Blog Archives

Graduated Driver Licensing (“GDL”)

27/7/2019

The Government has announced that its road safety action plan will commit to further explore GDL. This will include researching measures such as (1) a minimum learning period, and newly qualified drivers driving only (2) in daylight or (3) with older passengers.

Commonest test faults?

18/7/2019

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Click above to see ... they’re the same as ever

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Roadside assistance?

12/7/2019

What happened to those phone-assistance call-boxes maintained by the Automobile Association (and the Royal Automobile Club)? Perhaps you don’t remember them.

Almost all were replaced by the personal (mobile) telephone. These sentry-type street-side kiosks were made memorable by the 1963 children’s television drama Dr Who, in which the main character’s “magic wardrobe” looks like the heavy-duty police equivalent.

How fast before crashing?

11/7/2019

Fascinating talk by the chairman of the Institute of Traffic Accident Investigators at the BADIs last Thursday.

It’s simple physics to tell how fast a motor vehicle was travelling when the driver / rider hit the brakes.

I'd fancy this role (as an expert witness in fatal collisions) more than being a driving examiner.

How far can a stop-line be from its traffic signal?

8/7/2019

In truth, I don’t rightly know. It’s usually a gap of no more than about 3 m. There must be a prescribed legal maximum: similar to a mini roundabout being limited to 12 m diameter.

The one at Bournville station [picture above] certainly strikes me as confusingly big. (It's large here so that the signal covers sight-lines of lorries emerging from the green factory gate on the left, latterly disused).

A quick web-search revealed the law is silent on this point, but professional opinion's here.

Bus gate at Longbridge

6/7/2019

Outside Birmingham city centre, this is the first buses-only gateway I’ve come across in the conurbation. Redditch has a few.

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