Near Miss of the Day 286: The driving instructor and student edition

Perhaps you’d also like to share the name of the Driving School here so that we may leave some constructive feedback on their social media presence? It may well help current and potential future clients better select a suitable organisation.

Please report this to the police and the DVSA.

Best possible course of action is to report the driving school to the DVSA with the footage of why you consider it inappropriate, which given the fact that they let their pupil overtake you into the face of oncoming traffic on the approach to a corner.

Also find the driving instructors Facebook and other Social Media  sites and post the footage along with a detailed explanation, and share it with any local cycling groups etc.  Because people like that should not be responsible for teaching others to drive.

Hit them where it hurts - in the wallet and they will maybe get the message.

No indicator on, no change of speed (to show they'd seen you and anticipated they may need to take action) and no reaction to the slow sign on the road. Are you sure this was a lesson and not a drive back from a dogging spot?

Please report that to the police asap. That was a shocker and all the more so from a learner driver under instruction from a driving instructor. 

Apologies to any driving instructors reading this, but I get the impression that it's not usually a first career choice. It's like driving a taxi (excepting London and The Knowledge) whereby you don't need many skills except for knowing how to drive.

I've often had the impression that driving instructors are not telling their students anything useful about how to drive around cyclists. 

Double

My theory goes something like this:

Most drivers consider themselves to be above average, rating themselves as 'excellent'.

After the driving test there is no further training or evaluation of ability.

Standards inevitably slip. From an already low base.

Drivers who consider themselves good drivers are quite often not actually that competent or attentive.

When unexpected (as in they weren't looking properly or able to anticipate) situations arise, they find themselves out of their depth, but being 'excellent' drivers the problem is obviously due to "some other idiot".

Cyclists represent a challenge to negotiate safely, when drivers cock up around cyclists it must be the cyclist's fault.

QED cyclists are a dangerous nuisance and should not be on the road.

Being an excellent driver, it is a duty to police other road users, a close pass should show them that they need to get over into the gutter where they belong with the other crap.

I witnessed a brilliant example of why this sort of thing happens, this morning.   A car driver wanted to turn left, but that meant cutting across my lane.  So he did so.  I had to brake and go around him.  As it happened, the lights were red so he had to stop, and his window was down.  

I drew alongside. 

'Next time, how about making sure that the lane is clear before you go into it..?'  I asked.  

'It was clear,' he said.  And drove off. 

And you know what?  From his point of view, it probably was.   After all, there was nothing in the lane that actually mattered. 

What was that quote from one of the Avengers films?  Loki arrives, and Samuel L. Jackson's character says to him, 'We have no quarrel with you'.  Loki replies, 'An ant has no quarrel with a boot'. 

Yep.   

My son had an instructor for a week. He was the most intolerant bigoted anti everything that wasnt a car.  He lasted one week, then we sacked him off.

"When I spoke to them at the traffic light they wouldn’t roll down their window to talk to me. I emailed the driving school with a complaint and have not had a response yet."

2 Things come come to mind here.

1 which window did you approach, the instructoe is in charge here not the driver and it is they who should be held responsible. and getting into a discussion (argument) in front of their client could lose them some business (and in this case that would be a good thing)

2 Most driving schools are private businesses with only 1 or 2 employees and are often family members so I would not expect any serious repercusions like I would hope to get from a larger firm (even then ??) I think this should go straight to the police and whoever certifyies the instructors (DVSA ?)

Either way some local promotion of a clip like this will give them a kick up the jacksie, they get most of their business from the local area and through recomendations.

Don't some see SLOW as some sort of challenge?

It's around those where the really dodgy stuff happens to me, blind corners and all that.

With a sign on the highway in big letters "SLOW".

Couple of years ago, a driving school car was parked blocking the dropped kerb at the end of my road, and I asked the driver if he knew that it was against the law to block it.  He said yes and carried on walking away.