Week 11.10

Tendring Topics…….on line

We Mobility-Scooterists are in trouble again!

Ought mobility scooter users face a test before being allowed out onto the pavements on their iron steeds? Ought our mobility scooters to be – like cars – compulsorily registered and insured against third party injuries? These are said to be measures that the government is considering. We in the Tendring District have particular reason to be interested in this since we are said to have the highest proportion of disabled people in Essex. Also, according to the Daily Gazette, our district ‘has witnessed a growing number of accidents involving motor scooters in recent years’.

Have we though? The only evidence the Gazette produces to support this claim is that in 2005 a woman scooter user suffered fatal injuries when her scooter was in collision with a car in Clacton’s Marine Parade East, and in 2006 an 80 year old woman from Walton called for a change in the law after she was hit by a scooter and a Walton toddler ‘was dragged under the wheels of one’ (considering the size of scooter wheels that takes a bit of imagining!). Also in 2006, Tendring Council considered banning scooters from cliff paths and seafront promenades, after a woman on a scooter suffered fatal injuries when she accidentally drove her vehicle off the prom.

If one swallow doesn’t make a summer, four accidents involving mobility scooters that took place between four and five years ago, hardly make a cause for serious public concern today. How many accidents involving cars, commercial vehicles, motorcycles and pushbikes have taken place in our area since 2005? Considerably more, I fancy, than the four in which mobility scooters were involved. We don’t even know in how many, if any, of those four accidents the user of the mobility scooter was to blame.

Having said that, I can’t bring myself to go all the way with Gordon Beare of the Tendring Pensioners’ Action Group who claims that the idea of the test is ‘an outrageous suggestion……..I’m certainly against having to take a test. I’m sure there would be a charge for it, which many elderly people can’t afford’.

I have been a scooter user rather longer than Gordon Beare, and I am not quite so sure. Driving a mobility scooter, crossing busy roads with it and behaving correctly towards other road and pavement users isn’t quite as simple as those who have never tried it might think. Mobility scooters go faster than the average pedestrian (not many people can walk at 4 mph) and they have very powerful motors. It was at least a fortnight after purchase before I felt sufficiently confident on mine to venture into the town centre. I think that some kind of a test might be a good idea. It is unlikely that the test would be free but then mobility scooters aren’t exactly cheap either. Surely most people who could afford to buy one would also manage to find the extra pound or two for the test.

As for registration and third party insurance; registration needn’t cost anything and most responsible scooter users already have third party insurance. I certainly wouldn’t be happy without mine. The low premiums charged testify to the small number of claims that are actually made.

I am fully in agreement with Gordon Beare on one point – the unpredictable and thoughtless behaviour of some other road users can present mobility scooter users with problems. I am particularly wary of pedestrians walking down the middle of the pavement towards me, engrossed in conversation on a mobile phone. They’re clearly not looking where they are going and depend on pedestrians coming towards them stepping aside at the last moment. That is something a scooter user can’t do! I have even seen someone tapping in a text message while striding blindly along the footpath.

Other ‘hates’ that one develops when driving (or should it be ‘riding’) a mobility scooter are the motorists who leave their cars right across the dropped kerbs that we rely on when crossing a road, and those (commercial vehicle drivers are major offenders) who park partly on the footpath, leaving just sufficient room for a fairly slim pedestrian to squeeze through. Motor scooters and, I imagine, those pushing prams or wheel chairs simply can’t get past.

These are a minority though. I have found most motorists, and most pedestrians, to be courteous and considerate. We scooter users must remember that we take up rather more room, and move faster, than pedestrians. It is up to us to cause as little inconvenience as possible to others, to give way on narrow or partially obstructed footpaths, and never to forget to smile, to say please or thank you, and to apologise whenever an apology is due.

Could do better……much better!

What on earth has happened to Clacton’s secondary schools?

Only last week in this blog I commented on the fact that Bishops Gate College and Colbayns High School during 2008/2009, the last academic year of their existence, had the highest truancy rates of any school in Essex! Their general progress showed much to be desired and they have been amalgamated as The Coastal Academy in an attempt to save them from failure. Only time will tell whether or not this move will prove to have been successful.

Two ‘likely lads’! Pete and Andy, the Hall brothers in 1966. Both were pupils at Clacton County High School in the ‘60s and early '70s

At least, I thought, Clacton County High School remains a centre of secondary educational excellence. I hadn’t realized how much that school has changed since the 1970s! Then both my sons were pupils. They were among many who were a credit to the school, and have since
pursued profitable and socially useful careers. In his final year, my elder son was one of four sixth form students who were offered and took up places at Cambridge University. Many others went to other Universities.

