Your Driving Licence could be ripped up within the first 2 years.

The 2 year probation, is it really fair?

Hey I’ve come to the end of my 2 years driving probation. The authorities backed up by the arguments of those who wanted to put a spanner in the works of so called boy racers and anybody else that wants to drive in a way that’ll put them at odds with the law of the roads as they stand or are just plain inexperienced or anything else, decreed that from 1997 that anyone who passes their driving test doesn’t just get to think, “oh that’s it now I can drive, time to put that test nightmare behind me”, instead they have to live in fear of amassing what in most cases would be just TWO driving offences for fear of having their whole driving licence revoked and having to actually start again as a learner with all the L Plates and going out with somebody in the car, taking the theory test again and having to try and pass the driving test again as well.

Because if in 2 years, a “new driver” gets 6 points, their licence is actually ripped up. This for me meant that I never fully felt confident in the roads for 2 years, because if I misjudged my speed and got nicked for a speeding offence anywhere, I would only have to do that once more and it would be curtains for my licence, the same would apply if I misjudged some traffic lights somewhere and was unfortunate enough to get a red light camera offence. And points can also cover things such as bad tyres, or getting caught talking into a mobile phone, so you’ve really got to watch yourself for 2 years because the authorities are right onto you.  The more self-righteously minded law abiding motorist makes what they think is a perfectly valid point that it’s easier to avoid this unfortunate situation by just obeying the damn law, but I take some issue with that. How many times do you try to keep to the limit, but then have your mind go into other things as you think about all the things that we all carry in your head, you realise you’ve now crept up to 35 in a 30 zone, and was that someone in a hi-vis jacket back there, too bad I was lost in my own thoughts there huh.

Lights are on green, the self-righteous will tell you you shouldn’t be going fast enough not to be able to stop when they go amber, because that’s when you should stop, so you don’t get that so-called “amber gamble” situation where you’ve got to think about whether you can get through or not or slow down, sometimes with a bit of a slam on I have to say. Sounds quite easy in theory, but so often I’ve found on a fairly fast road quite particularly, that you are one of many cars doing 50mph+ and lights in front of you suddenly go amber, if this is an unfamiliar area and you don’t think you’ve got time to stop, if you misjudge that you might end up with a second or two of the light actually going red before you even get to the line, if that happens and there is a camera, that is a 3 pointer and you all know all too well that you’re only allowed to get 6 of the things! So next time it really is game over!

New Drivers are out there gaining experience every time they drive, and are more likely to make silly mistakes, so I do wonder if it’s worth punishing people so severely with an actual loss of licence, if it’s targeted at boy racer types the irony usually is they tend to know exactly where all the cameras are, they’ve got it all sussed, they’ll speed if they want to and usually never get done for it, the more innocent ordinary driver tends to fall foul of something they don’t intend to and then gets kicked off the road to boot. And when they say 6 points they actually mean 2, there’s only a couple of offences listed that give 2 points and nothing at all as far as I can see that only gives 1, so the idea of giving 3 for the most standard offences such as speeding has to be to make them seem more psychologically serious.

It’s all behind me now as I write this having made the fateful 2 year anniversary of the driving test marking the end of the dreaded probationary period, I have the licence that my parents have, that entitles you to drive until you amass 12 points, but hopefully I can avoid that just as easily as I avoided the dreaded 6.

AJ.

NO DSS – YOU’RE NOT GETTIN’ A FLAT INNIT MATE!

Too bad if you are in receipt of benefits for any reason at all and want to move into private rented accommodation, ie need a permanent weather shield against the elements, which is known as an “apartment” or a “flat” or maybe even a “house”.

Despite such blatant discrimination in the past such as signs declaring that “no blacks”, “no Irish” etc will be considered being now quite rightly illegal, you still see “No DSS” quite routinely in estate agent/letting agent windows and advertisements, it’s all now also quite conveniently aided and abetted by the current mainstream media and political climate against benefit claimants in general. 

No “DSS” itself as a term is not only blatantly discriminatory it is also blatantly ignorant, not least because the once named government deparment the  “Department for Social Security” which was the source for this infamous acronym has long since been rebranded and rebadged as several different names.  The most recent one as most benefit claimants are quite painfully aware is the rather austere sounding Department for Work & Pensions, so the signs should at least read “No DWP”.

If we are to believe that landlords and estate agents have not even heard of the DWP and still think that benefits come under the DSS then they really are showing themselves up somehow as being quite ignorant and apathetic about the world in which benefit claimants have to live, but why would they give a toss as they quite happily exclude them from their properties.

Benefit claimants are a whole section of society and as such it cannot be fair to generalise, even though that’s what the Daily Mail and Express do most days when they can’t think of a headline. Benefit claimants supposedly suffer “No DSS” because they might wreck the place, not bother to pay the rent on time or just generally be an anti-social neighbour, the only problem with these crude stereotypes is that it rather forces people “In work” to be seen in an angelic light as if they could never do these things, to use receipt of benefits alone as a judge of character when considering a prospective tenant is about as crude as reckoning that someone with a scouse accent is more likely to nick something.

This “benefit prejudice” breaks down very quickly because it is wholly ridiculous, benefits are everything from Jobseekers Allowance to Disability Living Allowance and they get paid to all sorts of people in all sorts of circumstances especially when you take the payment of Local Housing Allowance which forms Housing Benefit needed to afford rents into account, all sorts of people depend on that allowance from people who are self-employed who just can’t earn enough to pay ridiculous rents to people that are on DLA (Disability Living Allowance) and depend on Local Housing Allowance for their accommodation, to anyone that’s simply unemployed or who is a stay at home mum looking after children, you name it, a lot of people can’t afford stupid rent prices in this country, it doesn’t say much more about them as people than that. To say “No DSS” at a whole class of people really does make you look like a self-righteous prejudicial prick.

For my rent, you could buy a new Playstation 4 games console with a copy of a latest game along with it every month, how many people especially in abysmally low paid work, could afford that, it’s no wonder we need housing benefit as rather an essential thing, and why it particularly sucks that people who are for some reason in the position of being landlords in their life are quite legally allowed to judge on that criteria alone.

And I say this as someone who did manage to get a private rent, in my “DSS”ecial situation. As long as the landlord gets the money for the rent, they really shouldn’t have anything else to consider. Forget the fact that a housing benefit claimant might have their money stopped or develop a benefit problem, this is no different from a worker losing their job.

Written by Asterick Jones, who else?