Category - ADI

Someone sent this to me recently, and I thought I’d tidy it up, add a few bits, and reproduce it here. It’s in the form of an open letter to a problem pupil. To be honest, I think it’s a composite of various pupils, but I think most of us can relate to at least part of it (note: I believe that the original came from somewhere around London and the Home Counties).

Dear xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

You recently accused me of shouting at you on a lesson when your test was only ONE WEEK away. I listened to you, and decided that the written word might convey my sentiments more diplomatically than what I really wanted to say to your face at the time.

You came to me barely EIGHT WEEKS ago. You told me on the telephone that you could already drive, and had been doing so on a full licence in your home country in Africa – and more recently in Europe – for “many years”. Your plan was to “learn the test routes” and the British roads.

On our first lesson you could barely move the car without either stalling it, or lurching off with a wheel spin. Each time you stopped, the contents of the rear seat transferred themselves to the front. Indeed, stopping didn’t initially appear to be a problem for you, as you did it every time you saw another car moving even vaguely towards us, in the middle of junctions and roundabouts where we had clear right of way, and in sundry other situations. However, once we moved to busier roads it was apparent that your stopping skills were less reliable around pedestrian crossings and red lights. At least once on each of the FIVE LESSONS you have had during our time together I have had to stop the car for you either to  prevent us hitting a pedestrian or in order to comply with UK Law regarding red lights. Your clutch control has improved, but even on our most recent lesson you once again found moving away from your house problematic. The ache in my arm by the end reminded me that I had spent more time controlling the steering from my side than you had from yours. If I suggest that you use the handbrake when we are stopped, you invariably forget about it and try to move off with it engaged. Conversely, if I let you do it your way, we invariably roll back – and then either stall or generate a wheel spin as you react to the roll. For all practical purposes, you are a beginner in all aspects of driving in the UK.

Your speed control is such that I often have to remind you of the speed limit. You frequently do not see road signs at all (you don’t know what many of them mean), and your ability to follow and/or interpret direction signs is non-existent based on the few times I have asked you to follow the signs to somewhere.

You were – and remain – unable to complete any of the standard manoeuvres to anywhere near an acceptable standard. The time available to practice these has been reduced by your issues with basic car control, roundabouts, and road junctions, and the need to address these. On our most recent lesson, and having only done it once before with me, I asked you if you remembered how to reverse around a corner. You furnished me with the answer which is common among your countrymen, who would apparently prefer to demonstrate that they can’t do something instead of just admitting to it up front, and gave me an emphatic “yes”. I expressed surprise, but you were adamant. You then proceeded to do exactly what you did on the first lesson before I had shown you how to do it properly, and moved off without even a glimmer of a safety check. By the time I stopped you we were about to mount the kerb on the opposite side of the road, although you were gazing fixedly at something in the nearside mirror (it certainly wasn’t our nearside kerb).

You are unable to adhere to any sort of lane discipline, and you frequently drive as though there are no road markings at all. Your solution to not knowing where to position the car is to put it “somewhere in the middle”. Having said that, we have had to spend a significant amount of time recently going over two particular roundabouts repeatedly, because no matter how many times you negotiate them, and no matter how many times I get you to tell me you’re going “straight ahead” and you need to be in the lane with the “straight arrow”, as soon as we get there you jiggle the steering and go into the lane with the “left turn” arrow and we end up going left. All this happens when you panic (and especially when the word “roundabout” is mentioned), but you refused to acknowledge that you are in any way “nervous” or “panicked” until the most recent lesson when you let it slip out.

Your uncertainty over your road position in these situations means that even if you appear to be handling a particular junction or roundabout correctly, there is a high probability that as we approach it more closely you will suddenly attempt to fling the car into another lane with no prior mirror checks or signals. Indeed, this has even happened on straight roads, and without warning, when new lanes have appeared in front of us. I am constantly saying “watch the kerb” or grabbing the steering wheel to prevent us mounting the pavement or veering into another road user (which is why my arm aches by the end of our lessons).

Unfortunately, and in spite of what I have mentioned above, from the first moment you got in my car on that initial lesson all you have wanted to do was book your test. You had made it clear you were poorly paid and couldn’t afford many lessons. I explained that being test-ready was about being able to drive, not about taking the smallest number of lessons possible, but my experience in these matters told me you were not listening and just wanted to take a test as soon as you could get one (you would happily have done one that afternoon if you’d have had the chance). I warned you that tests were booking 18 weeks out, but you said that that was too far away. I explained that if you were test-ready we could look for cancellations and 18 weeks would be fine for now.