Now it seems that Clacton County High School is also in trouble. Following an Ofsted inspection last November, the school was criticised for having inadequate teaching and falling GCSE grades. The report said that its leadership team had not recognised significant weaknesses in the way that it dealt with bad behaviour, and with pupils having learning difficulties. Student attendance was too low and GCSE maths results were consistently below average. Some pupils and parents had also complained that the school’s disciplinary policy was unfair. The Governors were criticised for not questioning high exclusion figures.

I must say that I have some sympathy with the Head-teacher Mr Jeff Brindle in connection with the exclusion of pupils whose behaviour disrupts the education of others. What other effective disciplinary measures are available to head teachers these days? I wonder to which schools Mr Brindle is referring when he claims that his exclusion figures were still ‘lower than other local schools’. Could it be Colbayns and Bishops Gate?

It is amazing how eager those in public office (whether they are MPs referring to their expenses claims or school governors discussing adverse Ofsted reports) are to put unpleasant facts behind them and ‘look to the future!’ My former colleague Bert Foster, now Chairman of the CCHS Governors, says, ‘What is important now is the interests of our students. We intend to move forward, put this report behind us, and build on the many strengths the school has’.

I think that the Governors and Head Teacher should not put that report behind them, but keep it in front of them – as a reminder that they must do a great deal better in the future. I don’t envy Clacton parents with ten-year old sons and daughters about to begin their secondary education.

Another, ‘Modest proposal……..’

Those readers of The Times who are well past the first flush of youth may have been shocked to read an article in which novelist Martin Amis (son of Sir Kingsley Amis) shared with readers his solution to the ‘problem’ presented by our ageing population.

He suggested that we deal with this ‘ticking demographic timebomb’ by providing euthanasia booths on every street corner. If we fail to do this, he suggests, ‘There’ll be a population of demented very old people, like an invasion of terrible immigrants, stinking out the restaurants, cafes and shops. I can imagine a sort of civil war between the old and the young in 10 or 15 years time’.

Possession of a very fertile and active imagination is, I am sure, on the CV of every successful author. The article was surely a satirical one, in the same vein (and as deliberately tasteless!) as the famous ‘Modest proposal…’ of Dean Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels. In it he appeared to suggest infanticide and cannibalism as a solution to many of society’s problems. Some of his contemporaries imagined that he actually meant it!

It is to be hoped that Martin Amis’ intention was satirical, because a search on Google Chrome reveals that he is himself 60 years old. If there were to be a civil war between young and old in fifteen or twenty years time he could expect to be in the front line – and on what he would now consider to be ‘the wrong side!

A few months ago we were celebrating the life and work of Charles Darwin. Martin Amis’ article is of value in that it graphically illustrates what I think of as ‘Fundamentalist Darwinism’; the conviction that the survival of the fittest is the primary law of nature and that the sole purpose on earth of every living creature (including every man and woman) is the perpetuation of its species. The old, the disabled, the infertile and the impotent have no evolutionary purpose. Therefore they have no place in Darwinism’s ultimate Brave New World. ‘Away with them, to the guillotine, the gas chambers, or the euthanasia booths!’

The Fateful 6th May

It is now almost certain (if not entirely ‘beyond reasonable doubt’) that the General Election will be held on Thursday 6th May. What is even more certain is that its highlight will be a carefully staged and televised debate between the leaders of the three main political parties.

The way in which the debate is to be held and the propaganda that is already preceding it make it even clearer to me that on polling day we will not be expected to choose between different sets of policies (there is not a great deal of real difference between them anyway) or even between political parties, but between three individuals; which one ‘comes over’ best on the small screen! If his party has a substantial majority the winner can expect to be able to exercise dictatorial power for the next five years, since all the rewards (for party loyalty) and all the penalties (for what would be seen as disloyalty) will be in his hands.

It seems to be assumed that a ‘hung parliament’ in which neither of the two largest parties have an overall majority, would be a national disaster. It would mean we couldn’t have a strong government. My experience of strong governments suggests to me that it would be the best possible outcome of the election.

If we hadn’t had a strong government in the 1980s and early ‘90s, we wouldn’t have had the almost universally detested Poll Tax (They really should have known better. An attempt to impose a similar tax in the 14th century had triggered the Peasants Revolt!) If we hadn’t had a strong government in the first decade of the third millennium, we wouldn’t have embarked on a bloody and illegal war in Iraq.

Were there good things that happened under those two governments that wouldn’t have happened if we had had a hung parliament? I suppose that there must have been. Off hand, I can’t think of any though!