It’s started! We’ve had snow, and people are already looking on the internet to see if their test is going ahead or not! This happens every year, though I suppose it’s understandable because it’s a new crop of young people who are involved each time.
It’s very simple:
if there is snow or ice on the roads your test could easily be cancelled
it is common for morning tests to be cancelled, but later ones to go ahead after the weather improves
it can work the other way round if the weather deteriorates after a bright start
the test centre’s decision is made as late as possible to avoid unnecessary cancellations
if weather is very bad then longer term decisions can be made by the test centre
you WILL NOT find out if your test is cancelled on the internet
you WILL find out if you phone the test centre and ask
I said the test centre, not DVSA head office – it could be -20°C where you are, and +15°C at head office
the test centre phone number is usually on the email you received when you booked your test
if you don’t have the test centre number, your instructor should have it
you MUST turn up unless you have spoken with the test centre on the phone and they’ve told you your test is off
you DO NOT have to pay for another test if DVSA calls it off
you WILL have to pay if you just don’t turn up
Remember that just because you’ve been waiting for months for your test does not mean you will be given any special priority. Snow and ice is extremely dangerous and most learners have never driven in it. For that reason tests are routinely cancelled if roads are bad. Examiners are not going to take risks – and nor should anyone expect them to.
In Nottingham, the phone number for Beeston test centre is 0115 922 9458. The phone number for Colwick MPTC is 0115 961 1593. The phone number for Clifton test centre is the same as for Colwick. I do not know the number for Watnall as I haven’t used it yet.
Just for information, I wrote the above on Saturday – the day after it snowed. At Colwick, all tests were cancelled yesterday (Monday). So far, all the morning ones today (Tuesday) are cancelled. Mine was one of them. If anything, it was colder Tuesday than Monday (still -2°C at 10.00am),
The Colwick test centre car park is covered in snow and ice, and bay lines are not clearly visible. The driveway, which is on a slope, is also icy. The roads on the Colwick industrial estate are compacted sheet ice in the shadows where the sun doesn’t get on them. Almost all side roads on the surrounding residential areas are in a similar condition. There are random patches of ice at junctions where dolts who have not cleared snow off their cars have dropped it when they’ve braked hard. Even if any of this melts by late afternoon, it freezes up again overnight and takes until midday to start melting again.
Anyone who blames the DVSA for playing safe and cancelling tests in these conditions is an arsehole.
I originally wrote about this back in 2011 as a result of people asking which lane they should choose at traffic lights and how they should merge back in later on. But there is a lot more to the topic than just traffic lights – it applies to junctions, roundabouts, and normal driving.
Not choosing the correct lane and not staying in lane is one of the most common causes of driving test failure. It is marked on the DL25 Driving Test Report under section 23, Positioning, and the ticks can go in either the normal driving or lane discipline boxes depending on what has happened. Furthermore, not staying in lane can lead to faults for observation and mirror checks. You just have to face the fact that poor lane discipline – whether through bad decisions or simply not realising you’re doing it – means that you’re unlikely to be checking what’s happening behind you. This is especially true at roundabouts and complex junctions with multiple lanes, where you will be concentrating on what’s in front.
The reasons why people abuse lanes are many and varied, and run all the way from deliberate arrogance through to blind panic as a result of not knowing the correct procedure to start with, There’s not much anyone can do to help you sort out your driving behaviour if you’re an evil little chav (or an Audi or taxi driver) who simply has to get in front of as many people as possible before cutting into a small space just before your turn. But if it is just a result of not understanding then there is a lot you can do to fix things.
Satellite Images – You can zoom into any roundabout or junction using Google Maps or Google Earth in the comfort of your own home. If you know what you are looking for (and at – many people are as bad at interpreting aerial maps as they are at choosing lanes), and can translate this into the ground level view, you can work out how lanes work at junctions and roundabouts. With Google Earth, roundabouts in many big cities can be “driven through” at ground level using your mouse scroll wheel.
Detailed Diagrams – Driving instructors often have access to roundabout diagrams, and these can be useful for explaining the basics. However, most diagrams are generic and don’t accurately represent actual layouts of many real world roundabouts. If you search hard enough, you might come across detailed blueprints taken from council highways department archives, and these can help if you are able to strip away the complexity.
