The Driver's Site for the East Midlands

Welcome to Drivers' Union East Midlands.
Our Mission: Better road safety at lower cost. No unnecessary delay or slowing of road transport. No unnecessary or unjust prosecution of safe drivers.

Motorists & Drivers' Union is at www.driversunion.co


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Friday 30 October 2015

Colin Murray on Slavery.


Can I ask Colin Murray not to be subjective when talking about race issues? I do understand that, to remain a broadcaster nowadays, it's not possible to always be objective. 

In the discussion about black football managers, Colin said that the black race were the only people to be subject to slavery in recent history. That is wrong. 

Let's start by defining slavery and getting it into perspective. It used to be about ancient Egypt or the Romans where, being strapped to large machines and masonry or shackled to the oars of a galley and whipped until dead and replaced by the next poor soul, so how does that compare with being with family picking cotton in Alabama or as house servants in Georgia?

At that time, my English ancestors were being treated much worse and exploited too in much colder conditions by the very same aristocracy. Hungry kiddies in mines or up chimneys or in middens. Men with family and responsibilities press ganged away on meagre rations and pay never to be seen or heard of again whilst their families were left to starve. So no Colin, slavery wasn't just confined to blacks at all. But even then, much of the slave traders were black too as indeed they are even today. 

My ancestors  were not behind slavery or the potato famine in Ireland either for that matter as they were suffering just as badly too. 

I know that Talk Sport are honest and Colin is an honest man. If he cannot be objective and honest as a broadcaster then he should avoid commenting at all if he isn't to be just another subjective propagandist.

I would love a reply.

Best wishes.

Thursday 29 October 2015

Why we wouldn't recommend Paul Dawson Driving School to anyone.


A self evident principle being ignored that results in much death and injury. Reduce the need to overtake= less overtake attempts=less head on overtake crashes. Why is that being ignored by the authorities and Road Safety Industry?


The following sequence of videos are astonishing in that they show a driving school, presumably on a lesson, teaching a pupil how to drive at 40 MPH on the A 52 trunk road, in a continuous and clear 60 limit, ignoring the resulting tail-back which is driving without due care.

Not only does this type of driving result in a need to overtake and the subsequent overtake crashes that all too frequently result, if it is a learner, the pupil isn't being taught to drive properly with no deviation in side roads, also relieving A52 drivers, over some 9 miles that I had witnessed. They may have pootled along a lot further than that. How is that good for a learner?

The point is Paul, if the student isn't ready to drive on trunk roads, take them off them until they have become much more proficient and competent. Industrial estates in the area are ideal for new drivers. 

Of course there may have been a fault with the car. There was certainly a fault somewhere it seems.

We certainly don't recommend Paul Dawson Driving School for locals of East Lindsey. Here is their site to avoid.


Tuesday 20 October 2015

North Yorkshire Police cannot acknowledge 'Speeding' or Dangerous Driving

In this following tweet by North Yorks Police Traffic officers, they refuse to define dangerous driving or speeding and yet revert to non legal terms that confuse the reader instead.

'In the three years to 2010, excessive or inappropriate speed was responsible for 24% of all road deaths in North Yorkshire.' #TrafficCops

How can it be good for road safety to confuse accident causes, like dangerous driving, with non accident causes like 'speeding'? Do see a full explanation Here.

We have been exposing this stunt for years and ask that only the legal states of speed are cited to avoid confusion. There are only three and they adequately cover all aspects of speed accident causes. No-one can disagree with pure physics and claim that speeding can cause an event when dangerous driving is the cause. 

It's clearly a deliberate use of confusing language to promote the Speeding Industry. The result is that dangerous and careless driving are excluded from Fatal 4 campaign, drivers at 100 MPH and more are often not charged with dangerous driving until they kill someone, and why Stats 20 forms include speeding as an accident cause when it isn't, See it here and genuine and real accident causes are actually ignored, even denied, to focus on speeding revenue.

Don't Yorks and other police care about genuine road safety? Don't they want to be truthful and honest about speed?

Let's just be told about either 'speeding' or dangerous driving as appropriate. 'Driving too fast' is an element of dangerous driving so even that is an appropriate alternative. We will understand. 

Let's be honest about speed. 

