Standards checks?

Or check tests? What really is the difference, will we as trainers notice anything we need to do differently in our everyday work, we asked for change to take place, a minority of ADI's asked for modernisation and it came dressed as the standards check. Tax payers handed over large sums of money for research, some of which will never reach publication and some went towards EU research.

So that is the stick, where is the carrot?

Well from where I am sitting we haven't had a carrot, we need better professional recognition, for road safety to be taken seriously and lives to be saved, cut price, cut throat lesson offers need to stop, all it does is undermine all of this spent money and hard work.  Cheap lessons send out the opposite message to the one we are trying to convey.

As driving instructors begin to take more training and qualifications they will also need time off to study, if the lesson prices are cut to the bone how will that be possible. So are the standards checks about road safety, really? The proposed penalty structure for the registrar? Really? Fine the ADI, as if we don't pay enough.

I have championed saving lives and have always had active involvement in trying to make our roads a safer place for our children and then their children, it has to start somewhere, but I also believe in supporting the ADI, what part of publishing ADI data, civil sanctions, and paying for check tests is about saving lives? It does of course boost revenue if every part of the service is paid for.

If the more structured approach is to do more than sort the wheat from the chaff, but really tackle road safety, then learning to drive privately with no formal instruction prior to test has to stop, otherwise it makes a mockery of dressing this up as a life saving exercise and turns it into a political one, ticking the EU directive criteria for the sake of it.

Education is the way forward, better teaching standards from ADI's has been identified as a step in the right direction, the question has to be how can we achieve this realistically, a standards check is not enough, one hour snapshot into our daily work is never going to be a clear picture, how many ADI's do not like losing paid work for this exercise, and now they may also have to fund this check. CPD really was the better option, taking part in academic qualifications, exercising the brain, learning something new, adding to our portfolios, would also save the tax payer money in the long run by cutting out the middle man.

Encouraging the majority of ADI's to take part in this consultation is hard work, some will not know, some have no internet, some have no access to the information, if you do not join the electronic age then you are left out, I think that is unfair. Technology may be the future, but if you are earning £50 for ten hours work there will be other things to pay and that won't include the broadband bill. Having to conform is the opposite to the essence of Great Britain, where we have always had freedom of choice. Despatch should still be sent out as a hard copy to instructors on the register, so then those who really do not want to take part have a choice.

Learning to drive, being in charge of a vehicle is serious stuff, it's time now for this industry to stand up and be counted and not have another consultation where less than 1% have their say. The consultation tells us what the Government want and then hold out the choices, yet we should be saying actually we do want some of this but we want this too. We do not want to get caught up in consultations of the past that have been challenged eventually because the questioning was strategically structured to obtain the required responses, we want a fair process for effective moves forward and to see the road safety figures continue to fall.

To research some of the history behind these decisions is a good move if you are not familiar with how the proposed changes came about, it spans more than ten years, so a long time coming, but politically doctored along the way.  What do you want? Do you want the proposed changes or to really have your say with ideas of your own?  Now is the time to lobby ministers before the ink is dry.

If you believe you are good at what you do then fighting for the career you would like to see evolve is the only way.