Arrow Diagrams – Driving instructors ought to know how all the local roundabouts work in fine detail. One way they can help you understand the flow is by converting the aerial view into an arrow diagram. Take this example of a roundabout system close to the Colwick Test Centre in Nottingham. This is the satellite view taken from Google Earth.
You can pick out the lane markings quite easily when you zoom in, but because of the overall scale you can’t get a single-page printout which shows all the detail.
Here’s the same roundabout system showing the route from Lady Bay Bridge at the lower left of the aerial image, along Meadow Lane, and either turning left towards the city centre or right towards Colwick (and the Test Centre).
It’s not intended to be to scale. It is only intended to show lane layouts.
Lane Discipline
Using this diagram, if your intended route from Lady Bay Bridge was towards the city centre, your lane choice (i.e. “discipline”) should ideally be as shown by the green dots below. If you automatically followed the route shown by yellow dots without thinking then you would be exhibiting poor lane discipline.
There are several reasons why you might correctly choose the yellow route (e.g. heavy traffic in the left lane, or planning to turn right further on), but it is not the default choice.
Lane Discipline at Traffic Lights
At traffic lights you often find that the road splits into two lanes, then merges back into one just after. This happens where there is a junction, and it’s purpose is to prevent people being held up by those who are turning. It is effectively an overtaking lane meant to keep traffic flowing.
Under normal circumstances you should stay in the left hand lane. If you know what you are doing you can overtake in the right hand lane, but you must be able to confidently handle the merge back on the other side. For a learner on their driving test, that could be either a huge bag of brownie points if they get it right, or a serious fault (and fail) if they don’t.
Remember that at a crossroads, as well as people turning left there may be others turning right, so if you move into the right hand lane you could get stuck behind those waiting for a gap in the traffic. Annoyingly, many people wait right until they have stopped in the middle of the junction before signalling, so you have got to be careful. Never assume that the right hand lane is the “fast” lane. It usually isn’t – something the Audi drivers and boy racers never seem to learn, and if you have remained in the left hand lane be ready for these trying to cut back in again.
What is meant by “lane discipline”?
It means choosing the correct lane at the appropriate time and – to a certain extent – staying in that lane.
If road markings or road signs indicate which lanes to use to head off in certain directions and you wait until the last moment to change, then you are guilty of poor lane discipline. If you straddle lanes or wander out of your own lane then you are also guilty. You could also be marked for poor planning, normal driving position, observation/safety (if you don’t realise you’re doing it), response to traffic signs/markings, and so on.
Another update to an older post, which has seen an increased number of hits recently.
A while ago, I suddenly started getting hits from someone (the same person) searching using “will you fail if you use clutch brake”. I’m not quite sure what they were asking, so here’s a summary of how to control the car (assuming you know the basics, of course).
Imagine you’re approaching a t-junction to turn right. Imagine it is a slight downward slope. So, on your approach you will look at what is going on around you, assess it, decide what you’re going to do once to arrive, then do it. Basically, this will either be “go” or “don’t go”. I am guessing that the question people keep asking is based on the “don’t go” option, and they want to know how they should handle it.
So, you’ve arrived at the junction and had to stop. You’ve put the car into 1st gear, you’ve got the clutch down, and the footbrake on. The options you have are:
if you can see it is going to be clear to go after a couple of cars have passed, you don’t need to use the handbrake
if you’re going to wait for any significant length of time (e.g. if you can’t tell when it is going to be clear), use the handbrake and release the footbrake
when you see a gap coming, get ready
once it is clear, drive away normally
Now imagine the exact same situation, except that you are going up a slight incline. You get to the give way lines at the junction. Your options are now:
if you can see it will be clear to go after a few cars, you could use the upward gradient along with a little gas/bite to slow the car to a crawl, and time your arrival to meet the gap (you could do this in 2nd gear, though 1st gear is most likely the best option)
you could use the gradient to stop, and hold the car still using gas/bite, then just drive away from this position when the gap appears
you could stop, apply the handbrake, then find the gas/bite and take the handbrake off again to meet the gap when it comes
if you have to wait for any significant length of time, use the handbrake anyway
I think this is what the question is about: is it OK to hold the car on gas/bite (i.e. to “ride the clutch”). The answer is yes – as long as it isn’t to excess and you’re in control . The driving examiner will look at how you use the clutch in these situations.
