Well done to Tom, who passed today with 5 driver faults. Enjoy the beer – but not when you’re driving! A good driver who I’m sure will carry on being safe.
I’ve not had many tests over the summer – since the start of May there have been 9 passes and about 7 fails, so my perfect/very good start to the year took a bit of a dive. What makes it more irritating (though it’s just the way the cookie crumbles statistically) is that the failures are the same people who come in the subsequent list of passes!
Well done to Edward, who passed yesterday with just 2 driver faults (a good result, by any standard).
As the examiner said at the end, just watch how hard you yank on that handbrake in your own car, otherwise it could end up being expensive to keep having the cable adjusted or replaced.
And don’t let other drivers get to you. Watch what you’re doing before getting too wound up with what others are doing.
Well, they can’t let it go. I’ve mentioned the ridiculous situation regarding the Workington Theory Test Centre in a number of posts. Most recently, the most incomprehensible logic had been used to decide to keep it open (it runs at a loss, remember, and only does about 3,000 out of a capacity 15,000 tests each year).
The Times & Star can’t resist another dig – more of a case of another spadeful out of the hole it keeps digging for itself – by calling it a “common sense” decision. They wouldn’t know common sense if it cocked its leg against them.
I say again: Workington Theory Test Centre runs at a financial loss. It is only operating at 20% capacity and employs three full time staff (if I remember correctly).
It’s also hard to see why the proposed closure should become such a cause célèbre amongst driving instructors… until you see that the petition was organised by the West Cumbria Driving Instructors Association. Those last three words say it all.
Well, at the end of the day sensible logic lost, and the junior transport minister, Mike Penning, has forced the game result. Although the test centre only does about 3,000 tests a year – it’s capacity is 15,000 tests (so it’s running at only 20% capacity) - this idiotic coalition we are suffering has decided that in spite of all the cuts being made, this is one that shouldn’t be!
Penning has said:
I am clear there should not be a gap in theory test provision in Workington.
If a suitable alternative facility is not in place by September 1, I have arranged for a mobile test centre (bus) to be temporarily placed in the area to ensure continuity.
Can you believe this idiot? The DSA was closing it because it wasn’t cost effective.
And Tony Cunningham, the Workington MP who chose this as his cause célèbre, has wasted no time adding a few noughts to his previous tag line about people having to travel miles to Carlisle (the proposed alternative). It’s now “hundreds of miles” they would have had to travel – if this had dragged on any longer, no doubt it would have risen to “thousands”.
Just to remind Mr Cunningham that Carlisle is 32 miles from Workington. So the worst that could have happened is that people would have had to travel an extra 32 miles. I don’t think that classifies as “hundreds” – except in Mr Cunningham’s strange world.
Meanwhile, the rest of us – even those who DO live “hundreds of miles” away – are going to have to pay for the three staff who are only 20% occupied.
I’ve been getting a lot of hits from people looking for driving test centre pass rates.
The DSA used to publish them alongside the details for each test centre, but you could never be sure how reliable they were or even if they even were being kept up to date. I suspect keeping them updated was the reason they stopped doing it – it must be very labour intensive to do.
However, DSA does log the data, so they are available. They recently made the data for the period April 2010 to February 2011 available – split between gender.
As I say on that page, pass rates are not a probability of passing your test. How good a driver you are controls that.
This is Plymouth (link long since dead) reports on a press release concerning test centre pass rates. Basically, 152 out of 340 test centres have pass rates of 50% or more. No one seems to have bothered to calculate that this is 45% of test centres – so you could say that about half of all test centres have pass rates of 50% or more, and half have pass rate of less.
It’s a bit like saying that when you toss a coin there is a 50% chance of getting heads, and then getting all upset by it as if it’s a problem or something!
This is Plymouth is worried that the Plymouth test centre has a failure rate of 60%, whereas other Devon centres have failure rates of 49%, 45%, and 42%. Why assume that the 60% one is wrong? What about the one at 42%?
The highest failure rate was as Hermon Hill, Wanstead – 72% out of 4,826 first time tests.
The lowest failure rates are in remote Scottish communities – with tiny populations:
Examiners in places such as Mallaig, Inveraray, Islay and the Isle of Skye test barely 200 candidates between them a year.
Mallaig saw 14 first-time candidates last year and failed only 21% – or three – of them. Again, no one seems to have bothered to calculate that if they’d have failed a fourth then the failure rate would have leapt up to 29%. Fail a fifth and it’s a humongous 36%.
In Wanstead, you’d have to fail another 50 to increase the failure rate by just 1%!
It’s pretty obvious that driving around Mallaig is not the same as driving around Wanstead – except to the media. And Wanstead hardly has the same sort of clientele as Mallaig. So why the big deal?
