Safe Speed Forums

We should have a good mention in the Daily Express cover story (I haven't seen it yet):



At 3:05am today, Safe Speed issued the following PR:

PR159: Worrying Rise in Police Crashes

News: For immediate release

The Daily Express exclusively reveals today another worrying rise in
Police road crash victims. Safe Speed says training standards are to
blame.

Just 12 or 15 years ago, Police Class One drivers were the most highly
trained drivers anywhere. The Police driver training establishment set
standards that were the envy of the world. "Hendon trained" was a
description that immediately demanded great respect in dozens of
countries.

But someone decided that the high standards were "elitist". The "Class
one" description was replaced with "Police Advanced" and standards
began to decline. In the old Class One days is wasn't uncommon for 70%
to fail the course. But now, at least in some areas, everyone passes.
Standards are lower.

When Police driver training standards fall there are more crashes.
When there are more crashes more people die. The response to rising
crashes hasn't been to restore training standards, but to introduce
restrictions on what Police drivers are allowed to do. Choices are
made in control rooms, not on the ground. These changes may be for the
better, but NOTHING can replace the skills and attitudes that the old
system created.

Paul Smith, founder of the Safe Speed road safety campaign
(www.safespeed.org.uk) explains: "The present incumbents of the Home
Office and the Department for Transport have no idea how important the
Police driver training programme was to UK road safety. It's far more
than just Police crashes, because the valuable best practice
techniques from the Police driver training programme have been widely
incorporated in many aspects of UK road safety culture. The effect is
subtle, but very important."

Paul continues: "The golden combination of best practice advice from
the police driver training establishment and excellent science from
the likes of the Transport Research Laboratory gave us in the UK the
safest roads in the world. (And that was well over a decade before we
had speed cameras!)"

"The Police driver training establishment based at Hendon was the only
centre of driving excellence in the world for at least 4 decades. It
should come as no surprise that the only country with a centre of
driving excellence earned the safest roads in the world."

"But Hendon is now just a shadow of its former self. The skills pool
has been broken up. Safe Speed demands a most urgent return to former
standards. Road safety depends upon it."

<ends>

_________________
Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

It's not only Hendon. I approached Chelmsford police HQ to see if I as a member of the public could book up with any driver training course they run, including skidpan training - only to find that they no longer have a skid pan. WTF? How shortsighted can they get? Apart from the subtle effects that they are too shortsighted to recognise, even a simple business case should make them realise that by avoiding writing off a couple of cars and you could paty for the upkeep of that for months. add the odd KSI and you could keep it going in perpetuity.

Seriously????? That's insane. Any idea how many forces are like this?

I remeber going on a few courses for work where you basically got passed for being there, except that at the end you get a certificate of completion or some such nonsense instead of a test which you could actually pass or fail. Always thought that they were fairly meaningless and crap in the workplace (though meant company paying for lunch so ) but to have put the same thing into police driver training.

I think the phrase "politcial correctness gone mad" is badly overused, but I can't think of an alternative. The diea that PC plod just rocks up every day and gets his bit of papar with advanced driver on it at the end of the week, without anyone taking the trouble to find out if the lessons have sunk in... barking. You might as well hire pool attendants without asking if they can swim. Certifiable.

_________________
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

HEADLINE

Non police drivers kill thousands!

A spokesman for people said "well the thing is you see, most people are only trained to a level where they can pass a test"

I love tabloids

PS I'm a grade 4, which means I can go onto further training for traffic.

_________________
'Detritus, get yer stoney arse over ere'

Do they?

There's about 3,500 killed "on the roads" pa.

About a thousand are pedestrians of whom 85% kill themselves, so that's 2650.

Less 30 for police drivers, say a dozen pedestrians and cyclists killed by cyclists, and 5% down to mechanical failure and that's coming down to under two and a half thousand.

Some might wish do deduct those who die, or fall ill, at the wheel, or even those who fall asleep after being forced to drive into the middle of the night by silly speed limits.

Then there are the ones killed by trees, scaffolding, bridges and buildings falling on/in front of them which are no doubt included in the statistics. As no doubt are those killed by debris/loose cats-eyes thrown through their windscrees. Not to mention those killed by vandalism.

And, of course, there are the bus passengers who trip getting off the bus and bang their heads and kill themselves who definately are included in the statistics.

Some might want to deduct the sixteen year olds and under, and others without a driving license, from the definition of "Non police drivers" who "kill".

So how many "thousands" does that leave?

"Killed" by around 30 million ordinary drivers?

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

So we're talking about one kill per around 15,000 non police drivers at most. Possibly far, far less.

So that's around 30 kills per half a million non police drivers or less.

Are there more, or less, than half a million police drivers (or have I dropped a b*ll*ck somewhere? ) ?

I love HEADLINES

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http://www.itsyourduty.org.uk

I've thrown it out now, but there was an excellent letter in todays Daily Mail from an ex policeman decrying todays police driving standards, and stating pretty much waht Paul has said about Hendon. He agreed with Paul that a class one Hendon driver was probably the best in the world.

_________________
Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

I've kept yesterday's Daily Mail, I'll dig it out and post the letter when I get a minute.

_________________
If nothing else works, then a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.

As promised:

Fast is foolish

Before the Government closed down the police driving schools to cut costs, police who attended the concentrated course in the 1960s and 1970s and obtained the coveted Grade 1 Advanced driver award were considered by all the other driving associations in the country to be the crème de la crème of safe drivers.

The Master Drivers’ Club of the late 1960s said the award of a Grade 1 was “the highest safe driving qualification obtainable in the United Kingdom, if not the world”. A Grade II was considered to be just a little above failure.

The late John Gott, as Chief Constable of Northamptonshire and one-time captain of the British rally team, was considered a “good driver”, but to his continual chagrin he was never able to qualify as even a Grade II police driver. (He was killed while driving in a rally.)

All Grade 1 drivers acknowledge the basic fact that “any fool can drive fast”. It was their capability to “drive fast but have due consideration to the safety of not only themselves but all other road users when doing so” which marked them out.

The unwritten rule of their driving code was that it was “far better for the time being that a criminal escape than any member of the public be put in danger”. The solution to the current trend of dangerous police driving and the many accidents which now occur (Mail) is self-evident.

Michael Davies,
Nuneaton, Warks.

Kind of a coincedence that we're both from Nuneaton isn't it?

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If nothing else works, then a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.

I don't know about police forces, but this approach is prevalent in most other areas of education. I work in Scottish education and have close links with schools, colleges, universities and the Scottish Qualifications Authority. I would be hounded out for expressing these views in front of my superiors, but the fact is that standards ARE dropping because educational establishments are now measured by their ability to get their students to pass, coupled with the politically correct attitude of 'formative assessment' where "no-one fails - everyone passes at their level" (Prince Charles was right on this one IMHO!!)

The sort of spin that camera partnerships use is alive and well also in education - when you read that 'exam questions are not getting any easier' this is true. What isn't revealed though is that the pass mark thresholds are steadily dropping in order for exam boards to meet their year-on-year performance improvement targets.

Anyone who is an employer will be able to confirm that Standard Grade/Higher/Degree/GCSE/A-Level qualifications are no longer a reliable measure of ability, and the most visible demonstration of this is the education system's admission that new 'super qualifications' (aka. up to the standards that the existing ones used to be) are required.

Everyone passes at their level... priceless. On that basis a corpse should pass exams as totally ignoring the examiner and a general unwillingness to do anything but sit there decomposing is a normal response for them. Hmmm, might explain how some of the chavs get driving licenses.

_________________
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein