A Continuing Professional Development (CPD) ‘first’ was achieved recently with DSA certificates being handed out. The majority of attendees at the DSA Business Customer Conference (BCC) in Chorley took the opportunity to receive a certificate to confirm their attendance at the event.

Nigel Harries, Deputy Chief Driving Examiner and Charles Morton, Registrar were on hand throughout the day to provide certificates and to answer questions.

The certificate recognises the role that conferences such as the BCC can play in CPD. There is growing interest in what CPD means for individuals. After all, it is about formal and informal development, based on an individual’s understanding of the benefits to them. In a nutshell, it is a commitment to being professional, keeping up to date and continually seeking to improve.

The CPD working group has a DSA / cross-industry membership and they met earlier this week to report on progress to date. The input from the team is extremely positive and is helping to form proposals for steering group consideration (9th April) and future wider consultation.

Source: DSA website 29/02/08

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The Driving Standards Agency (DSA) is cracking down on bogus driving instructors who flout the law by illegally teaching learner drivers.

Only those people who have qualified to become approved driving instructors and whose name appears on DSA’s official register are legally able to give car driving lessons to the public for money; or moneys worth.

The ADI Registrar, Charles Morton said; “Illegal instructors are a danger to the public as they have not been assessed by us to ensure that they are able to provide driving instruction to the required standard. And they will not hold the correct insurance, so will not be covered in the event of an accident.

“It’s very simple to check that your driving instructor is qualified. Check that they display an in date pink (trainee) or green (fully qualified) certificate in their windscreen during lessons and that the photo id is the person teaching you. Using an illegal instructor could cost you more time and money and mean that you are not as safe on the road as you might be. ”

The head of the DSA Fraud and Integrity team, Andy Rice, said; “We investigate all reported cases of suspected illegal instruction and we work very closely with the Police and criminal justice agencies to identify offenders and prosecute”.

If you have any doubts about whether your driving instructor is teaching you legally call DSA on 0115 901 2618.

Source: Government News Network website 26/02/08

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In the battle to curb speeding drivers there have been fines, bans, road cameras, sleeping policemen and, occasionally, even real policemen.None, it is safe to say, has been an undiluted success.

So now children are being given the chance to make a difference with drivers pulled over for speeding near schools being offered either a £60 fixed penalty (and three points on their licence) or a dressing down from the pupils.

Pupils speak with a speeding driver caught by police outside their Norfolk school

It may come as no surprise that there were few takers for paying the fine and having their licences endorsed.

But, even though it seems unlikely that routine lawbreakers will quake in their boots at the prospect of such a telling off, the doubters could be surprised.

Dozens of motorists caught in a speed trap are said to have been left thoroughly ashamed after police brought pupils up to their cars to plead with them to slow down.

The attempt to deter drivers from going too fast is being pioneered outside four schools in Norfolk where pupils, their parents and teachers have had enough of motorists blatantly ignoring the 30mph limit signs.

PC Leo Blyth said: “Having the children tell the motorists off actually has more of an impact than a police officer doing it.

“A lot of the motorists have said how ashamed they felt afterwards and the message has really hit home to them.

“This is all about giving victims of crime a voice and a chance to voice how they feel.

“The feedback we have had from motorists is how much it has made them think about what they have been doing.

“It makes them think much more than if they had just received a letter in the post and us telling them they had a fine.

“This is a way of making it memorable once someone has committed the offence of speeding, meaning hopefully they will not do it again.”

Ten drivers, including one speeding at 44mph in a 30mph area, were stopped and ticked off by youngsters in just half an hour one day this week outside Tuckswood Primary School, Norwich.

Assistant head teacher Tony O’Rourke said: “The children jumped at the chance to help out with this scheme and we were happy to lend our support.

“Motorists do need to know there is a school here and they should be curbing their speed. I hope this gets the message through.”

Source: The Daily Mail website 24/02/08

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So the motorist travelling at 44mph would take about 43 metres to stop, about 20 metres more than if they had been travelling at 30mph.

