1.   Introduction

1.1.   The Driving Instructors Scottish Council represents many of Scotland’s driving instructors. It is a fully democratic body with no paid officials and no executive committee.

1.2.   The Council’s administrative committee is elected annually and is responsible for conveying the Council’s views to other road safety interests including the Driving Standards Agency.

1.3.   The Council’s views and policies are decided at full Council meetings only.

1.4.   Like instructors from all parts of Britain, Scotland’s instructors were outraged at the false and misleading comments made in the Consultation documents, ‘Driving Test Fees And Other Matters’.

1.5.   The Council must also express the strongest possible protest at the way matters of great importance to instructors were hidden away in these documents presumably with the intention of rendering them unnoticed by consultees. It will have been understood by the authors of the document the many consultees will have only a cursory glance at the document and consequently make an equally cursory response. It will also have been understood by the authors that most of the consultees would have little or no knowledge of driving instruction or the workings of the Register of Approved Driving Instructors.

1.6.   This Council believes that these factors were used to achieve apparent support for legislation which the authors of the consultation documents will have known would be decried by the instruction industry. The authors of the document gave neither heed nor weight to the expert view in this matter.

2.   History

2.1.   Over all its years, the driving instruction industry has made great efforts and gone to great lengths to press the controlling government department to improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the Register of Approved Driving Instructors. Indeed, it was pressure from professionally motivated instructors seeking to ensure a quality of service for the learner driver, which brought the register into being in the first place. This was achieved despite vigorous opposition from the then Department of Transport.

2.2.   The industry has always shown itself willing to accept controls in order to facilitate the enforcement of instructional standards. Enforcement, it has to be said that none of the controlling departments has ever delivered. Very few of the initiatives came from either the DoT or the DSA.

3.   Misinformation

3.1.   It is against this background that the industry’s vigorous opposition to the assertions which were the justification for compelling existing instructors to re-sit the Part 1 qualifying examination should be measured.

3.2.   Assertions that:-

• instructors might not know how to recognise a hazard and therefore, need to prove this through a dubious exam

• this inadequacy in instructors was responsible for the accidents involving new drivers

• instructors need to be forced to seek self development,

3.3.   All of these assertions are false and offensive. No one working in or with the industry can be in any doubt of that. An apology is required from those who made such defamatory suggestions.

3.4.   The assertion that instructors might not be able to recognise a hazard is rendered indefensible when it is realised the Driving Standards Agency has already approved instructors hazard perception skills when they were tested during their entry exams (Part 2 Driving test) and check-tests. I quote from a letter from Tim Barnatt of the DSA who replying on behalf of Gary Austin;

“We do not keep statistics on marks given in core competencies on check tests or reasons for failing check tests and ADI part two tests. 

The core competencies in a check test are used to assess an instructors overall performance.  Markings in these core competencies reflect how well the instructor has structured the lesson.  Part of this is measuring whether the instructor has recognised hazards and how they have been dealt with.”^[1]

3.5.   This statement makes the suggestion that ADIs need to sit yet another test, to prove what has already been proven, illogical and unnecessary in the extreme. It is exactly this type of nonsense that leaves the DSA open to accusations that their motives are financially based and undermines their potential for influencing road safety.

4.   Flawed Justification

4.1.   It is now clear that this legislation was based upon and justified on the grounds of:-

• a dubious survey of learner drivers

• incomplete or otherwise misleading guidance in the consultation document highlighted by the withdrawal of claimed support for the proposal by some of the consultees after clarification by the industry.

• dubious, if not convenient, interpretation of comments from consultees such as, “we would support any move which can be shown to improve road safety” as meaning “we think ADIs should re-sit their qualifying exams.”

• a dubious list of consultees numbering some 3000 most of whom have no working knowledge of the register.

• untenable claims that a return of 82 replies of which only 59 addressed the ADI question and of these only 27 were in favour can be regarded as support for the move.

5.   DSA Approved?

5.1.   The Driving Standards Agency would have it believed that they have approved and recommended to learners the services of instructors who cannot drive.

