Car Tyres Luton

A national service

THERE is a lot of advice around these days. Last week, for example, the Department for Transport released a document with tips for “smarter driving techniques”. These include checking your car’s tyre pressures before you go on holiday, watching your speed and avoiding congestion. This week, meanwhile, CentreForum, a Lib Dem think tank, proposed a “five-a-day” plan for child development: playing with your child on the floor for 10 minutes every day, for instance, and ensuring they have a nutritious diet.

A lot of this sounds pretty obvious. And it is easy to dismiss the seemingly endless stream of instructions about how to live—the nanny state infantilising the nation again. But common sense, as the saying goes, does not commonly occur. Or, to put it another way, one person’s conventions may be another’s revolutionary idea—or at least something they haven’t thought of or bothered to do for a while.  

Take these two recent screeds. I need no encouragement to read to my daughter every day and praise her frequently (probably too much—that will be the next report). But, though I know I should, I have never checked the tyre pressure on my car; trying to avoid traffic jams is clearly a good idea but I am terrible at reading maps so I would always favour a route I know over a less congested—but less known—journey.

Public advice campaigns have a very long history. Think of those famous war time posters, “Careless talk costs lives”, “Dig for Victory”, and “Keep calm and carry on”. The big upsurge in such guidance came after the war, particularly with public health campaigns (“Coughs and sneezes spread diseases”, and the like). The Central Office of Information has made public information broadcasts since 1946 (it grew out of the Ministry of Information which did the job during the war years), and these have tackled everything from what to do in the event of a nuclear attack, to sexual health campaigns, attempts to stop people spitting, the importance of wearing seatbelts and why children should have swimming lessons.

In Britain, announcements on public address systems are abundant too—more than in any other country I can think of. Some of these seem reasonable: the famous “mind the gap” announcement on the London underground, for example, warning passengers of the space between train and platform. Not all seem so urgent.

The Autocar, a journal published in the interests of the mechanically propelled road carriage

Management accounting decision management

CIMA Exam Practice Kit Management Accounting Decision Management

CIMA Exam Practice Kit: Decision Management

CIMA Official Exam Practice Kit Management Accounting Decision Management, 2008 Edition