When you are out on the road, look at how many cars rock back and forth at traffic lights (so not good at holding it on the bite). Look at how many people sit with the brake lights on (so probably not using the handbrake at all). Look how many people roll back when they move off (so not good at finding the bite).
Riding the clutch properly takes practice if you want to avoid it going wrong, and not many people are as good as they think they are at controlling the car this way, which is why you see these things when you are out there. The drivers involved are often just lazy, and if you do it like that on your test then you are asking for trouble. Be careful, and don’t be afraid of the handbrake (although try to avoid using it for every little pause).
It’s worth pointing out that holding the car at the bite point too much wears down the clutch plates. A new clutch plate should last for 60-100,000 miles or more. If you ride it a lot – and badly – it can fail in less than 20,000 miles. And since they cost several hundred pounds to replace (my old Citroen Xantia cost me £395 + VAT when I had it done about 12 years ago, and one of my ex-pupils recently told me he’d been quoted not much less than £1,000 for his Mondeo), it isn’t something you want to be having replaced regularly.
It isn’t written anywhere that you must be able to ride the clutch like an expert. The examiner doesn’t automatically expect you to drive like one, although if you do then he cannot fail to be impressed – which might work in your favour if you make a small mistake somewhere else. However, if you come to a set of lights (or a crossing) which have just changed to red and you make no attempt to use the handbrake, and you do it regularly or get into a mess because of it, you’re chasing down a fault.
One last thing: personally, I don’t like my pupils finding the bite when they have the footbrake on, so I don’t teach them to do it and I stop them doing it if they develop the habit while they’re with me (it can develop by itself when a pupil isn’t sure how to coordinate their feet). The reason is that without gas the risk of stalling – which is already quite high in a learner – is that much greater. But if I get someone who can already drive, I don’t try to stop them finding the bite with the footbrake on unless it causes them to stall, causes delays in moving away, or results in jerky control (which is very often does). The examiners will view it that way, too, and you won’t fail for it unless it leads to other problems.
Do you use the clutch to brake?
NO! You use the brake to brake – the clue is in the name. You only put the clutch down if:
you’re changing gear
you’re stopping
you’re going slowly and you are deliberately coasting to control the car
If you immediately put the clutch down when you want to slow down from normal speeds, the car will not decelerate at all except due to gravity. If you’re going down a hill or around a corner gravity or centrifugal force will actually make it speed up. It’s called “coasting”, and the lack of engine braking is one big reason why you shouldn’t coast around most corners or for extended distances.
If you want to slow down, the first thing you should do is take your foot off the gas. The engine will slow down, and if the clutch is up it will cause the wheels (and therefore the car) to slow down. This is what is known as “engine braking”. You lose all that if you put the clutch down and break the connection between the engine and wheels.
But should you never coast?
As I said above, you can coast at low speeds if you need to control the car (e.g. in slow-moving traffic) – after all, it would be stupid if you were travelling at 5mph (the slowest many cars will go with no gas and the clutch up) when everyone around you was travelling at 2mph. You coast a little every time you change gear or come to a halt. And some corners – very sharp ones, for example – lend themselves to coasting (partially, at least) because you have to go very slowly. Just make sure you regain full control by finding the bite as soon as it is safe to do so.
If you’ve had someone teach you to change down through the gears (“sequential changing”) instead of just slowing down and going into the one you need, you should not put the clutch down and keep it down while you change through all the gears. The whole point of sequential changing is that you bring the clutch up after each gear change to utilise engine braking.
So are you saying it’s OK to coast?
People have a major hang-up over the issue of coasting, and even most instructors (and driving books) just think of it as riding along at speed in neutral, or free-wheeling around corners with the clutch down. Both of those things are bad, and they’re what gives coasting a deserved bad name.
