That is one step too far Vine, apologise or resign as a mod.

So you disagree that the comment was sexist and you were using it in a degrading fashion?

I am taking this offline to deal with privately, it is not necessary to continue it on the boards.

So why start the issue in the 1st place. You don't like your feathers being ruffled but totally at home ruffling others.

All driving tests of any kind need to have real world relevance, otherwise there is no point in having them. If problems are causing experienced examiners to quit then this quite rightly needs to be looked into.

No driving tests involved. It's the Situational Judgement Test for potential driving examiners. It's mainly a "role playing" test with many of the situations not relevant to the real world.

I went on many Management courses where that was the norm, and indeed when I took my IT Teachers Diploma. But although it gives you an inkling of what to expect, it's all just play acting, it's somewhat different when it happens for real!

For that you are to be commended on all that you have achieved both in knowledge & experience.

However, you yourself have destroyed all that you have achieved by constantly disparaging other nationalities, trades & professions bar your own.

A little less offence & a bit more respect will garner you much.

You cannot deny that many have stated that you made some excellent comments which you ended up ruining.

IMHO, it's time you lived up to those achievements.

Well, I was at the scene of a rather nasty wreck tonight on the way home from work.
I had to take an alternate route home, as my usual exit ramp was under construction for the night.
I was about to take my alternate exit onto the bridge home, when to my left, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a huge commotion.
A gal in a Saturn Ion had crashed broadside into a large Ford SUV.
I pulled into the median and got out to see what had gone on and if anybody was hurt.
The guy driving the SUV was out and walking around. The gal in the Saturn was not, but she was conscious.
The guy was shaking his head a bit and complaining about ringing in his ears from the explosion of his air bag going off, but nothing else.
The gal had a small nose bleed, but her air bag had gone off as well. Her Saturn had pretty much disintegrated and broken up into pieces scattered all over the roadway from the front bumper to the windshield. I was very worried, due to the destruction of the car, that the driver might be hurt very badly. I almost tripped and fell over some of the pieces rushing to get over to her car............

The guy was poking around on his smart phone screen, but was not having any success dialing 911, so I grabbed my simple Samsung cell phone from my pocket and had a squad car there in about 2 minutes flat. At one point when I had 911 on the line, the gal said something about chest pains..........she was probably in her late 30's. The operator asked if she should dispatch an ambulance.....and very strongly said "Ask HER.....ask HER if she wants an ambulance." The gal said, "No, I think I am alright now. It was my fault, it was my fault."
About then, the gal had gathered her wits enough to crawl over and try to get out of the passenger side door. She had one knee that was a bit bloodied, but she was able to stand on it. At about 3 minutes after my call, 2 more squads arrived, and as I had not actually seen the crash itself or the moments that led up to it, they police said I could go.

I was rather upset as I arrived home and realized I was shaking. And I realized a couple of other things as well.
First, they will both be just fine, neither was seriously injured.
And secondly, tonight was the very reason that I have carried a simple, basic cell phone for all these years.
Not to text or play games on. I call Lori once a day from work on my lunch break to touch base. But mostly, I have always had a fully charged cell phone in my pocket for emergencies. As it turns out, today it was not my emergency, but somebody else's.
And while they guy in the wreck may have had problems contacting help due to some amount of shock, I had 911 on the line with my simple Samsung in 10 seconds.

I am thankful that providence put me there due to a one-day change in my route home after work today. And that I was delayed leaving work by just a minute or so because I gave Toothless a minute of warm up time to get his fluids flowing, as the temperature was about 5f. If I had been just 10 seconds sooner, I would have been through that intersection, on the bridge, and never would have been there to lend a hand.
The Lord doth work in mysterious ways at times.

Meowcalmingdownnow.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

Well done Mark.

Well done Mark.

Thank you.
I could write it all off to chance.............as I usually do.

But, that reminds me of a statement from a good friend many many years ago.

When we were talking about fate and chance and such, he looked me in the eyes and said................
"Chance favors a prepared mind."

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

Don't know about a prepared mind but looking back to 7/7, I was glad I stopped at the last but one drop for a coffee. Had I not done so, I would have been caught in the bus bombing that day.