On our second lesson, you still had not booked a test. Then you told me that one of your friends had informed you that test centre “X” was “easier” than all the others in the county (this was based on the sole criterion that your friend had passed there). I explained that this was factually incorrect. I also pointed out that I didn’t normally cover that test centre as it was further away, and that I wasn’t completely familiar with the roads around it. I advised you to ignore your friend and to book your test at one of the several centres I DID cover (I even explained that one of them had the ACTUAL highest pass rate in the county) . These were closer and we had already driven around some of the typical roads.

You ignored me and booked your test at test centre “X” – because you had come across a cancellation test date that was less than SIX WEEKS away. You then cancelled a lesson and I didn’t see you for more than two weeks. This explains why, having been with me for EIGHT WEEKS, and with only ONE WEEK to go to your test, you have only taken FIVE lessons.

During our lessons your mobile phone chirps merrily away in your pocket. On the most recent one I made you silence it, because it was just too distracting. However, in spite of apparently being at the hub of the technological universe, you steadfastly refuse to answer any of MY texts – and I’m thinking especially of the ones where I was trying to clarify the actual date and time of your test for my diary. I only obtained this information from you on the THIRD lesson, and even then you had to look it up from the DVSA email on your phone. This suggests that you don’t give a damn about MY business and are only interested in what YOU want.

On that third lesson I took you out to the areas covered by test centre “X”, which is very busy. Even though you refused to admit it, you were terrified of every roundabout and every junction. You later claimed that it was because you were on “unfamiliar roads” – I refrained from pointing out that it was YOUR choice to book your test over there, though to be fair to you ALL roads are “unfamiliar” as far as the problems we are encountering go.

Fixing your driving would have been fairly straightforward over 18 weeks. Fixing it over 6 weeks, then losing 2 weeks when you stopped lessons, and concurrent with all this realising the depth of your problems, made it pretty much impossible. On our most recent lesson, I believe that it was my repeated intervention for the reasons mentioned above (most notably, where you AGAIN turned left at one of the roundabouts after telling me clearly what you had seen, what lane you needed, and which exit you should take), combined with your own dawning realisation that there just might be a problem, which led to your accusation that I was “shouting” at you. You also accused me of “not teaching” you. You actually said – with only ONE WEEK to go before your test – that “you should be telling me what to do so I can learn”.

Just for once, and before my blood boils off completely, you will consider MY concerns and do as you are told.

You ARE NOT taking your test next week. You WILL cancel it and move it back. A LONG WAY back. If you don’t like it, you can find another instructor.

I have been “telling you what to do” since the first lesson – and that is part of the problem. I should not be having to “tell you” anything this close to your test, particularly as you keep claiming to “be able to drive”. I have tried to let you drive independently and you can’t. Even a simple left turn can blow up into the most convoluted disaster imaginable if I don’t tell you exactly what to do, and you have learned almost nothing from these instances. You are not as good a driver as you seem to believe, and you are not a particularly fast learner. As I say, I can fix you in 18 weeks, but definitely not within the time frame you have in mind.

When the examiner gets in the car with you, you are ON YOUR OWN. If he has to tell you what to do, grab the wheel, use the brakes, etc. then you WILL fail.

My livelihood depends on retaining my licence to teach. People like you who only want to use my car for a driving test, could easily interfere with that. I have tried to get you ready for your test and – as a result of your complete and utter selfishness in booking a cancellation slot – have failed. Therefore you ARE NOT using my car next week.

Personally, I’ve lost count of the number of poorly-paid overseas pupils I’ve had who reckon they can drive and only want to go to test. Ones who do it in their own cars are the bane of DVSA examiners, as they take test after test with no proper lessons in between. Many are just dangerous, and the frightening thing is that if the examiner doesn’t see anything that the system says he should award a serious fault for, he has to pass that candidate.

I believe that the proposed changes to the driving test – while welcomed by certain inexperienced and naïve instructors – will just make the situation worse. We need a test which can weed out as many bad drivers as possible – not one which helps them pass, which is precisely what the proposed new test will do.

WARNING: This is an old post which my no longer contain accurate information about the Part 3 test. It is still relevant, but some details may no longer be correct.

I’ve been watching a forum thread regarding the Part 3 test and dealing with crossing the path of other traffic. It’s amazing how something so simple can be made so complicated when so many people get involved and then refuse to budge an inch on whatever it was they said in the first place.

