Safer Driving?

This week, I had to drive to Cheltenham for the Design Review of the Devon/Torbay Flexible Working solution. It uses the Becrypt Trusted Client Solution. I have been advising them on policies and a design that might allow Local Government to use non-council controlled PCs and laptops to access GCSX (IL2 only). This was to be a big day for the project and the team were all pretty nervous never having faced a full design review before.

I suppose I was more focused on the afternoon than the route I was driving but suddenly realised I was travelling on roads I had last used over 30 years ago when I was still a student. My family still lived in Birmingham then and I often traveled back from Oxford over the Cotswolds to cut out the endless British Leyland lorries on the old A40. No M40 then and all single carriageway roads!

What struck me though was how different the roads were. It was as if someone was desperate to use up gallons and gallons of paint. Everywhere was cross hatching prohibiting overtaking, warning me to slow down for roundabouts, red colouring for villages etc. I ought to say it was safer but frankly it was incredibly tiring. It was a bit like a real life video game with new threats coming at you all the time - except the threats were 'painted' not real. I began to think what if a real threat occurred - a pedestrian, cyclist or a child suddenly running out. Would I actually spot them quickly enough given all the other distractions. A good driver like me (?) really didn't need all this interference.

I'd like to think that the engineering professionals would have endless surveys proving that I was actually more alert, driving at a more sensible pace, not trying to pass the lorry in front as soon as the road clears but I have my doubts.

I laughed when I realised the argument was not unlike that of those used by the critics of the GCSX Code of Connection. It was so much better before all these restrictions and controls. We've had to spend a fortune upgrading and for what benefit etc. You know that rant. I suppose I do have some sympathy even if I did spend 3 years driving in new standards of Information Assurance and Data Handling for Local Government . Yes, the CoCo probably can be improved to make it more relevant to IL2 regimes. It does need to take account of mobile and flexible working. Are the threats really that relevant to Local Government? There is a big issue with the third sector that LG needs to connect to and why is Health different?

It is to be hoped that we can make improvements with the PSN CoCo. There are key meetings coming up to thrash out the issues. The problem is that you do have to have some standards and that means giving up some of the freedom and flexibility that we used to have. Think back - roads were less crowded then, cars were slower, they didn't have safety equipment like air bags, no driver aids such as anti-lock brakes, and were dreadfully uncomfortable etc. On reflection, I think I'll stick with the cars and roads of today. And the march of Information Assurance? Well, when you consider all the new threats we face today - viruses, phishing, denial of service, identity theft, e-crime then the world has changed.

I wouldn't drive today like I did back then - overtaking lorries in an under-powered 1200cc Ford Cortina with no safety crumple zones to save me if I got it wrong! And so we also have to recognise that Information Assurance is now a fact of life. Even if it doesn't seem quite as much fun as it did in those days!