FORD news

Hardly a day passes without tragic news of yet another young life lost and wasted on the roads. Traffic accidents are the greatest cause of death amongst 16-20 year olds yet, compared to terrorism, for example, this dreadful toll seems to be something that society in general accepts as a risk of everyday living.

Now consider that 3000 people are killed on the UK roads every year – that is the equivalent of one 747 crashing and killing everyone on board every seven weeks. Can you imagine the uproar if that many planes were wiped out? No-one would fly.

These figures do not include those who have been injured – sometimes horrifically and for life.

Again, despite these awful figures, many people do not take their responsibility to drive safely seriously. They consider traffic police and traffic calming to be the enemy and as for speed cameras, do not even talk about them!

Currently the DSA (Driving Standards Agency) are undertaking a public consultation on the whole process of learning to drive. The plan is to improve driving tests and the whole process of learning.

But there is a catch. Some people simply cannot afford to learn – it can cost a great deal – so they decide to drive anyway, without a licence or insurance. They feel they have no option.

Against that is the fact that driving instructor income is so low, it fails to attract the best professionals into the industry. A top grade instructor with a full diary – that is as many pupils as he can take – may earn, if he’s lucky, £30,000 per year. Sounds great? It isn’t. Read on.

That £30,000 per year is the gross figure. Take away all his expenses and franchise fees and he/she may be coming away with £15,000 BEFORE TAX! So his net figure is likely to be in the region of £12,000! That is a pretty miserable income for a professional working 60 hours a week – including evenings and weekends.

It takes many driving instructors up to 2 years to train and only a very small percentage of those who start the course actually finish and pass the relevant tests. Compare their income to many other ‘professions’ and you see they are right at the bottom of the pile. So, what do you get? You get poor instructors.

But, if they charge more, earn a reasonable living and, therefore, attract the best people to the job, less people will be able to afford to learn to drive and so there will be more youngsters tempted out on to the roads without any reasonable training.

In other words – poor instructor pay = poor instructors = poorly trained drivers who are highly likely to have an accident in their first year of driving. But – good instructor pay = good instructors = pupils who can’t afford any lessons!

It is a difficult situation to redress. But the Driving Standards Agency is making no attempt at all to look at this conundrum. Instead, the public consultation is fixated on changing the driving test and looking at ways of limiting certain age groups’ driving after they’ve passed.

But now DrivingHelp.com (http://drivinghelp.com) have utilized the internet to help drivers pass their test with as little cost as possible. With clever use of video, they offer a course of lessons to be undertaken in conjunction with their real life driving instructor. Use of these free video lessons in the proper manner may half the amount a pupil may spend. In the UK the saving can be as much as £500!

So, if you are a UK driving student, or the concerned parent of one, visit DrivingHelp and see what it can do for you!

By: Paul Bessell

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