The formula for working out stopping distances in FEET is: – Think Distance in FEET = MPH; Brake Distance in FEET = MPH x MPH x 0.05

e.g. Overall Stopping Distance in FEET for 30mph is therefore: – 30 + (30 x 30 x 0.05) = 30 + 45 = 75 FEET

The formula for working out stopping distances in METRES is: – Think Distance in METRES = MPH x 0.3; Brake Distance in METRES = MPH x MPH x 0.0154

e.g. Overall Stopping Distance in METRES for 30mph is therefore: – (30 x 0.3) + (30 x 30 x 0.0154) = 9 + 13.86 = 22.86 or 23 METRES

Because the formula was worked out many years ago in feet, it is only approximated in metres. Obviously, other factors like your reaction time, the state of your vehicle and the road surface will affect the final result. You can use this formula for ANY speed, not just the ones in the Highway Code.

Add up lessons, insurance and, of course, a car and the bill for a learner driver soon revs up, writes Jill Sinclair.

The favourite birthday present of most 17-year-olds is a pair of L plates and the promise of driving lessons. It is a present that doesn’t come cheap. It takes, on average, 45 hours of professional lessons combined with 22 hours of practice to pass the driving test.

With the typical cost of a lesson £24 an hour, that means you need to allow around £1,080 for driving school lessons and have a further £528 up your sleeve to buy additional hours if you aren’t able to offer this at home.

Traditionally, parents have used the family car to help their children to gain driving experience, but nowadays many insurers won’t touch learners under 21 or will charge prohibitively high premiums. Insuring a 17-year-old girl in west London to drive the family Peugeot 407, for instance, would cost in the region of £4,000.

One web-based broker started his business earlier this year in response to these high premiums. www.clickthepepper.co.uk allows learner drivers to take out temporary insurance on someone else’s car as long as the owner is always with them.

The car must be worth no more than £20,000 and belong in insurance Group 15 or below – which includes that Peugeot 407, along with many other family cars. Because this insurance can be bought by the month or the week it is ideal for summer holiday learners or for taster sessions to gauge whether or not your youngster is really ready to learn how to drive.

The first month costs £72.50 and £15 a week after that. Branches of Arnold Clark in Scotland, the North of England and the Midlands hire out dual control cars for learner drivers to clock up some extra hours.

They must be accompanied by someone over 23 years old with a full, clean, UK licence – but this needn’t be a parent (it could be a sibling or friend).

At £9 an hour, including 10 miles of driving, this is a very affordable way to gain experience without having to rely on parents’ availability and patience. Once today’s novice drivers have passed their test, they are encouraged to take a further six professionally supervised sessions under a scheme set up by the Driving Standards Agency. Pass Plus involves motorway and nighttime driving along with driving in difficult conditions.

Someone who has learned to drive in the summer will be unprepared for snow and ice or dark winter afternoons. Some local authorities give grants to help pay for Pass Plus lessons and many insurance companies offer those with Pass Plus certificates discounts of around 35 per cent for the first year, making this a worthwhile investment both in terms of cost and safety.

Drivers are more likely to have a crash in their first two years of driving than at any other time in their driving career, and young drivers are 40 per cent more likely to have an accident between 11pm and 6am. In an effort to encourage more responsible driving, some insurers now offer a pay-as-you-go scheme which penalises late-night excursions.

Norwich Union will fit a black box recorder to your car and charge double the hourly rate if it is driven after 11pm. More Than’s DriveTime policy offers a similar incentive and premiums are reduced by 40 per cent for drivers who stick to their late-night curfew.

The Government is about to propose a fundamental overhaul of driver testing and training which aims to reduce young driver deaths and injuries. In the meantime, it may be that the most cost-effective, safest and sensible thing to do is to postpone buying those L plates until your teenager is a little older.

Source: The Telegraph Online 22/02/08

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The cost of driving tests will rise on 1 April, the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) has confirmed.

A theory test will increase in price by £1.50 to £30, while practical tests for car drivers will go up by £8 to £56.50.

The biggest increase will be for motorcycle riders, who will see the more wide-ranging practical test rise on 29 September from £60 to £80.

The price rises were first proposed last summer, but have now been rubber-stamped by the DSA.

Rosemary Thew, DSA chief executive, said: “The Driving Standards Agency has to cover its costs in providing driving and riding tests to learners throughout the country.