There’s got to be more to this than meets the eye, but any two-bit rag which can’t find anything better to do than use the freedom of information (FOI) act to stir up the dirt and wave away anything it doesn’t know for certain won’t be worried about that!
Apparently, the oldest driver to take their test in Sussex last year was 91. More than 500 over 50 took it (big deal), and 13 of these were over the age of 71.
No further information is known – where they lived or if they passed or not (though it is obvious The Argus asked this, as the DSA refused to provide the information under data protection laws).
This non-story is made even more laughable by the revelation that the same number of people over 71 took tests in the preceding three years. This makes it all the more difficult to work out precisely what point the rag is making.
There’s some idle speculation from a driving instructor that the motivation must have come from having been driven around by someone else (what?), and the usual “contact scumbag@rag.co.uk if you know the silver learner driver” at the end – I’m sure these local newspapers use templates instead of writing for themselves: this is identical across at least four or them over the last couple of months. Even the morons who leave comments seem to come from the same herd.
Back to the topic: I seem to be the only one who is honest enough to admit that he shudders when he thinks of a 91-year old being allowed loose on the roads.
Well done to Shane, who passed today with 6 driver faults.
He told me his leg was shaking when he was doing the parallel park. He initially went to close to the kerb and had to correct it, but didn’t get a fault for this (people who assume otherwise take note: don’t assess yourself on test).
I must admit that I was a little concerned due to the fact that he has cancelled two lessons in a row since his last one a month ago. Cancelling lessons when you aren’t quite ready (or when you are barely ready) is not a good idea in my opinion, but if they can’t afford it there’s not a lot I can do about it. As long as they are good on the road I won’t refuse to take them, but I don’t like it when there is still an issue with something. Shane wasn’t like that.
So, it’s off to buy a Meriva for the four kids now, then?
Well, the idiot unions look to have got their way. Anyone with a driving test on Thursday should prepare for the possibility of it not going ahead.
However, bear in mind that not all driving examiners are in the union, and not all those who are will take strike action anyway. So unless you hear directly from the DSA, turn up on time and keep your fingers crossed.
As a footnote, some of the comments at the bottom of that story are hilarious. I love it when people who know absolutely nothing about politics (or anything else, come to that) try to pretend that they do.
I took a pupil to test today whose theory test expires next week.
When I took her on, her driving had been put on hiatus by virtue of having had a baby and some other things - hence the reason for the expiry date looming. Her driving was basically OK, and she could do the manoeuvres after a bit of refresher training. But as the test date approached it became clear the real problem was her mind.
She is one of those people who, when confronted with a simple problem, experiences the equivalent of an atomic explosion in their heads that creates the most bizarre solution imaginable.
One example. I will say to her “turn right at the roundabout, 2nd exit” and she’ll check her mirrors and indicate, drive off when it is clear, and then – and only then – give any thought as to where the 2nd exit is. Her solution to this dilemma is frequently to yank the steering wheel into full lock, accelerate, and look for somewhere to go without any consideration for the island itself, bollards, other cars, and so on. This includes aiming for the wrong carriageway on a split entry road to the roundabout.
Another example. I will say to her “follow the road ahead at the lights”. She sometimes won’t see the road markings (arrows) and will just go in the direction she is currently pointing, which means the wrong lane or straddling two of them. Then she’ll yank it over without checking. And if the junction is anything other than geometrically symmetrical then “straight ahead” again becomes a gambled choice between wherever she is pointing and what other cars in front are doing.
And one more. We’ll be driving down a straight road with side roads off it. Periodically, and for no specific reason, she will react to a car appearing at the end of one of these roads (coming to give way lines) by slamming her brakes on as if they have right of way or something.
The problem is, she CAN see the road markings and she DOES know what to do. She just doesn’t do it every time.
So, I have to admit that I knew she was going to fail. I practically told her this, and I said that I wanted to be present for the test “just in case”.
Well, she DID fail. With 4 serious and a few – only a few - driver faults (I think the examiner was being generous).
It’s the first time I have ever taken anyone to test who I knew didn’t stand a chance, and I’m not proud of it. I didn’t need the work and I honestly thought I’d be able to get her ready – but I was wrong. I’ll never do it again, no matter what story the pupil gives me, and no matter how much money they’re trying to save.
The Times & Star can’t resist another dig – more of a case of another spadeful out of the hole it keeps digging for itself – by calling it a “common sense” decision. They wouldn’t know common sense if it cocked its leg against them.
I’ve been getting a lot of hits from people looking for driving test centre pass rates.
There’s got to be 
Well, the 
I took a pupil to test today whose theory test expires next week.