5.2.   Could instructors survive on the roads if they could not recognise a hazard?

5.3.   Could applicant instructors pass the Part 2 examination if they could not recognise a hazard?

5.4.   Could instructors regularly achieve high grades on the check-tests if they could not recognise a hazard?

6.   New Driver Accidents

6.1.   The Driving Standards Agency is responsible for testing candidates for a substantive licence to ensure that they are safe to drive unaccompanied.

6.2.   If new drivers have been inadequately trained, it is the remit of the driving test to detect this and refuse the candidate a licence.

6.3.   Would the Driving Standards Agency claim that an un-trained candidate would not be detected by their examiners?

6.4.   Does the Driving Standards Agency believe that its examiners cannot identify a hazard and is this why they are asking examiners to sit the Hazard Perception Test?

6.5.   Can instructors be held responsible for the behaviour of their clients after they have left their influence?

6.6.   Can an examiner be held responsible for the conduct of a candidate after he has issued a certificate of competence?

6.7.   Can anyone really associate crashes involving only one vehicle which was being driven deliberately at excessive speed with lack of training?

7.   Continuous Professional Development

7.1.   Self development is not a new phenomenon for instructors.

·        They have been attending meetings and seminars for this purpose for as long as there has been a register of approved driving instructors.

·        They have bought a proliferation of publications regularly issued and re-issued by the Dot and the DSA.

·        They have accompanied their clients on test to ensure consistency with driving examiners.

·        They have developed their own system of continuous professional development.

7.2.   Driving instructors have to adapt the training they give to take account of changing road environments and vehicle developments. Consequently instructors are often teaching well in advance of the requirements of the DSA which is historically painfully slow to catch up with developments. This is not because the examiners are not up to date, but because the political constraints under which the DSA must work prevent anything remotely approaching a rapid response to developments.

8.   Conclusions

8.1.   It is quite clear that something went very seriously, hopefully not fraudulently, wrong with the consultation process that preceded the presentation to Parliament of a seriously wrong piece of legislation. Legislation which is not required. Legislation, which was justified on the bases of false assertions. Legislation, which was justified on the basis responses, some of which were indefinite and possibly from misinformed and misguided consultees. (ref paragraph 4.1)

8.2.   The Driving Instructors Scottish Council is anxious to re-affirm its commitment to the development of good instruction and its earnest desire to see a spirit of co-operation between itself and the DSA. This was made explicitly clear in our Chairman’s remarks to Conference 2002 and appeared to be reciprocated by Gary Austin.

“John Miller, chairman of Driving Instructors Scottish Council, told conference that DISC had set itself a target for the year since its last conference. This was to setup a national programme of Continuous Professional Development for driving instructors in Scotland.

This was now well underway and had proved to be very popular with instructors.

He said that the year ahead will see new objectives set and one of these is certain to be an even closer working relationship with the Driving Standards Agency. John told conference,

“We must work together. One cannot work without the other if we are to go forward in the greater pursuit of road safety.”[2]

Gary Austin agreed that “There was a need to work in partnership”.[3]

8.3.   The Council is not, however, prepared to accept defamatory attacks on the integrity of the instructors it represents.

8.4.   The Council is of the opinion that road safety is best served if there is positive, meaningful and respectful dialogue between the examining industry and the training industry and that the problems experienced in the lead-up to the preparation of this legislation would have been avoided if the views of the industry had been given serious and respectful consideration.

8.5.   The Council looks forward to establishing this atmosphere in future dealing with the DSA.

8.6.   The Council would welcome an enquiry into the conduct of the consultation process to establish whether:

·        There is a need to have so many consultees who have virtually no connection with the matter on hand.

·        To establish why an issue of such importance was given so little prominence in a consultation documents.

·        To establish whether there existed any real support from consultees for the proposal to require instructors to re-sit Part 1 of the qualifying examinations for the Register of Approved Driving Instructors.

·        To establish whether appropriate weight was given to the comments made by the instruction industry and whether these were unambiguously conveyed to Ministers.
 

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