“We are already planning to make efficiency savings of £4.8m this year and a further £6m in 2008-9, but to make sure we continue to offer an excellent service, the fees we charge must match our costs.”

A new off-road element to the motorcycle test is being introduced in September before riders will be allowed to progress to the on-road exam.

This means a new network of test centres is being built.

Source: The BBC News Online website 21/02/08

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WEST MIDLANDS Drivers on the M42 will be the first in the country to be warned about traffic conditions and dangers ahead via digital picture messages on overhead signs, which will be introduced this week on an 11-mile stretch of the motorway in the West Midlands. The Highways Agency said that six months of testing the pictograms had resulted in reduced fuel consumption and vehicle emissions. The AA said that the signs would also be more easily understood by foreign drivers.

The Highways Agency said that using the hard shoulder during peak periods had cut journey times and the accident rate.

Source: The Times Online website 20/02/08

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Tourists are flocking to Gretna Green to see one of nature’s most astonishing sights: tens of thousands of starlings swooping for food.

Passing motorists on the nearby A74 have been advised by police to keep their concentration on the road.

Sergeant Scott McLachlan, of Dumfries and Galloway police, said that drivers were slowing down and pulling over on to the hard shoulder to look at the birds. He said: “We want people to enjoy the birds but firstly they need to be safe.

“I would say to drivers that if they want to see the starlings then they should come off the road and not pull over on to the hard shoulder.”

Although starlings are on the “red list” of endangered species, enormous flocks are still seen regularly around the country, with gatherings containing up to seven million birds.

Some of the most popular locations for watching starlings are Brighton Pier, the Somerset Levels and at Glastonbury Tor, where birdlovers gather most evenings during January and February.

A RSPB spokesman said that despite the spectacular displays, the British breeding population of starlings had declined by around 65 per cent in the past 30 years. He said that the birds, including those which migrate from northern Europe to roost in Britain during the winter months, will soon separate into smaller groups as they prepare to breed.

Recent research has unravelled part of the mystery of how the birds manage to create such complex patterns while flying. Starlings in Flight, a pan-European group of physicists, biologists and economists, last month explained the principles: each bird focuses on seven of its neighbours and, as the flock turns and wheels around, it responds to the movements of these particular individuals.

No matter how far these birds are driven apart, they will gradually move back towards each other. The findings contradict the widely held belief that each starling simply watches the bird immediately in front.

The scientists discovered this by studying starlings swarming over Rome’s main railway station, then creating complex 3-D computer models to analyse the behaviour of individual birds.

Source: Excerpts from The Times Online website, David Sanderson 19/02/08

Any comments from birdloving driving instructors who are members of BADDIA (Bedford and District Driving Instructors Association) giving driving lessons in Bedford? There are no shortage of starlings in my back garden.

Cars are set to be banned from entire towns under radical new Government proposals.

At least one eco-town being planned by Gordon Brown is expected to be a totally car-free zone.

Secure parking areas will be dotted around the fringes of the 10,000-home development.

Families will be expected to walk or use public transport to get around.

A senior Government source said: “It is based on the CenterParcs model where you leave your car on the outskirts.

“It creates spaces where children can play, families can walk and communities can gather.

“With sensible planning you can get entire towns which are not dominated by traffic.” Ministers will decide within weeks where the revolutionary new towns will be built as part of a wider scheme to provide millions of new homes.

But opponents fear they will mean a massive loss of greenbelt land.

In Stoughton, Leicestershire, protesters held a march against proposals to build Pennbury eco-town with 15,000 homes.

In Derbyshire, where a development is planned for 5,700 houses, retired headteacher Andrew Otway is helping to organise an online petition to Downing Street.

Kate Gordon, of the Council for the Protection of Rural England, said: “We support the idea of eco-towns, but they must be in the right place and developed in the right way.”

Source: The Mirror Online website 14/02/08, Exclusive by Bob Roberts, Political Editor

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Redesigning roads to leave drivers and pedestrians uncertain about who has priority will save lives, according to a report by Britain’s most senior transport officials. The move would automatically cut traffic speed without the need for cameras, they say.

