles for the other half.

They were told to obey speed limits and use turn signals, but the rest of the driving decisions were up to them.

The researchers discovered that while talking on the hands-free phone, motorists drove more slowly, made fewer lane changes, and had slower reactions to the varying traffic conditions.

When stuck behind a dawdling driver, it took them between 25 and 50 seconds longer to switch to an open lane to overtake.

Overall, mobilephone drivers took three per cent longer to drive along the same highdensity route.

Fellow researcher Professor Peter Martin, who teaches civil and environmental engineering at Utah University, said: “Ordinarily a slower driver should be safer, but that’s not the case when people are talking on a cellphone.

“Then they brake later and switch lanes to avoid problems more slowly.

“Cellphone users are distracted drivers. Distracted drivers have delayed reactions and that is not safer driving.”

Other research has shown that ten per cent of the motorists on the road are talking on a mobile at any one time.

Professor Strayer, who will present his findings later this month to the U.S. Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences, added: “It’s simply a matter of brain overload.

“Your frontal cortex can handle only so many tasks at one time, so you slow down.”

Drivers who use hands free mobile phones cause delays by driving slower, fail to change lanes to and hold up traffic, a new study has said.

Researchers in the US said motorists on the phone dawdle and with up to one in ten drivers Stateside making calls at any time delays can balloon.

“It’s a bit like breaking wind in the elevator. Everyone suffers,” Peter Martin of the University of Utah’s Traffic Lab said.

“It has to do with the reaction to changes in speed,” said Martin, who teaches civil and environmental engineering.

“When a driver who is not distracted is in a traffic stream and the vehicle in front slows down, the driver will brake in response. When a vehicle speeds up in front, the driver will respond and speed up,” he said.

Researchers devised a study involving 36 university students driving on motorways, using a hands-free phone during half their trips and no phone in the other half.

They were told to obey posted speed limits and use turn signals but the rest of the driving decisions were up to them.

What the researchers found is that when the drivers were distracted by a phone conversation, they made fewer lane changes, drove slower and took longer to get where they are going.

In medium- and high-density traffic, drivers were about 20 percent less likely to change lanes. They also spent about 25 to 50 seconds longer following slow-moving vehicles before changing to an open lane. And they drove about 2 mph slower than the undistracted drivers and took 15 to 19 seconds longer to complete the 9.2 mile trip.

For an undistracted driver, this might make driving safer.

“But if you are doing that so you can take your mind off the road and talk on the phone, that isn’t safer,” said University of Utah psychology professor Dave Strayer, who led the team.

Those delays can add up, especially in light of studies that suggest as many as 10 percent of U.S. drivers are using a cell phone at any one time.

“Delays in traffic streams of very small amounts grow into massive numbers when you project it across a highway and across a nation,” Martin said.

The next step is to use computer models to determine just how much those delays are costing drivers in time and extra fuel costs that result from traffic delays.

“What we’ve done here indicates already that those numbers are likely to be significant,” Martin said.

Source: Daily Mail website 04/01/08

Do any driving instructors who are members of BADDIA (Bedford and District Driving Instructors Association) giving driving lessons in the Bedford area have any comments?