However, coasting is a description of something, not a chronic illness. As soon as you pull over and stop the car, you have to coast a little. When you change gear, you coast a little. When you stop at traffic lights, you coast a little. And when you are moving very slowly, there comes a point where you have to coast, otherwise you could end up driving into the back of someone or something.
So, when you do a turn in the road, if you don’t coast at least a little, you’re likely to end up on the pavement or ramming hard into the kerb. At very low speeds in heavy traffic, coasting – in the sense of describing the control technique used – is a useful and essential tool. But this does not mean you should fling the car around corners on two wheels with the clutch down or listen to your taxi driver when he tells you coasting down hills in neutral saves on fuel. Coasting like that is dangerous.
A reader sent me this link a while back, and I forgot to mention it. It’s a little bit of satire which – like most satire – has more than a grain of truth attached to it.
The best thing is for you to read it for yourselves. But in a nutshell, the point it is making can be summed up as follows.
John Man is a young violinist who has been struggling for years to overcome his limitations as a musician…
“I tried just playing the way I want over and over and over again, hoping that it would get better,” he said. “It never did! It was like, the more I played it the same way the more it would sound the same. What could I do?”
Finally, out of sheer desperation, Man started doing what his teacher had been telling him to do in every lesson for the past five years. “The results have been incredible!” said Man. “It’s as if following the advice of an older, more experienced musician allows me to somehow cultivate effective working habits better than my own.”
It illustrates clearly the confusion over what “coaching” actually means among many driving instructors. Many would argue that Man’s original approach – to do it his way, and to ignore the advice of those who know better – was how coaching should be (this is how many of those who post on forums see it). In fact, his teacher was the coach, and when he started doing what he was told he managed to start improving beyond what he’d been taught. That’s real coaching.
I recently wrote about a pupil of mine who passed her test in spite of serious misgivings I had concerning her ability to perform under pressure. It turns out that I was wrong – and I’m more than prepared to admit that.
Normally, I don’t have an issue with my pupils being test ready. It’s quite simple: if they’re ready, they’re ready. I know when that is. End of. However, maybe a handful of pupils in a hundred turn out to be real wild cards, and even though they can do everything required of them some of the time on their lessons, they can’t do it all of the time. The $64,000 question is: does that mean they’re not test ready?
A lot of instructors become far too involved, and the point at which their responsibilities end and the pupil’s begin becomes blurred.
I noticed on a forum recently that someone posted how they’d taken a pupil to test who had previously failed with 3 driver faults and one serious fault. The pupil only took a single lesson due to financial constraints between that test and the next. Apparently, the pupil drove well on that lesson, and on the journey to the test centre. But the ADI concludes that the subsequent fail with 8 driver faults and 3 serious faults meant that the pupil wasn’t ready for the test. I can only go on what is written, but that is absolute nonsense. If they could drive well, they were test ready, and the fail was for other reasons.
There are more factors involved than people seem to realise. To start with, most pupils are far more nervous on their second attempt than on their first (not my fault, I can assure you). Secondly, whenever I’ve sat in, I’m sometimes slightly surprised at what some examiners let go just as I am slightly surprised at what others mark as faults. One pupil of mine recently bay parked with more than three quarters of his wheel in the neighbouring bay, but the examiner said he was “on the line” and let it go. I know that virtually every other examiner would have marked it as a fail (I certainly teach them that any part of the car in the neighbouring bay is chasing down a fail). This sort of thing isn’t common – and I have no issue whatsoever with any of my examiners up this way – but it does illustrate the natural variation in standards adopted by different examiners. So what might be seen as a “good” fail with only a couple of faults by an ADI might not be as good as he or she believes had it been marked slightly more harshly.
Then there is the simple issue of time, and its effect on things. One test might be in light traffic and good weather, whereas the next could be in horrendous conditions – God help a pupil on test who drives within half a mile of a school during the mummy run. In one test, the pupil might be emotionally balanced, and yet come the next attempt they might have family or personal issues on their minds. I remember at least two of my pupils over the years who had been openly threatened with losing their jobs if they didn’t pass, and another whose new “dream job” as an apprentice was conditional upon him passing.
