Driving Threat

Driving Threat. 

An International Driving Permit (IDP) is a driving license that permits an individual to drive any category of small vehicle shown on their licence in any another country. An IDP is not a license to operate a car on its own, it has to be accompanied by a valid license from the individual’s home country as well. Permits must be in booklet form, with white inside pages translated into multiple languages to compare with the country of origin licence held. Confusingly with an International driving licence, as it is known, “neither the United Nations nor any of its subsidiary bodies issues or authorises the issue of international driver licences. An international driving licence is not valid proof of driving entitlement in GB”. These can be bought by a number of providers and are mistaken for an IDP.

A visitor can drive a vehicle on busy UK roads for 12 months without having to pass any practical test of competence. However if there is an intention to stay longer than 12 month a provisional license must be obtained and a UK driving test taken. Failure of the test means that the holder of the IDP cannot continue to drive unaccompanied, without the applied restriction on UK roads, associated with the continual use of a provisional license, e.g. they are subject to provisional licence conditions; displaying 'L' plates, being supervised by a qualified driver and being prohibited from motorways.

What generally happens is that as the home office have no idea of who actually comes into the country (legally or otherwise) and has no idea of when a particular ‘visitor’ leaves; unless a driver is stopped and checks made, the visitor continues to drive a vehicle. In addition it is not unusual for visitors from recent ascension countries and others with permission to reside, simply to return to their point of origin after 12 months and obtain a new IDP so generating a new 12 month driving grace period. So far this can be done numerous times without hindrance.   

Given the influx of people from many countries like the African states, Asian, Balkan, Eastern Block and Middle East areas, who can buy or fraudulent obtain a driving licence to obtain an IDP, these are used as a bases for driving in the UK for 12 months. After which the ‘driver’ should take a driving test or cease to drive. In practice what seems to happen is, even if a test is taken and the driver fails, they simple walk out of the test station and drive off in their vehicle. They are not stopped from doing so; they carry on driving and are now effective driving illegally without any effective insurance and are not challenged or reminded of the legal position after failing a test. The DVLA remains unaware of an individual driving status and rules are circumvented. In some cases this may be an oversight in not understanding the legal position they are required to adhere too, this is being charitable but the effect is that it still presents a danger to other law abiding road users. Some may continue to drive in the ‘grace’ period until it expires or simply get a new IDP.

In the UK on average some 415 road deaths occur with additional circa 9K serious injuries each year. This adds to the number of uninsured drivers that cause 26k accident each year. The UK has the most congested and fast complex busy road system in the west. It is one that required good understand of road craft yet each year some 250K new entrants are added to the UK residence load, many of these are of driving age, do not speak the English language have little matching cultural or legal precedence to equate to, yet are quite likely to take advantage of the lax immigration and residency state to be a unresolved danger when they take to the road.

It is likely that although the practical and theory driving test has been modified to make it easier to accommodate cultural acceptability to new entrant, it does not inspire any confidence when there are so many foreign nationals who are assumed to be adequate drivers to cope with the UK weather, signage and road conditions. Another problem, one that impacts on all drivers which is overlooked is the weak application of eye sight testing. The requirement to ‘read’ a number plate at a test station is an initial eyesight filter but there is no requirement to have a good eye test at the renewal of a license or at a set age, say every 10 years. It is impossible that a person’s sight does not change over a period of time and whereas there is a legal requirement for an employer to provide a sight test when an employee is consistently using a computer screen or for HGV / PCV professionals, there is none for the vast majority of others in the dangerous pursuit of driving.

© Renot 2012

14721427

Olympics Acid Trip.

Olympics Acid Trip.

