December 4th, 2008 Administrator
Does a good night’s sleep mean it’s safe to get behind the wheel? Simon Usborne mixes a real hangover with a virtual car to find out.
According to the online alcohol consumption calculator, www.RUpissed.com I am, indeed, pissed. It’s been more than eight hours since I drank the last of six (or was it seven?) pints of strong lager (and a shot of sambuca), yet the website tells me almost half the alcohol I consumed will still be in my system. Since then, I’ve slept and downed litres of water, but at eight o’clock the morning after the night before, I’m unsteady on my feet and feel rougher than hell.
The website tells me I must have have a blood alcohol content of about 60 milligrams. The legal maximum in the UK is 80mg, so I suppose that means it’s safe for me to drive. But is it?
The first few miles seem OK. I steer a Jaguar S-Type through city streets without incident, stopping at the lights and weaving only slightly as I negotiate a bend. It’s a clear, sunny morning and the roads are quiet. As memories of the last night’s drinks binge begin to surface somewhere behind the headache pounding my skull, I feel like I’m driving pretty well. And whatever – I’m legal.
And then it happens. I spot the people carrier stationary in the slow lane of a dual carriageway but, as I overtake it, I don’t slow down. And when the car pulls out as I pass, I do not brake soon enough. Hitting the car at about 30mph, I screw up my face and instinctively duck my head as my windscreen shatters.
This time, thank God, I’m not driving a real car. I’m sitting in a simulator at Brunel University in Middlesex. A team of scientists, in partnership with the insurance firm RSA, have just carried out a study into how well (or badly) we drive the day after a party. A virtual city is projected on to screens in front of the Jaguar and the car’s controls are hooked up to a computer that records every inch of a seven-minute drive.
The results are disturbing. On average, the student participants, all of whom were under the legal limit, drove almost 10 per cent faster and committed twice as many traffic violations after a night out than they did with no drink in their system. After my turn, during which I had to pull over in the virtual world to throw up in the real one, Dr Stewart Birrell gives me my results. They’re not good. For almost 20 per cent of my journey I’ve been driving over the speed limit and I’ve committed seven driving violations.
David, the photographer who’s with me, has been watching my drive. Afterwards, he tells me a Dalmatian had walked out from behind a car on the other side of the road. “What Dalmation?” I ask. “If anything, I think you accelerated,” he replies.
Back at the office, struggling to gear my addled brain towards writing this piece, I call an expert to find out why I drove so badly when, technically, it was legal for me to get behind the wheel. Professor Vivienne Nathanson is head of science and ethics at the British Medical Association (BMA), which recently published the report Alcohol Misuse: Tackling the UK Epidemic.
She’s horrified that I consumed more than 18 units last night – some way above the Government’s daily guideline of three to four units for men (don’t tut like that; it was a party!).
“Did anyone tell you that that’s a toxic level of alcohol?,” she asks. My stomach did, I feel like saying.
“It fills me with dread to think that people are getting into cars in that condition,” she continues. “I think we overestimate the speed at which we get rid of alcohol. Because you’re less drunk than you were, it’s very easy to make the mistake of thinking you’re fit to drive.”
Nathanson says it’s no wonder I was a risk on the road. “If you’re dehydrated and your brain’s short on fluid, then it will slow down. Even with 20mg of alcohol in your system [that's one quarter of the legal limit], your ability to concentrate, make choices and react is impaired. Combined with the toxicity of the alcohol and tiredness, it makes driving unsafe.”
The BMA’s research suggests drivers with a blood alcohol content between 50mg and the legal limit of 80mg are a hidden cause of crashes. Some estimates suggest “legal drink driving” causes 80 road deaths a year in England. That would be on top of the official 460 deaths (16 per cent of all road deaths) caused by drivers over the legal limit last year in the UK.
A cultural shift in recent years has brought drink-driving deaths down – there was an 18 per cent decrease last year – but, as the party season gathers pace, awareness of the effects of a bad hangover appears to be lagging behind. The BMA is campaigning for a cut in the legal limit from 80mg to 50mg, which would bring the UK in line with Europe (only Ireland, Malta and Cyprus have limits as high as ours). “[The Government] claims to have an open mind and that it wants to see the evidence,” Nathanson says. “The evidence is there and it’s clear.”
I’ve learnt two things by doing the test: that I can’t hold my drink, and that drink-driving in this country needs to be redefined. Chastened, I’m left wondering what would have happened had that people carrier been a real one with a real family inside.
From : Independent website
Txt-Drive would like to remind pupils NOT to book a driving lesson for the following day if they have been drinking (heavily) the night before, as they may still be over the legal limit.