And let’s not forget the Hand of Fate, where the jackass who wasn’t there last time decides to approach a junction at warp speed, to pull out, or to attempt to give priority where he shouldn’t, causing a chain of events that result in the pupil messing up under the pressure. One of mine once failed because she braked hard on a mini roundabout when a taxi cut her up, and then got stuck as every twat to her right started piling out over the roundabout regardless (that could happen to anyone, especially if the car has driving school livery on it). The list could go on indefinitely.
There is no way we can teach pupils for every eventuality. Sure, we can teach them how to deal with someone cutting in because it happens often. But we can’t teach them how to handle an armed police raid on a drugs den (it happened to one of mine on her test a few years ago). We can teach them how to deal with an ambulance coming up behind with its lights and siren going. But we can’t always teach them how to handle four unmarked police cars attempting to break the sound barrier, a 24 hour bus lane, and a dickhead behind who didn’t move over after we did, and then pulled up almost alongside us so that the police cars were held up, thus creating a situation that could only result in panic for a new and inexperienced driver (it happened on a lesson I was conducting two days ago). We can tell them to stay calm until the cows come home, but we can’t stop them being nervous to the point of vomiting if that’s part of their biology (I taught a brother, two sisters, and a cousin where ADHD, suspected Autism, and related traits were clearly inherited all the way down the line on the maternal side; and another where Autism in the son is clearly linked somehow with the diagnosed anxiety issues among the mother and all of her immediate family). And we can teach them how to anticipate what others will do until we’re blue in the face, but if they brake sharply on test because the clown in front decides to turn left or right without indicating and they didn’t realise what he was up to, they’re probably going to fail – even though anyone else, including the examiner, might also have done the same.
I’ve said it before, but the driving test is only the beginning of a lifelong learning curve. The test does not yield perfect drivers – and it has never pretended to do so. ADIs need to start remembering this instead of trying to conduct mock tests in their hi-vis jackets and expecting zero faults all the time.
This article was written in June, and the “vipers’ comments” I referred to relate to those I read on various forums at that time. However, I notice the subject has cropped up again recently.
This came in via the DVSA email alerts, and it reports that the Hazard Perception Test (HPT) has won the John Smart Road Safety award at this years’ Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT) awards. As you can imagine, this has caused a few of the usual vipers out there to burst out of their holes and start flinging their favoured lines around.
The award was primarily for the study and the effort that went into it – not for the simple process of sitting in front of a computer screen for 90 minutes in order to complete the Theory Test.
For anyone who is interested, a “cohort study” is a complex analytical method used in situations where things aren’t just black or white. For example, the human body is extremely complex, and so are most drugs, and a particular drug might not affect everyone in the same way, or it might have unwanted side effects which only show up in some people. It isn’t simply a case of being able to say “well, he took the drug and it didn’t affect him, therefore the problem isn’t with the drug”. A cohort study can help pin down the cause by looking at groups of people and data which apply to them. Unfortunately, such studies involve statistics, and most ADIs are self-proclaimed anti-experts on this subject – often summed up on web forums when someone posts their favourite mantra that there are “lies, damned lies, and statistics”.
And they wonder why no one – including the DVSA – wants to listen to them!
Learning to drive – and driving safely thereafter – is also a hugely complex issue. It simply cannot be broken down into something as simple as what, for example, happens when you mix two different colours of paint! For that reason, two cohort studies have been carried out – Cohort I covered the period 1988-1998, and Cohort II covered the period 1998-2007. The second study straddled the introduction of the HPT in 2002.
You can read the full findings for yourselves, but key points were:
The average amount [of lessons with an ADI] was 52 hours, but half of the candidates had less than 40 hours of professional instruction. In Cohort I, the average was 31 hours.
The total driving experience for [test] passers averaged 67 hours [in Cohort II), compared with 49 hours in Cohort I.
In the first six months after the practical test, nearly two in ten respondents (19%) reported having an accident and seven in ten respondents (70%) reported having a near accident. As new drivers gained experience, the number of accidents they reported decreased and the severity of accidents increased.