It seems NYP have a record of confusing their public about road safety and not beyond using bereaved to do so too. See here.

Monday 19 October 2015

IAM support subjective fixed penalty prosecution.

In this Derby Telegraph story There have been nearly 1000 careless driving ticket 'convictions' in Derbys since the subjective careless driving became a fixed penalty offence. No less than 17000 in England & Wales.

Can anyone explain how, if the driving wasn't careless before the FP, how does FP suddenly make it so? It doesn't. All it does is hand a blank cheque to police at the expense of justice.

We objected to fixed penalty, for the first time in its history, for being used for offences of subjective opinion. Prior to that, it was only used for absolute actions: Parked on a yellow line, stationary in a yellow box, speeding, driving through a red light, dropping rubbish, not clearing up doggy do doos and so forth. It was never intended for subjective opinion as that is all that careless driving is. Now, just on the untested opinion of police, people are accepting guilt for careless driving without a trial. Of course they are being coerced to accept the tickets by threat of a larger penalty and a ban for insisting on their right to trial, and of course the offer of the profitable and costly courses to avoid prosecution too. See the case we made out at the time & A profiteer's charter

In this story, they are talking of 'tailgating' and lane discipline. but not only are they totally subjective too, they are not offences in their own right. It's either careless driving or not because that is the offence on the ticket. Pet driver hates, like these, were only used with the media to get careless driving turned into a fixed penalty offence.

What is astounding is that the IAM, are supporting this totally anti driver move that allows for mere subjective opinion to become absolute with no trial and also do not seem to know that there are no such offences as 'tailgating' and 'lane hogging' simply because they are so subjective they cannot be defined. 

Monday 12 October 2015

The false police form that feeds the Speeding Industry profiteers.



Let's get one thing clear. It is a scientific fact that 'speeding', that is to exceed an arbitrarily selected number on a pole, cannot cause anything to happen. Physics could not support the notion that, if a driver exceeds a number, there will be a reaction and consequence. 
Don't believe me? Then check it out yourself with physicists. In the meantime please note that, over the years I have been explaining this, not one official authority, including the police, have been able to deny the point; even though it goes right to the heart of speed cameras, speed awareness courses and such things as 'Speed Kills!' or The Fatal 4 initiative. See a full explanation.

Speed related offences are only 'Speeding', dangerous driving and careless driving. Driving too fast is an element of dangerous driving and because it happens at any speed, including below the limit, it cannot be 'speeding'. This is why there is no such offence as causing death or injury by speeding. 

The Transport Select Committee
 are currently asking for submissions to their inquiry on speed cameras and the following submission to them is an example of a completely false premise about 'speeding'.

Re Stats19/20 'causation data greatly understates the significance of speeding in accident causation because officers are reluctant to tick the “likely” or “possible” boxes unless they were confident that their assessment would stand up in court*. 

Except that we know that speeding cannot be an 'accident causation'  at all. 
Stats 19 form
Here are the instructions to accident reporting officers on 'speeding'

Actual Stats 19/20 instructions are: '306 Exceeding speed limit Driver/rider caused, or contributed to the accident, by exceeding the posted speed limit. This code should also be used in cases where the actions of another road user were the immediate cause of the accident but a speeding vehicle also contributed to causing the collision. Includes exceeding variable speed limits (eg. on motorways) and speed limits based on vehicle type (including towing).'

The above is totally false and below, they're deliberately mixing 'too fast'(dangerous driving) with 'speeding' Driving too fast is dangerous driving at any speed, above and below the limits.

'Use this code (not code 307) if driver/rider was exceeding the speed limit and travelling too fast for the conditions. 

307 Travelling too fast for conditions Driver/rider was travelling within the speed limit, but their speed was not appropriate for the road conditions and/or vehicle type (including towing), and contributed to the accident'

So police officers are being instructed to submit false statements about accident causes.

And this is the basis of so much profitable prosecution of perfectly safe drivers and the coercive Speed Awareness courses that do not tell drivers the truth either.

But it is also highly dangerous too. When dangerous and careless driving, which do cause accidents, are excluded from the fatal 4 initiative and speeding is included, what better example is there of ignoring real accident causes for profitable non accident causes? See here

How much will it take to get this form corrected when there is so much profit being made from it? 