Barriers and signs such as railings, kerbs, traffic lights and white lines cause crashes because people assume they will keep them safe and therefore fail to focus on what other road users are doing. Giving drivers less information by removing signs will encourage them to slow down to negotiate a safer course along high streets and across junctions.

The report by the County Surveyors’ Society, which represents local authority directors responsible for most roads in England and Wales, recommends a revolution in road design. It calls for widespread adoption of the concept of “shared space”, pioneered in the Netherlands and better known in Britain as “naked streets”.

It says: “Paradoxically, creating barriers and divisions may worsen safety because drivers and riders feel more confident and speed up, despite the limitations on the speed at which the human mind can take in the amount of information now displayed on our roads. The human response to increased in-car and on-road safety may be to increase risky behaviour.

“We are social animals and there is some evidence that the removal of control and the creation of uncertainty can help slow traffic and elicit more considerate behaviour.”

In the Dutch town of Drachten the removal of traffic lights at one big junction resulted in crashes falling from 36 in the four years before the scheme was introduced to two in the next two years. The average time for each vehicle to cross the junction fell from 50 seconds to 30 seconds despite a rise in the volume of traffic.

In Kensington High Street, West London, fewer pedestrians are being injured after almost 600 metres of railings were removed to allow people to cross where they liked. In the two years since they were removed, pedestrian casualties declined three times faster than the capital’s average. Traffic engineers believe that drivers are keeping a sharper eye out for pedestrians because they may cross at any point.

The report, Travel is Good, was compiled by an influential group that included Robert Devereux, Permanent Secretary at the Department for Transport, Gwyneth Dunwoody, chairman of the Commons Transport Select Committee, and Sir Martin Doughty, chairman of Natural England. It considers how to deal with problems likely to be encountered in transport over the next 40 years.

Ben Hamilton Baillie, a transport consultant who contributed to the report, said it marked acceptance at the highest levels of shared space principles that five years ago were considered outlandish. Roads in Bath, Ashford in Kent, and Ancoats in Manchester are being converted to shared space. Work will begin next year on removing kerbs and giving pedestrians greater priority on Exhibition Road in West London

The report also urges the Government to “stay the course” in implementing road pricing but adds that there should be investment first in alternative travel choices and transparency in how the revenue is spent.

It says studies are needed to assess the potential knock-on effect when drivers divert to other roads from routes with high per-mile charges.

The report accepts that climate change is a reality and says that Mediterranean weather could increase travel to and within Britain, resulting in added congestion. It cautions that flooding and falling trees will be a growing threat to the transport infrastructure. It also points to the increased likelihood of sudden structural failures resulting from subsidence and landslips because of soil saturation and the scouring action of rain and rivers.

The report does not regard biofuels as a viable solution on the scale required to replace fossil fuels. It points out that biofuels would be competing for limited land with much needed food crops. It calls on the Government to put in place legislation and financial incentives to encourage conversion to hydrogen as the road transport fuel of the future.

Source: The Times Online website 13/02/08, Ben Webster

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Next generation: The latest speed cameras will take more pictures, and more accurately

Thousands more motorway drivers will be hit with speeding fines in a new speed camera blitz.

They will be caught if they creep over variable speed limits, which are set according to the level of traffic.

Experts believe that by reducing the speed limit when motorways are busy they can prevent the tailbacks that are created when drivers brake sharply as they approach slower moving vehicles.

Variable speeds are already used on the M25 west of London and the M42 on the edge of Birmingham. Cameras enforce the limits.

From February 15, all speed cameras will become digital in the variable speed limit section of the M25 from junctions 10 to 16 – the A3 junction to the M40 junction, the Daily Mail can reveal.

Until now, variable speed limit cameras on the M25 have used film, which limits the number of pictures that can be taken before the film has to be changed.

However, digital cameras can capture an almost indefinite number of images.

The “speed threshold” – the amount drivers can stray above the limit without getting a ticket – is also being lowered. Police sources say it will be set at 79mph.

Variable speed limits are also expected to come into force on the M6 between Birmingham and Manchester and on parts of the M1.

Source: The Daily Mail website 11/02/08

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