Take a look at the Part 3 PST Sheets, which I have made available on this site. Then note the relevant tick box labels, as follows:

• PST 1 – Phase 2 – Crossroads – “Cross approaching traffic”
• PST 2 – Phase 2 – Meet, Cross, Overtake – “Cross approaching traffic”
• PST 3 – Phase 2 – Approaching junctions – “Cross approaching traffic”
• PST 4 – Phase 2 – Junctions emerging – crossing NOT MENTIONED
• PST 7 – Phase 1 – Approaching junctions – “Cross approaching traffic”
• PST 8 – Phase 2 – Meet, Cross, Overtake – “Cross approaching traffic”
• PST 9 – Phase 1 – Crossroads – “Cross approaching traffic”
• PST 10 – Phase 1 – Meet, Cross, Overtake – “Cross other traffic”

So each of these PSTs has a tick box where “crossing” is marked. Now, the Part 3 test is hard enough – and complex enough – without examiners mixing and matching from all the PSTs as the whim takes them on the day. So much so that they don’t mix and match on a whim – it’s just that some trainers argue that they do, and this gets blown out of all proportion.

In theory, a candidate can only be marked against what is on the PST marking sheet. Furthermore, they only have about half an hour to cover each phase – barely enough to cover the essentials, let alone some made-up stuff inserted by the examiner.

Let’s take a look at the ADI 1 document – Guidance for driving examiners carrying out instructor tests. DVSA sometimes doesn’t do itself any favours (it’s aimed at examiners anyway), but what it boils down to is not just PST numbers, but exercise numbers which make up each PST.

Take PST 1. It contains exercise 1B for phase 1 and 10T for phase 2. Exercise 1B is “Safety Precautions on Entering the Car and Explanation of Controls” and the “B” means it is a beginner you’re dealing with (ADI 1 explains this on page 48 as of mid-July 2016). Exercise 10T is covered on page 51, and refers to “Dealing with Crossroads “ for a trained (“T”) driver. This is the important part:

This is a one-part exercise in which the PDI would be expected to deal with the points listed on the relevant ADI 26/PT. Time and conditions permitting the exercise should cover going ahead, turning right and left at all types of crossroads e.g. major to minor, minor to major etc..

You will note once more that the PST marking sheet has a tick box for “cross approaching traffic” on phase 2, and ADI 1 says that if time permits then all aspects of crossroads – including minor to major (i.e. emerging) – should be covered. So “crossing traffic” applies to emerging as well as turning major to minor at crossroads as far as exercise 10T is concerned.

For PST 2, exercise 11T is the one we want. The subject is “meeting, crossing the path of, and overtaking other vehicles”, and although ADI 1 doesn’t explicitly state it, the implication is that you are “crossing” the path of traffic that you’re “meeting” – or in other words, turning right from a major to a minor road. Remember this one, though, as I will discuss it further later.

For PST 3, it is exercise 7T – “approaching and turning corners”. The examiner is directed to use the following wording:

I would like you to instruct me in approaching corners, concentrating particularly on turning right and left into side roads, that is major to minor, assuming that I am at the ‘partly trained’ / ‘trained’  stage’.

The examiner doesn’t explicitly say not to deal with emerging – just to concentrate on left and right turns. Remember this one, too.

For PST 4, exercise 9T does not mention crossing traffic on the PST marking sheet for emerging from T-junctions. ADI 1 says much the same as it does for exercise 10T:

This is a one-part exercise in which the PDI should be encouraged to deal specifically with emerging at T-junctions emerging as distinct from turning right and left into a side road (which is dealt with in exercise 7).  They would be expected to cover the main points mentioned on the relevant ADI 26/PT and, time and conditions permitting, emerging should be applied as many times as possible to the left and to the right at both open and closed ‘T’ junctions.

For PST 7, it is exercise 7P (“P” is for partly trained) – “approaching junctions to turn left or right” – which carries the same description as for 7T on PST 3.

For PST 8, exercise 11T – “meet, cross, overtake” – is used again (as in PST 2).

For PST 9, exercise 10P – “crossroads” – carries the same description as for 10T on PST 1.

For PST 10, exercise 11P – “meet, cross, overtake” – carries the same description as for 11T on PSTs 2 and 8.

What is clear from this is that not all exercises are equal. Some are, of course, but some most definitely aren’t – “crossroads” appears in two PSTs and specifically lumps entering and emerging in with the subject of crossing the path of other traffic; and both occurrences of  “approaching junctions” hint that crossing when emerging may be an issue even if it shouldn’t be the main focus of the PSTs which feature it. Only one exercise – paradoxically, the one that’s actually to do with emerging from T-junctions – specifically implies that crossing traffic is not an issue which needs to be covered on the PST (although in real life it would be – and is – absolutely critical, since T-junctions are closely related to crossroads). It’s also worth noting that the section of ADI 1 which deals with the testing of LGV trainers, and which uses different PST exercises, directly refers to crossing other traffic when emerging, thus emphasising the importance of the subject.