Don't know about a prepared mind but looking back to 7/7, I was glad I stopped at the last but one drop for a coffee. Had I not done so, I would have been caught in the bus bombing that day.

Well, I know that many folks here do not like to listen to me talk about it, but I generally attribute such things to "The Grace of God".
I have acknowledged a higher power over my life for many years, and I believe He had led me to be more than I could have otherwise. I am not a bible thumper, have not opened one for many years. He does not stop me from being a self destructive idiot at times, but I think He watches over me when I become one..........if that makes any sense to you.
'Free will' is such a wonderful thingy, but it can lead one to one's own destruction. I have come close.

Tonight, He gave me a chance to help somebody else. A chance that I was able to take, and am very grateful for.
It turned out that it was not such a serious wreck as it appeared to be or could have been. She hit the SUV dead center, head on. And I am sure some of the engineering in that shitbox Saturn Ion she was driving was intended to just blow up on impact, to save the driver and/or passengers. And it did that indeed. It was more destroyed than I am sure I described. A more glancing impact to the driver's side only, and she might not have made it.

That level of destruction in the 1990 Old Cutlass I drive? It would have been curtains for the driver for sure. The massive SUV was driven from the scene, I am sure. It was severely damaged midside, but not undriveable.

Now I know why I trust good old GM heavy iron cars. And my Toothless is of a lesser vintage than some of the old Buick iron I used to drive. But better than many things on the road today.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

Makes sense to me. I often tell those who drive for a living to take a first aid course as the odds for either witnessing or involvement in an accident are evens or less.

Until I came off the road, I was one for many a year. It came in handy one day nearly 2 decades ago, in Morton Lincs, a small village on the main road.

On the other side an artic was stopped with the driver, blood pumping out his head, on the phone to his boss who didn't care about his driver just the load getting delivered on time.

His vehicle had been hit by another artic & shunted forward which is how he injured his head. Several cars had hit that artic with some non serious injuries. The police & paramedics were on the scene & dealing with those injuries. On getting to the paramedics, told them about the truck driver, only to be told they had seen to him (it turned out that they dealt with the 2nd artic driver).

On letting them know about the 1st artic driver, a paramedic grabbed his kit & ran to that driver. Next thing I know, he was put in an ambulance & rushed to hospital. To this day, I still wonder about that driver, hoping he made it.

Whhheeeeeeewwwwwwwww
So glad you arrived at the scene and able to call the Police.
Even the most rudimentary first aid training can be a great asset in that sort of situation. The first two things in any situation are the ones you did, phone for help and check the occupants while on the phone (mobiles are such a help for this) so have gold "Good Citizen" badge.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Personally I think that rudimentary first aid as in a Red Cross or St Johns Ambulance certificate ought to be a requirement for a driving licence in addition to passing a driving test. But the administration of that requirement would be onerous and not popular with the public, so it won't happen unless voluntarily.

True but I personally think it should be compulsory for HGV's. At least on the dCPC's a first aid module is provided & it should be a compulsory part of the dCPC course IMHO.

The traffic accidents that I've had to attend while being a warranted officer for Sydney Buses for 6yrs and as a volunteer bush fire fighter for further 15yrs now leave a lot to be desired, but they make sure that we regularly update our certificates on every level needed (at no cost to us other than time).

And as a fire fighter now we're the 1st in to make sure that there's no risk of fire before other rescue services can move in, sometimes it's even too late for us to get there, there's nothing worse than seeing Xmas presents scattered all over the highway and 2 families that were instantly incinerated I can tell yous (or a child wrapped between a pair of bus wheels).

But some of us have to clean up after accidents and senseless acts of stupidity.

Cheers.

Yes there is also that. I've seen enough of them. However, sometimes accidents do happen to people through no fault of their own. We had one a few weeks ago. Fortunately both myself & her daughter were not in the vehicle. She was on her way home from work & on the way to the nursery to pick up her daughter.

Approaching a roundabout, her rear end went. She hit some diesel & the car sideslipped straight into a streetlight. I'll get her to send me the photos of the result. Last Tuesday week after our return from Addenbrookes, she asked if I would accompany her to pick up her new car.