Wednesday 7 October 2015

Another costly road safety bun-fight for Road Safety Industry self promotion


Oh how the Great and The Good of policing and the multi billion pound Road Safety For Profit Industry have flocked to the latest road safety bun-fight at public expense of course. Run by an outfit called T.I.S.P.O.L This is their site here.   Based in the UK of course where it seems that for road safety money is no object. See some of it here.  Partly funded by the EU, that means us folks, and presumably the rest funded by the UK tax payer one way or another.


Not one to miss rubbing shoulders with top people and ex's paid self promotion, was of course Edmund King  See his interest in speeding profit here

But look at the police salivating at King's Poll, by the vested interests of the uninformed, to produce the results on speed cameras and speed awareness courses, (in the Tweet below), to keep them all in business.

A classic example of the money go round of the speeding profiteers producing dubious justification for the Speeding Industry to cite and thus round and round the money goes at the expense of genuine road safety.


Notwithstanding that, given King's and the AA's fiscal interest in speeding, thus morally disqualifying him from any reputable  platform, he never the less was invited to peddle his wares at the TISPOL2015 conference.

Of course we all should accept speed cameras as part of a toolbox so, that only 77% said they did in the AA poll, is already an indictment but the question should be 'do you accept the improper use of speed cameras?' I doubt if the answer would be 77% saying 'yes' to that?

Likewise 'do you support coercion to accept guilt?' or 'Do you support speed awareness courses that don't teach the truth?' Or 'Do you accept profiteering from speeding tickets?' Or 'Would you rather not get the ticket in the first place than be coerced onto a profitable dishonest course?' Then I am sure not many would have voted positively to that either.

What is a shock is that any police group think that road safety and prosecution policy should be based on the polling by profiteers and vested interests of the uninformed with no CV in the subject.  

How much has this cost us? Why not FOI your police force to find out who attended and what was their total expenses and salary cost in doing so?

Here are some more Tweets on the Conference.







Sunday 4 October 2015

Edmund King. Pro driver? Or profiteer and anti driver ideologist impostor?

Edmund King President of AA
'AA boss accused of pocketing millions from speed awareness courses' 

I am not jumping on The Bandwagon because anyone who follows my work will know that I have challenged and criticised King for years and indeed this post in Nov 2012 proves  how I was three years ahead of the Mirror & Sun.  

A keen cyclist, King loves to promote himself (and boy does King promote himself), as a voice of the caring driver for the Cycle Lobby which loves him. Of course it does. Anyone who is going to reduce an essential infrastructure of 35 million people to the same level as an unessential pursuit, minority, lobby group is bound to be an injustice to the former and an advantage to the latter. Added to which of course in no way can cyclists be good for drivers. They are an enforced liability and encumbrance the like of which that wouldn't be foisted on rail or air transport. Collide with one and drivers could be looking at a long term of imprisonment. 

So why would AA and King be so keen on cycling if it's to the disadvantage of drivers at all? Well King's background is he is ex RAC Foundation. See a bit of them here. No friends of the private car drivers so it's not surprising that King brings with him his pro cycling credentials. So far as the AA are concerned, more cycling means less car damage to fix and indeed cyclists are cynically being told to use their unprotected bodies two abreast, to impede and dictate their slow speeds on drivers. All of this is definitely an advantage to a driver insurance company which is what AA is. They support speed cameras too. Not withstanding that anyone profiting from them would do, as with using cyclists, slowing everything down plus points on licences causing higher premiums, also results in less work for more money. For an insurance company, it's all win win then. 

The fact is that, because AA fix cars, it doesn't mean that they're a driver's group. They sell cycling gear, fix plumbing, sell insurance and are too diverse to be considered a drivers' group now.

It should be of no surprise then that King presented himself, with other cycling lobbyists, to a Parliamentary Transport Select Committee and claimed to be representing drivers. See the disgrace of how this committee failed us all. Even from his own comments to the committee, he could hardly be speaking for drivers there. But what was significant was the moment when he told Madam Chair that we ought to have more Awareness Courses without telling her that he was a director of one of the busiest of the firms running them. Even the Sun & The Mirror didn't uncover that one. I did.