Over the past 4 weeks (27.7.12 - 12.8.12) the UK has gone through the biggest house party trip it has ever willingly cosseted itself with since the quaint queen’s jubilee and the vast majority of the populace went mad. On every form of media there has been seen an over supply of what some may call a stupendous display of the scope and power of orchestrated information technology projected onto a world stage ever eager for an injection of news. Since the ‘winning’ of the Olympics Judas award, there has been no attempt to rationalise the real cost or worth of laying on an event of such magnitude, especially at time of enforced austerity. The fabrication of the initial budget set aside for the event was widely underestimated and required the budget to be lifted at each stage of the development for the government to claim that it came in on time and in cost! In the whole history of the re-establishment of the Olympics no country has gained any long term benefit from the expenditure laid out on such a selected form of entertainment for the benefit of a few partaking people. And with supposedly one exception – Atlanta 1996, none has made any money from the outlay.

The 36 events covered by the games represent activities that have no intrinsic value other than being seen as a form of one up-man-ship prestige jamboree in the geopolitical conflicts to be on the top table. The events laid out such are in the main open to people with disposable income of some measure and some like; tennis, sailing, shooting, equestrian, fencing etc require sizable investment to participate in and all of them demand a great deal of time and suitable resources to achieve any  success. This investment is not easily obtainable by the vast majority of a working population to take them beyond a simple short term or weekend pastime.

For all their verbosity attached to the Olympic, about it being a major boost for  the UK; a platform to stage the presence of  the UK, a vehicle to deliver economic benefits, a step to develop a legacy of investment for the future, it was a major confidence trick of stupendous proportion to offer at a time when it is most useful to provide a diversion from the mess the UK is in and there is no doubt that the London Olympics (for in essence that is what it was for – London) offered little value to benefit the rest of the UK despite the huge hype driven up by authorities and the media.  At no stage did the media challenge the accepted view that the event was good for the whole of UK nor seriously examine the disbursement cost and secretive nature of locog or the olympics delivery authority.

To spend £9.3bn on a few hundred thousand people for a few hundred to display their undoubted skill and dedication over a range of sports that generally do not otherwise have much media coverage and which during the four weeks wholly inundated the TV and media coverage to agitate gullible people and which is unlikely to have any real “legacy” benefits at the end, must be seen as an exercise in mass hysteria. The one extracted concurrence that transpired with the whole presentation before and after the event demonstrates the influence that can be brought to bear and be controlled on the ability to manipulate a population if enough hype is expressed. Near every selected opinion sought on the event created an overriding impression that the whole population of the UK were eagerly awaiting and in thrall for the Olympics, there were opinions that indicated the opposite. There was never any attempt to create a balance opposite view and any that were vocalised were quickly dismissed as being too cranky to countenance as serious objections to sway a rethink.

The hype attached to this event brings to mind sayings such as “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities” or

“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong”.  Voltaire.

One cannot help but think that this is an appropriate warning of how the many people of a nation can be indoctrinated to any given end.

Now that it is over the counter views are being cranked up as the duplicity of the funding streams to individual activities become known to be able to continue any success and the actuality of funding new facilities or even to maintain what is already in existence meets the self imposed austerity and colludes with the continuing sale of public sports assets.

The Olympics has become little more that a honey pot for nationalistic branding, private enterprise and some element of affluent social sport segregation. There might be an case to hold such event on just the entertainment value that highlight the quality of human achievement that can be reached for activities that do not usually take up the media coverage because they are too expensive to cover that generally with certain exception get little attention; much easer to go for crowed pleasers that are amply exposed but why football, tennis, table tennis, trampoline to name a few should be within the scope of Olympics and not cricket the hosts national game seems obscure.

What is shortly to start is the Paralympics which will not get the same level of attention, hype or funding largess as the ‘real’ Olympics yet it might be argued that this event and those participating have a substantially greater challenge to tackle for their achievements than the fortunate whole bodied humans.

At a time when austerity fear is propagated, it would be considerable cheaper to give every successful leading sports wo/man a gold medal every year and free beer or a cannabis hit for others on a chosen date of ‘cerebration’ for their achievement, rather than have the huge waste that is now increasingly thrown at this unnecessary spectacle. Fortunately for London it was an investment ‘one off life time event’ but what is needed now is similar regular life time investments that moves the rest of the UK economy.        

© Renot 2012

128121445