Driving it to the garage to fill up the tank, I noticed she was a bit timid. She has been using to work & back every day since but she has not done a long run yet, so she keeps asking me to confirm I accompany her & her daughter to Addenbrookes on the 14th. That is a given :-)

An accident can do that to one. It happened to me in 2005. Took me a good few days to get back into the right frame of mind :-)

Edit: Smartphones are great :-)



With regards to Safety, one good thing resulted from this accident. For the past 12 months or so, I was not happy about the booster seat used for the child & occasionally did mention my concerns.

With her new car being a nice 1.7 4 door, I asked her to play safe & get a proper child seat. It has been done so on the 14th, I can travel to Addenbrookes without worrying about any booster seat.

I forgot to add. Where you see the damage, that is where she normally had the booster seat & after seeing the car up close at her home, "nicely" requested that any fitted child seat be fitted on the nearside.

Whhheeeeeeewwwwwwwww
So glad you arrived at the scene and able to call the Police.
Even the most rudimentary first aid training can be a great asset in that sort of situation. The first two things in any situation are the ones you did, phone for help and check the occupants while on the phone (mobiles are such a help for this) so have gold "Good Citizen" badge.

NO, The first thing to do is to make the scene safe. It is no use jumping out of your vehicle with a mobile in your hand and getting splattered across the scenery by someone in too much of a hurry to even slow down.

A lot of people get injured / killed in secondary accidents.

LOOK --- ASSESS --- MAKE SAFE. Calls can be started in this time, emergency sevices can always be stopped if not required, but NEVER endanger yourself or risk making a situation worse by hasty action.

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Kevin

Whhheeeeeeewwwwwwwww
So glad you arrived at the scene and able to call the Police.
Even the most rudimentary first aid training can be a great asset in that sort of situation. The first two things in any situation are the ones you did, phone for help and check the occupants while on the phone (mobiles are such a help for this) so have gold "Good Citizen" badge.

NO, The first thing to do is to make the scene safe. It is no use jumping out of your vehicle with a mobile in your hand and getting splattered across the scenery by someone in too much of a hurry to even slow down.

A lot of people get injured / killed in secondary accidents.

LOOK --- ASSESS --- MAKE SAFE. Calls can be started in this time, emergency sevices can always be stopped if not required, but NEVER endanger yourself or risk making a situation worse by hasty action.

Look, kids....................
This was ONE freaking AM in the morning when I got out of work. Our three vehicles were the only ones on the roadway for miles. Do NOT accuse me of being reckless by jumping out of my car and trying to cross random traffic to try to be a freaking hero...........dickwad.
I was scared and did not know what to do, had it been a worse scenario. I am NOT first responder trained.
I did the only thing I knew I could do......dial 911 on my reliable cell when the guy in the crash could not.

How anybody could try to make my experience last night anything other than the blessing it was, I shall not know.
Piss off then.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

According to some here, the appropriate response would have been................
Drive on, drive on.............nothing to see here, drive on.

What putzes you are.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

Well done Mark for doing what you did do. It could easily have been a lot worse and your actions would then have given someone a far better chance of surviving.

As for the 20-20 hindsight being expressed, that is wahat it is - HINDSIGHT.

We weren't there at the time, and so can't (and shouldn't) judge those who were, and were in a position to decide the best course of action to take.

By all means decide on an action plan for yourself in the event of something similar (God forbid) happening to you, but I suspect those plans would go out the window in a real emergency, as adrenaline kicks in, and the situation is not what you planned for. However I don't think that what appears to be denigrating someone for something that has happened and is in the past is particularly helpful to anyone.

Just my 2cents.

editted to correct grammar

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Happy Crunching,

Graham

I was going home from work, after a 10 hour shift.
My only focus at that time was getting Toothless started at near zero, and getting home.
But the time I left the wreck scene, I was nearly frostbitten on my ears.
If either one of them had been incapacitated, they would have perished.
I am glad neither of them was in that condition.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

Look, kids....................

PM'd

Apologies again Mark.

My comments were not aimed at Mark.

As I was not at the scene I would not comment on what was or was not done.

It was in response to the comment made by Rob, Incidence response training of all types teaches or should teach these first basic principles.

Sirius, ADR training includes first aid.

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Kevin