Monthly Archives: September 2013

September 30, 2013
Paying For The Car Park In Conkers

Customers are being given the chance to pay for their spaces using conkers by a group of car parks in Leeds and Manchester in a bid to help the environment and bring back childhood memories. The conkers are equivalent to 20 pence each, requiring customers to use as many as 20 conkers at a time.

Each collected conker will then be used to sponsor a forest in the UK to help offset rising levels of omission from vehicles.

What are your thoughts on this article? Send your views to Britannia Driving School by using the comments link below:

Comments(0)

September 27, 2013
Drivers on Airport Runway

A significant flaw in tech giant Apples Map app has caused controversy by leading drivers to enter an Alaskan airport runway – when it was supposed to direct them to the car park.

Fairbanks International Airport has experienced two separate incidents of motorists entering the restricted runway, leading to obvious potential danger for both the car passengers and airport staff and aeroplane passengers.

The motoring mishap was caused by the map directing its users along the airport taxiway, leading to drivers mounting the runway and causing panic to onlookers.

Apple has issued an apology for the error, and replaced the faulty map with an error message until the issue is resolved.

Have you ever had a driving disaster due to dud directions? Let us know in the comments section below!

Safe driving from Britannia!

Comments(0)

September 26, 2013
Deaths By Drink Driving Rises

Figures published today for road casualties in 2012 show a 25 per cent increase in deaths involving drink driving since 2011. This has prompted calls for the introduction of random breath tests and a lower drink-drive limit by road safety groups.

Under the current system, the police can stop any driver for any reason, but they cannot require a breath test without a suspicion that the driver has consumed alcohol, or has committed a traffic offence or been involved in an accident.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents have called on the Government to lower the legal limit from 80mg of alcohol per 100ml to 50mg per 100ml blood with the head of road safety Kevin Clinton highlighting the this lower limit will save many lives each year and that effective enforcement of the law is essential.

What are your thoughts on this article? Send your views to Britannia Driving School by using the comments link below:

Comments(0)

September 25, 2013
Unlicensed Driving Instructors Warning

The Metropolitan Police are warning learner drivers to check that instructors are properly qualified before taking lessons. A suspected illegal instructor is, on average, reported to the Driving Standards Agency each day.

Vasim Choudhary, a DSA fraud investigator, states the importance of ensuring the instructors are properly qualified otherwise they are ‘someone who might just teach you skills which are very limited’. The police also concerned since these unlicensed driving instructors may not have been through the obligatory criminal background checks.

In the past four years, 123 suspected illegal instructors have been arrested, of whom 39 were convicted. However, it is often hard to secure convictions due to lack of proof that the learner has made payment. Therefore, it is imperative that learners check that their instructor is licensed before getting into the car.

What are your thoughts on this article? Send your views to Britannia Driving School by using the comments link below:

Comments(0)

September 24, 2013
Music While Driving

It has long been suggested that the music you listen to whilst driving will affect how you drive.

According to new evidence from Ben-Gurion University, teenage drivers are the most greatly affected by their choice of listening material.

Young males especially are the most dangerous, as it was deemed that teenager boys generally listen to more aggressive music than their female counterparts, and their driving reflects this.

The higher number of mistakes made by younger drivers due to their in-car music was attributed to the inexperience of younger drivers, as well as their choice of stereotypically more aggressive dance and/or rock music.

Safe driving from Britannia!

What are your thoughts on this article? Sound off in the comments section below!

Comments(0)

September 23, 2013
Elderly Drivers

It has been found that more than 4 million people aged over 70 have full UK driving licences with 191 people a century old or more. The country’s oldest licensed driver is an 107-year-old woman.

Motorists over 70 must declare that they are fit to drive every three years without the need for a medical exam; calls have been made for a full medical examination by a doctor to be carried out before they are deemed fit to drive. Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation said ‘many motorists simply do not have a realistic view of their capabilities’.

What are your thoughts on this article? Send your views to Britannia Driving School by using the comments link below:

Comments(0)

September 20, 2013
Drive your child halfway to the moon!

Feel like you drive a lot? If you have children, there’s a very good reason for that.

Recent research by Insurance Company Aviva has suggested that parents spend a vastly proportional amount of time driving their children around.

With an average of 27 journeys per week, this equates to an estimate of approximately 148 miles for every 168 hours.

This figure suggests that by the time their offspring has reached 17 – the ages where they can legally begin driving themselves around- their parents have driven them roughly 125,000 miles… or in other terms, half way to the moon.

So next time you think about how much your children are driving you mad, think about how much you are driving them around too.

Safe driving from Britannia!

What are your thoughts on this article? Sound off in the comments section below!

Comments(0)

September 19, 2013
Car-Hacking On The Rise

Such thefts have started occurring in the Midlands and east London. Thieves took advantage of a combination of vulnerabilities in factory-fitted alarm systems and a diagnostic port used to read fault codes during servicing. They gained access to the port without triggering the alarm and used it to reprogramme blank keys. The whole process only took a few minutes allowing the thieves to make off with expensive BMWs.

In addition, cyber-security researchers based in the US have shown how the latest safety and self-driving car technology could be used to allow hackers to accelerate, brake and steer as though they were playing a video game.

The concern here is that with widespread availability of wireless technologies as well as automation in new cars, wireless attacks are possible. However, as cars are not highly integrated like laptops and phones, manufacturers do have a decent shot at restricting the potential for hacking.

What are your thoughts on this article? Send your views to Britannia Driving School by using the comments link below:

Comments(0)

September 18, 2013
Learning To Drive At School

Children as young as 11 have been learning to drive as part of the training programme ‘Young Drivers At School’ which spent 18 months working with Milton Keynes Academy, delivering nearly 4,500 lessons to students and the local community.

Students took part in computer-based road safety training whilst Key Stage 3 students were allowed to get in a car and drive. Research by Young Drivers suggested that those who start to learn before the age of 17 are half as likely to have a road traffic accident after they pass their test.

What are your thoughts on this article? Send your views to Britannia Driving School by using the comments link below:

Comments(0)

September 17, 2013
Driving in Autumn

Although we all hate to admit it, it seems that summer has finally gone, and we are left with the lukewarm embrace of autumn around us. While this may offer a welcome break from the blazing sunshine and soaring temperatures, it can provide us with hazardous driving conditions. Here are Britannia’s top tips for autumnal driving:

– Remove condensation. This can obscure your view and make driving much more dangerous. Clear your windscreen before any journey.

– Watch out for leaves. Leaves falling provide a huge hazard for motorists, as not only can they block up your windscreen and impair your vision while on the road, combine them with the all-too familiar autumn rain and suddenly wet leaves become as dangerous a slipping hazard as icy roads.

– Keep headlights on.  As the days get shorter and the evenings get darker, keeping headlights on becomes more of a necessity. Illuminate the road as much as you can to maximise your field of view and to make yourself as visible as possible to other drivers.

Safe driving this autumn from Britannia!

What are your thoughts on this article? Sound off in the comments section below!

Comments(0)