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December 4th, 2008 Administrator
SCORES of Welsh motorists have been fined for using hand-held mobile phones while teaching learners to drive.
Figures show that 63 tickets were issued to “supervisors” in the last three years by Welsh police forces.
Dyfed-Powys have issued 51 fixed penalty tickets. In North Wales 10 tickets were issued with £60 fines and three penalty points on licences, while there have been two cases in South Wales.
Across Wales, more than 16,800 fixed penalty tickets have been issued by Welsh forces to motorists breaking the law on the use of mobile phones since 2005.
Learner driver Chris Davies, 21, of Cathays, Cardiff, said: “I would be disappointed if a driving instructor did that to me.
“I think it’s important that a pupil knows he is safe in the car especially when you start having lessons.
“It really annoys me when I see people talking on their phones while driving, but the police are cracking down on it now.”
Chris Franks, the Plaid Cymru AM for South Wales Central, who requested the figures from the police forces, said: “I set out to find the numbers of motorists caught using mobile phones. But I was staggered and appalled to find that qualified drivers, while teaching others to drive, have been using hand-held mobile phones.
“It is not clear in the figures whether it is parents or friends teaching others or driving school instructors using them, which would be even more worrying.
“You cannot react to an incident involving someone you’re teaching to drive if you’re on a mobile. It is a hugely dangerous practice and I’m glad that police forces are picking up on this.”
Inspector Steve Davies of South Wales Police said: “Using a mobile phone while driving, or super- vising a provisional licence holder, puts the lives of innocent road users at risk. I would urge everyone to comply with the law.”
Mike Dykes, who runs the Progress School of Motoring in Rhyl, who never uses his mobile phone while instructing, said: “I think it’s serious because it’s something you practice not to do.”
From : Wales Online
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December 4th, 2008 Administrator
The standard of driving in Guernsey has been described as “abysmal” by one of the island’s driving instructors.
Currently anyone who has held a full driving licence for 12 months can set up as a driving school business.
Peter Derham said people should have a minimum of four years’ experience before being allowed to teach.
He has called for greater regulation of his profession by the States, insisting such a move would help to make the island’s roads safer.
“People are passing the driving test without the necessary skills,” Mr Derham told BBC News.
“I thing the standard of driving on Guernsey’s roads is abysmal – absolutely abysmal.”
Voluntary register
He said some instructors were failing to teach their pupils how to drive properly.
Mr Derham said he would also like to see a road safety officer appointed, to organise safety campaigns.
Proposals to set up a register of driving tutors was considered by the Environment Department in 2005, but no legislation has been passed.
An Environment spokesman said a voluntary register was still being considered.
From : BBC website
Txt-Drive driving instructors are all fully qualified DSA ADI’s (Car). This means that the instructor has passed a series of three tests to prove their ability to teach people to drive. To book cheap driving lessons in Bedford call (FREEPHONE) 0800 8600 983 or visit www.txt-drive.co.uk.
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December 4th, 2008 Administrator
More than 1,200 people have signed a petition calling for a driving test centre in Kidderminster to be retained and saved from closure.
Campaigners plan to formally hand over the petition to Mrs Rosemary Thew, chief executive of the Driving Standards Agency, based in Nottingham, on Monday.
Local driving instructors and campaigners are to visit the agency’s headquarters.
The DSA has proposed the closure because it claims the Kidderminster centre is outdated and needs costly repairs.
Conservative Parliamentary spokesman Mark Garnier, councillor Julian Phil- lips and local driving instructor Glyn Ellis-Jones, who have spearheaded the campaign, hope to also hand in a written report predicting the consequences of the closure.
They claim there would be an overall increase of 214,760 hours of driving tuition needed for learners if driving tests switch to a centre at Lower Gornal.
It would lead to more carbon emissions and misery for people living in the Lower Gornal and Dudley area as more learner drivers converge on the area, they say.
Even the car park at Lower Gornal would not be suitable to enable 16 driving tests per hour, it is claimed.
The overall increase in costs for learners living in the Wyre Forest district would work out at £320, campaigners say.
Mr Ellis-Jones said: “The closure of the test centre will increase the cost of learning to drive because pupils will have to take time to drive around the centre where they will take their test to familiarise themselves with the area.
He said that millions of unnecessary extra miles would be driven by learners adding to the problem of carbon emissions.
Councillor Phillips added: “I would urged as many people as possible to go with us or attend a public meeting we plan to hold later in the day at 8.30pm at Kidderminster Rugby Club in Marlpool Lane.”
From : Expressandstar.com
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