Do you do the lottery?  Do you hope every week that ‘it could be you’?  Do you know the odds of winning the lottery?  Yes, I’m sure you do, but it’s still worth a go isn’t it?  After all, someone’s got to win!

What if I told you there was another game of chance where the odds are 30 times greater than the lottery?  Interested?  In fact, you have a one in 200 chance of winning, now how about that for good odds?

So, what is this game?  It’s the Road Death game!  Yes, we Britons have a one in 200 chance of dying in a road crash.  How about that?  Much shorter odds by train, that’s 1 in 65,000 and by air, shorter still, 1 in 7.6 million in fact!  This is according to an unpublished report by the Department for Transport, obtained by the Times.  Follow this link to read the article:

 http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/transport/article3621890.ece

Drivers who take driver training greatly reduce their chances of being involved in a crash, simply because they have raised awareness of the mistakes other drivers make, and are ready to deal with them, together with heightened hazard perception skills coupled with the right level of anticipation to deal effectively, and in good time, with these hazards.  And, as a very welcome added bonus, this safer style of driving also saves money!  It reduces fuel usage, which also reduces the CO2 emissions, reduces wear and tear on the vehicle and significantly reduces driver stress and associated fatigue!  In fact, most drivers who take this training save themselves at least £120pa.  If you would like further information on how you can start to make savings, please contact us now.  The Road Death game, that’s one lottery you definitely don’t want to win!!

Learner drivers and, I might add, instructors (judging by queries posted recently on an instructors’ web site), concern themselves with the top ten reasons why pupils fail their tests.  My answer to that is that they simply are not ready to tackle the driving task alone out on the roads - even those who say their nerves caused them to fail, because perhaps those same nerves could cause them to have a crash, either because they are over-timid or because a driving test pass has now turned them into an over-confident driver!  Either way, there were aspects of the candidate’s driving which showed they were not yet safe enough to be allowed out alone.  However, because this question has been asked so often, you might like to download this pdf document - it is from Northern Ireland but, with the exception of the Highway Code section, everything else is relevant in the rest of the British Isles:

Top Ten Driving Test Faults

You might also want to take a look at this advice from the RAC: http://www.rac.co.uk/web/knowhow/learning_to_drive/the_driving_test/the_top_10_reasons_for_failure

This was the headline of a ‘news in brief” account I read recently in my local paper.  It concerned a VW Golf, without a driver, which moved out of the car park and crashed into the wall of a convent nearby.  The report stated a faulty handbrake was suspected and went on to report that it was the third time in a year that a car had damaged walls at the convent in this way.

Recent discussions with drivers has revealed to me that many people believe you should not leave your car in gear when parked, citing the reason for this belief being that their driving instructor always told them to leave the gear lever in neutral.  This highlights a lack of understanding behind the reason for the driving test safety check before switching on the engine, ie check handbrake is on first, then check the gear is in neutral: because there is a very sound safety reason why the car may have been left parked in gear, which is that if the handbrake fails, the car will be held by the gear-box now acting as a second brake.  All drivers are aware of the use of gears as a way of slowing the car down, (although this is not the principal method taught today), of braking in fact, but it appears many have not related this fact to when the vehicle is left in a parked position.

The advice should be:

Leave your car with the handbrake on and in gear whenever you are parked in a position, such as a car park, even with a slight slope, where a faulty handbrake could cause the vehicle to roll off and cause damage, even injury!

Leave you car in gear, but with the handbrake off:

• when leaving the vehicle for an extended period of time, eg when going on holiday
• when parked outside overnight during icy conditions

The reason for the above is that the handbrake, which operates on the rear wheels only, can seize up, thereby preventing you from moving the vehicle.

Far from being bad practice, leaving your car parked in gear is a wise safety precaution.  Just remember the important safety checks you were taught before starting the engine: check first that the handbrake is on and then that the gear lever is in neutral.

Yesterday another driver prevented me from using road space, effectively pushing me into the path of oncoming vehicles.  How and why did this happen?  Well it occurred after a set of traffic lights where there is a left turn into a Tesco store, no turning to the right, and 2 lanes marked for traffic continuing ahead.  As I approached, the lights were on red, a fairly long queue of vehicles was in the left lane, but just 3 waiting in the right-hand lane; I chose to proceed in the right.  Just after the lights the road narrows into one lane, marked with arrows for right-hand lane traffic to move into the left.  It was at this point, as I looked for my gap to move left, that the driver of the car behind accelerated to fill this gap, effectively putting me in danger.  The reaction from the female driver and her male passenger (both middle-aged) showed they believed I had committed a traffic offense by using this space to get ahead of traffic, and they were determined I should not get ahead of them, even to the extent of causing a collision!

This is the worst type of driving!  Even if my actions had been wrong, to then deliberately force another car into the path of oncoming vehicles is putting everyone around them in danger, all for the sake of ‘punishing’ another driver!

Many of you reading this will have had the same thing happen to you, and it shows the worst form of human nature, the ‘me first, my space’ culture, and it causes more traffic queues than necessary as many drivers are afraid of using the available space of the second lane for fear of being put into just such a position.  The road planners put these extra lanes in place, at enormous cost to the tax payer, to relieve traffic congestion, so please do not let those who do not understand this fact put you off. 

If you would like to learn how to use space safely and effectively, how to assist other drivers and keep yourself safe, then why not enrol on a refresher, or better still advanced, driving course with us?  Good driving is about being considerate, aware and responsible, and driving with this in mind will lead you to becoming a safe and economical driver, ‘eco-safe’, saving you money on fuel and vehicle maintenance costs.  Call us today and don’t let drivers like the one highlighted here force you to be a timid driver.

By-the-way, the correct way to deal with queues of traffic where 2 lanes merge into one, is to use the ‘zipper’ action: left vehicle proceeds, then right, then left, then right etc, just like the teeth on a zip.  Everyone moves in turn and everyone remains safe!

We regret to announce that Collingwood, underwriters for ‘Click the Pepper’ insurance and ‘Instructor Cover’ have cancelled all trading agreements with them as from the 1st February.  If you have bought a policy from either of these companies, Collingwood will continue to honour all existing policies so any enquiries should be directed straight to Collingwood Insurance.

It is hoped that this is only a temporary problem and that we will see the ‘Click the Pepper’ insurance for learner drivers up and running again soon.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=522943&in_page_id=1770

 Please read this article, then rethink your actions if you text whilst driving, or speed in a 30mph area!  Texting might seem harmless to you - you can do it with your eyes closed and you can do it fast, so where’s the problem doing it when you’re driving?  And 30mph feels so SLOW!  In fact, it feels like a crawl, doesn’t it?  Well, the young lady in this report must have held all these beliefs - she’d already been caught 3 times for speeding before this happened!  And she clearly believed so much in her multi-tasking skills, she believed she could drive, 50% above the speed limit, and text at the same time!  Well now she has 4 years to think about these beliefs (although she’ll most likely be out in 2, but that’s still an awfully long time for her 4 year old daughter!), and to consider what her life will be like in the future, blighted as it has now become through such thoughtless actions.  Perhaps she could consider helping others to learn from her mistakes and so give back to road safety?