The introduction of the hazard perception test was associated with some reduction in subsequent accident liability in the first year of driving, depending on the type of accident. For reported nonlow-speed accidents on a public road where the driver accepted some blame, the accident liability of those who had taken the hazard perception test was significantly lower than those who had not.
The higher the score achieved in the hazard perception test, the lower the accident liability for some types of accidents in the first year of driving.
If you read the bulk of the report, it is explained that following the introduction of HPT, more time was spent by candidates studying for the Theory Test (TT), and there was an increased use of visual materials. This detail alone is completely overlooked by the aforementioned naysayers, and yet it clearly implies that the HPT has made candidates think more about what they are doing. The report then adds:
Multivariate analysis showed that the introduction of the hazard perception test was associated with a reduction in subsequent accident liability for some types of accident in the first year of driving. The size of the effect varies with the type of accident.
The naysayers will be totally lost with this statement, but what it is saying is that there was a distinct statistical reduction in some types of accident following introduction of the HPT. It goes on to explain:
For reported non-low-speed accidents on a public road where the driver accepted some blame, accident liability for the first year of
those who had taken the hazard perception test was significantly lower than that of those who had not. There is also a predictive relation between the hazard perception score and levels of reported accidents in the first year, suggesting that there is scope for reducing accidents by improving hazard perception skills.
When something is “significantly” lower you cannot simply discount it just because you don’t understand it, or because you have some existing prejudice to defend. In conclusion, the report states:
Cohort II also provides the first persuasive evidence of a safety benefit associated with the introduction of hazard perception testing in the driver testing regime. The results suggest that the better people are at identifying hazards in the test, the better they are at avoiding accidents in future.
With that, it is simply stating fact – the evidence is right there – yet it doesn’t make any direct claims because, as already mentioned, the topic is far too complex for that.
I have said before that even in the worst possible case, the HPT would have had a neutral effect, However, it is hard to imagine that it would have had no effect at all – the fact that prior to it, there was nothing except what a pupil learned on lessons, whereas now there is the lessons AND the HPT. Certainly the HPT will not have had a negative effect, or increased accident rates, although I remember some idiot trying to claim this a couple of years ago.
I don’t believe for a second that every positive thing is down to the introduction of HPT. Every pupil is different, and pupils as a whole in 2014 are different to those in 1998, and those in turn were different to those from 1988. However, you’d have to be a completely biased moron to try and dismiss the results as providing no support whatsoever for HPT.
HPT is better than nothing. And the results from Cohort II clearly support this.
This article from 2013 has also started attracting a lot of hits.
The article I wrote about how to reverse around a corner is very popular. I note that many people find it using search terms like “which way should I steer” or “I get confused which way to steer when reversing”.
I find that the majority of people have a problem with which way to steer – at least to begin with – and for some it remains a problem for them. The last two weeks alone, I’ve had this conversation with about half a dozen pupils. Maybe this explanation I’ve been using will help you work out how to overcome any problems.
I’m not going to give a lesson on psychology, but the diagram above represents how your brain has a conscious and a sub-conscious part. The sub-conscious part is programmed with habits and instincts, and it kicks in when you’re stressed or under pressure. You can think of it as the little voice in your head that makes you do things without you realising.
If you play football or tennis, the way you dribble the ball or strike it with the racquet is something you don’t really have to think about. However, when you first started out you had to think about it a lot until you’d got it nailed down. What you had to do was use your conscious mind to develop new habits in the sub-conscious part. Once you had installed your new skills as habits in your sub-conscious, playing the game became a formality.
It’s exactly the same when learning to drive, and especially when reversing. Somehow or other – and it happens for different reasons for different people – your brain will have acquired the sub-conscious habit of steering the wrong way when you reverse. When carrying out a reverse around a corner you’ll already be a little stressed, so your sub-conscious usually takes over and makes you steer the wrong way. It can be incredibly frustrating, especially when your conscious side knows which way you should steer – but that’s where the answer lies, and you have to try and make use of it.