The image I’ve used at the top of this article comes from a news item from 2010. A motorcyclist was knocked off his bike when a Porsche emerged from a side road into his path. The police are quoted as saying:

It appears the bike has been on the main road, the car came out from the side road, and they collided.

Over the years there have been numerous safety campaigns aimed at this precise scenario. It’s still part of the current THINK! campaign. There is no way in hell that emerging from a side road does not involve “crossing the path of other traffic”, and although it might not feature as the subject of someone’s Part 3, anyone who doesn’t cover it at T-junctions when they’re teaching real pupils ought to hand their green badge back.

However, getting back to the main subject, when someone takes their Part 3 test, the PST they have to deal with may contain an exercise which involves “crossing other traffic”. If it does, then that exercise will involve crossing the path of other traffic when emerging if it’s the crossroads one. It may involve an exercise where crossing other traffic while emerging might need to be dealt with if it is the “approaching corners” one (depending on the circumstances). If the PST is the one dealing with T-junctions then crossing the path of other traffic is not involved in the marking at all.

To be completely honest, I don’t think all PDIs are aware of these differences, and they assume that “crossing” is the same whichever PST it appears in. Going further, I don’t think all ADIs who provide Part 3 training realise it either, and I think that’s why some will claim that examiners are throwing in faults that they shouldn’t be, when all they’re doing is exactly what is required by the PST involved – and the circumstances at the time.

But here’s the rub – and remember how I said I’d refer to certain PSTs later. Anyone who is doing their Part 3 test is potentially less than an hour away from being let loose on real pupils. It is reasonable to suppose that they should be able to handle anything which comes up on the test since they’re going to have to do it if they have a green badge. Unfortunately, too many PDIs are completely wound up in scripts and set pieces which collapse completely if the examiner does something out of sequence. So if something fairly mundane – but not specifically part of the PST involved, like crossing the path of a car which is heading towards them as they emerge at a T-junction – comes up on the test, the PDI should be able to handle it. If they make a complete hash of it as a result of it not being a part of the predefined script they’re following, should they still pass their Part 3?

I would say no.

Originally published in April, 2012. Furthermore, I have seen a few posts on a forum with ADIs fretting over pupils who aren’t making progress. They really ought to consider ADHD as a possible reason for this. I had another one recently who has all the necessary hardware to drive well, but who struggles when the software (the mind) becomes involved. After completing the questionnaire referred to later, previously undiagnosed ADHD entered the frame very strongly indeed.

In 2011 I had a pupil who was a dream to teach, with the single exception that she was extremely nervous and literally hated driving. We had to agree that in the debrief following each lesson the baseline started at “I hate driving” and only ever went upwards from there – it was the only way we could identify and acknowledge any improvements. Prior to that, whenever I asked her how she felt a lesson had gone, it was always “not very good” or “terrible” because she was equating a good lesson with enjoying it 100%. We were never going to achieve that merely because she hated driving. She was actually a brilliant driver.

In the course of our chats I discovered that her mum was the same. She said that her mum was a nervous driver, and would always drive round the block to make sure the car was pointing in the right direction in order to avoid having to turn around in the road. She also told me about her brother, who had taken and failed his driving test 5 times up to that point, apparently because he went to pieces on his tests. It seemed that whatever it was that ran in the family also extended to him.

She passed easily at the end of summer that year, and a couple of weeks later I got a call from her brother asking me if I’d take him on, which I was glad to do. His sister called again and asked me not to tell him that she’d passed – the family wanted to keep it from him to avoid upsetting him. She told me there was no need to lie, just not to mention it to him (he was in his late 20s). Anyway, he started lessons with me in September, 2011. At that time, I just assumed he was nervous like his sister and mother.

Soon after I’d met him and started teaching him, it quickly became clear that his general driving wasn’t actually that bad. However, he couldn’t do any of the manoeuvres to anywhere near test standard, and he had real problems with roundabouts or any “complex” junction. He could talk forever and you couldn’t shut him up, and this was a major source of distraction to him – he invariably started talking at the precise times when he should have shut up to concentrate on what was ahead. His favourite subject was how many lessons he’d had, how much it had cost him, and other topics connected with his lack of driving success. Just about everything we did he could somehow relate back to this, and it always fired him up once he started, thus distracting him further. Even if there was no obvious trigger he’d just blurt it out at some point in every lesson.