The trick is to keep stopping, which cuts the stress right down, and consciously working out which way you should steer. Or in other words, trying to prevent your sub-conscious from assuming control. If you can do that, there’s no real magic involved from there onwards: you steer left if you want to move the car closer to the kerb; and you steer right if you want to move away from it. You have to be careful not to think too much, though, because that means your sub-conscious will be arguing with your conscious – you have to simplify the decision-making process as much as possible. As soon as you allow your sub-conscious to chime in with “ah, yes. But…” the whole thing is likely to go wrong again.
For some people it’s still a huge challenge. I had one this week who was even arguing with me over which way to steer, and another who has big problems preventing her sub-conscious from interfering (even when I ask her “which side is the kerb”? So which way will you steer?” there is a pause while she tries to weigh up her conscious saying “left with her sub-conscious screaming “but you’re reversing, so it must be the other way”).
So remember. Keep stopping. Steer towards the kerb to get closer to it, and steer away from the kerb to move away from it.
The DVSA has reported its findings and conclusions following the consultation earlier this year into modernising driver training. The details of the outcome are as follows:
The government introduced a simpler grading structure for approved driving instructors (ADIs) on 7 April 2014.
The government has also decided to:
take steps to help ADIs publish and publicise their grade
look at the options for replacing the ADI part 3 test with one that uses the same criteria and marking system as the ADI standards check
continue to look at the possibilities of introducing a vocational qualification, while making sure that concerns raised can be addressed
talk to the driver training industry about how we can best reform the trainee instructor licence
start work on an online booking service for ADI standards checks
consult separately about changing the ADI fee structure
change the law so an ADI can ask for their name to be removed from the ADI register
provide the option for an ADI to take an ADI standards check to renew a lapsed registration, after talking about the practical implications of this with the ADI national associations
not pursue the introduction of fines (called ‘civil sanctions’) that the ADI Registrar could issue to ADIs for the time being
The grading structure is obviously already implemented – apart from the information in the embedded link in the quoted text above, I wrote about it back in March.
Of those yet to be implemented, the wording of the first one is interesting. It’s being interpreted ambiguously by many of the radical rabble-rousers out there. If you look at it objectively, what the DVSA is saying is that they will “help” ADIs publish and publicise their grade. They don’t actually say that they ARE going to publish them whether ADIs like it or not, yet it is that threat – which first surfaced several years ago – and I think it is that earlier proposition which prevents many of the radicals seeing this current statement for what it is.
The second one is also interesting. Recently, some crackpot had concluded on a forum that I had declared somewhere that they had replaced the PST marking sheets. Actually, I had said nothing of the kind – what I had said was that in view of the changes to the Check Test, with it becoming the Standards Check and all, with the integration of CCL topics within that I couldn’t imagine that the Part 3 test would remain as it was. I simply pointed out that if the PST sheets changed, I would obtain copies and provide them for download. So I think this particular outcome vindicated my comments completely, though anyone with an ounce of common sense would have realised the Part 3 was going to have to change. Whether it does or not even after this is another matter – there’s a General Election next year, and all of this may end up swept into the gutter.
There’s further talk of reforming the trainee (pink) licence. Previously, the talk was of getting rid of it completely, though this has been scaled back to merely “changing” it. It’s still as far away from actually changing as it was three years ago. And as I say, there’s an election next year.
All the other stuff is fairly niche, and doesn’t really affect most instructors (well, not unless they’re fully paid-up unionistas, in which case every syllable and letter has to be nit-picked to death).
On a different note, it’s worth looking at some of the responses which are quoted verbatim in a separate document accessible from the findings link. Apart from the appalling typing, grammar, and spelling, I couldn’t believe one response to the issue of vocational qualifications. The respondent has written just short of 6,000 words in his reply! Others have used the opportunity to have a go at the DSA/DVSA. I love this one:
The current system is useless
Bless. I bet it took him all night to write that, and no doubt he had help! But it illustrates why the DVSA is sometimes reluctant to listen to “the industry” or “the associations” if this is the kind of input they’re going to get. The current system isn’t useless. It could be better, but no one knows how at the moment – after all, Mr “the current system is useless” is typical of those who propose alternatives simply by virtue of opposing the current state of affairs.
That’s what Surepass are advertising! And I wonder how long this advertisement in the Bromsgrove Advertiser stays up if the ASA gets wind of it?