A couple of months after he started I also began teaching his girlfriend. It turned out that she was a good driver, and it was clear that she was going to get up to test standard very quickly. More about this later.

I discovered that he found it very difficult to learn anything “different” – he couldn’t parallel park at all using whatever previous method he’d been taught (which meant I couldn’t help him fine tune that method, since I didn’t know what it was, either), but trying to teach him a new method was met successively with frustration and anger at not being able to do it. Even when we’d apparently made progress on one lesson, his first attempt next time would invariably result in him defaulting to his original confused method, leading to more anger. I lost count of the number of times he told me he was “stupid”, how he had “always been like it at school”, and how he couldn’t learn things. Me telling him he wasn’t stupid had little effect.

We’d had his test booked several times – but moved it for various reasons (money issues, working overtime due to money issues, and having to spend money for his two kids at Christmas). When I looked it up in March, 2012, he’d only had 9 one-hour lessons over seven months, with long gaps between some of them. However, he still wanted to pass quickly, and in talking with him there was an inner struggle between his desire to pass his test and fear of failing if he tried.

One test booking which did have him fired up was the one that would have ensured he passed before his girlfriend. He was absolutely desperate for that to happen, but he ended up not booking any lessons so his girlfriend and me eventually persuaded him to just cancel it and not rebook until he was really ready.

As I’ve already mentioned, I’d told him that he wasn’t stupid. But I broached the subject of learning disabilities, because it had become clear that it wasn’t just “nerves” affecting him.

It turned out that he had problems in his normal life. Apparently, he had ripped doors off hinges at home when he got angry at something. He often got so angry that he had to stop himself hitting people if they “wound him up”. He had been in trouble at work for throwing things in anger. He had a home gym to help him work off his anger and frustration (one thing he told me that makes me laugh even now is how one time he squared up to his girlfriend during an argument – he is about 6′ 3″ tall, and about the same wide; she is roughly the size of a Barbie Doll. She cracked him on his jaw, and he was subsequently frightened of her). It also turned out that he’d been tested at school because of his behaviour, and he was told that there was “something wrong” but they didn’t know what!

Early on in his lessons I’d suggested that he see his GP to explain his problems – I had beta blockers in my mind while nerves were still on the agenda. I’d mentioned counselling a few times. But when I found out about his problems outside driving and his school’s assessment, I wrote “ADHD???” on his driving record. He said he’d often thought about that even though it “only affected kids”.

When his girlfriend passed her test first time he went into a real depression – “everyone is passing before me”, he said, “and I’ve been taking lessons since…”. And off he went on his favourite topic. He made me laugh again when he said he would refuse to get in the car with his girlfriend “on a matter of principle”. When I asked what principle, off he went again on the same topic – “it’s not right she should pass before me, after all those…” To make matters worse, he then asked me outright if his sister was still taking lessons (I’m sure he must have suspected something during those seven months, as he had never asked about her until then). I didn’t lie, and told him she passed the previous summer. And off we went again.

He suddenly started taking things much more seriously. On his next lesson he told me he’d found this website – and a questionnaire about ADHD. The subject had stuck in his mind and he’d followed it through. Basically, the questionnaire scores you between 0 and 100 – when I did it, I scored 8. He scored 80 (anything above about 30 ranks as likely ADHD).  He contacted the relevant people and they arranged for him to be assessed properly.

I’ve used the questionnaire on several pupils with driving issues, and they’ve scored between 40 and 95.

By the way, that image on the sweatshirt sums up what appears to be going on inside people’s heads when they have ADHD. It’s no wonder it affects their ability to learn. However, once you know what IS going on in their heads you can find ways of dealing with things, as they affect everyone differently.

You can buy various shirts with that design from www.zazzle.co.uk.

He had his assessment and was offered the following two options:

• go via the NHS, and wait up to TWO YEARS for a consultation
• pay more than £500 to go private (plus whatever the medication costs) and get a consultation within a fortnight

I remember years ago, someone I knew had a hernia. He was told by the doctor that the NHS waiting list was about 18 months – but if he went private “I can fit you in next week”. Same doctor wielding the knife.

I should point out in closure that he passed his test on his first attempt with me a few months later! I like to think that at least some of that was down to me.

I occasionally see him when I go shopping in Asda, and he never followed up on the treatment for his ADHD. Just knowing what the problem was at long last seemed to make all the difference. He’s driving around quite happily, having had no accidents.

ADHD isn’t a show stopper as far as learning to drive is concerned – but it can seem like it is if it isn’t picked up. Someone with ADHD cannot be taught the normal way, because they can’t learn the normal way.