I don’t have a problem with people advertising instructor training. I don’t care if its an individual or a large school, and as long as they qualify their claims, they can dangle whatever carrots they like. The reason for this is that the vast majority of instructors fail at a business level – and that’s assuming that they even make it through the three exams and qualify in the first place.
I’m uneasy about this Surepass advert for several reasons. Firstly, it is advertised under “catering – hospitality” and “retail – wholesale”, and it is described as “job type – permanent”. Being a driving instructor is none of those things. The first two are just clumsy, and the last one is completely wrong (unless Surepass are actually employing salaried instructors now). Instructors are self-employed, not employed.
We’re also back to the old “salary: £20,000 to £30,000 /year” claims. While this isn’t technically wrong, it is extremely misleading. There is no way a £30,000 salary can be guaranteed when the person earning it is selling lessons for £20 an hour, and having to provide a car and fuel. It’s possible, but you simply cannot guarantee it. £20,000 is a far more realistic claim, especially for a new instructor. However, if you look at their instructor pages they also talk of £40,000 and even £45,000 a year gross earnings! Maybe they need a lesson in the differences between turnover and income, as they seem to be getting them mixed up.
Surepass also make some very strong claims. They reckon they have a 90% pass rate for Part 3, and further claim that this is 67% higher than the industry average. They also refer to a “guaranteed income”. As I say, unless they are employing people rather than selling franchises this is a very tenuous claim (the ad actually says you will be franchised).
The advert also refers to a “guaranteed car”, though I couldn’t see a car option in any of their franchise packages, nor is one mentioned on their instructor training pages. The maximum gross earnings figure appears to increase the bigger the franchise you sign up to.
However, the biggest problem with the ad is the use of the word “free”. Every occurrence is marked with an asterisk, which means that there are conditions attached. But nowhere in the ad are these conditions explained. Indeed, when you click the “Apply Now” button, you’re informed that it costs £2,500, and there is still no explanation of the word “free”. I guess that to find out you have to actually apply, and that is surely not right.
I’ve predicted several times this year that there is likely to be a new rush to offer instructor training, and this is the sort of thing I was referring to.
One from the newsfeeds drags the old chestnut about teaching 11-year olds to drive. I’ve written about this before, most recently last year, but it goes back further.
Let’s not try and disguise the fact that the main beneficiaries are the people who provide these lessons – not those who take them. A normal, quality learner lesson costs about £23-£25, but these things are charged at £60 an hour. There is absolutely no way the vast majority of those taking them are going to get up to test standard at that price, and the “lessons” amount to little more than a ride round a go-kart track in a real car. Indeed, I recently took on a pupil who had had one of these sessions, and in absolute honesty you couldn’t tell. She was no different to someone who’d sat in the car on a driveway or in a car park with mum or dad and made the car go forward a bit.
That was in 2012. He will be 13 now, and still has at least four years to go before he can drive legally. Unless mummy and daddy have kept up the lessons (and they’ll have forked out up to £1,500 by now even at one lesson a month, assuming he hasn’t got bored of driving round the same circuit) he will have done nothing.
This current story is almost an exact parallel:
[name removed] is 11 and was very excited at the prospect of driving a car for the first time.
I’ll bet he was. And I’ll also bet that it will come as a major disappointment when he realises that unless mummy and daddy have very deep pockets, it will also be the last time for at least the next six years. Well, legally, anyway.
Then there is this comment:
Given [name removed] is just 5ft he was given three cushions to make sure he was high enough to see over the steering wheel and reach the all important pedals.
Or, in other words, he is too small to drive safely in the first place. And even then, going by the photo, he is barely at eye-level with the steering wheel.
And the most telling comment:
As the hour lesson goes on his confidence is clearly building and we are getting quicker.
Oh dear. Getting “quicker”. And there we have the common denominators in the majority of accidents involving new drivers – over-confident and too fast for their ability.
These courses do absolutely nothing to help children’s’ Immature and juvenile minds, and they simply cannot handle adult activities like driving. Nor should they be expected to, and they definitely shouldn’t be encouraged to try.
