DVSA - Diary Of An ADI

DVSA: Abolition Of Licence Counterpart – Update

12/06/2015

Updated.

This was first flagged (officially) back in December 2014, and the initial email warned that from 8 June 2015 the paper counterpart of the licence would no longer be valid. Licence counterpart - RIP

DVSA has issued an update now that the deadline is imminent (as of this update, it is now in force) – and this is aimed at ADIs.

As an approved driving instructor, this will mean the following for you and your pupils:

When presenting for lessons

You can check your pupil’s photo card licence for ID purposes. However if you want to carry out further entitlement checks you can do so by using either of the following:

‘Share Driving Licence’, DVLA’s new online driving licence enquiry service

DVLA’s existing telephone, post and intermediary enquiry services

This user guide gives further information about how you can carry out further entitlement checks.

This user guide tells your pupils how they can share their driving licence with you.

Several things are apparent from this. Firstly, ADIs only really need to check the photo card for ID purposes (which is precisely what I said in ~~the latest issue of ADI News~~ (June 2015)). But if they still want to do the James Bond bit and find pupils’ inside leg measurements, those two links in the above quote provide the means and the explanation for doing so, because it turns out that the new Show Licence system allows temporary sharing of the information. I’ve given step by step instructions on the Information page.

The DVSA email makes it clear that entitlement checks will have been carried out at the time their test was booked. Examiners will not be doing any additional checks on the day of the test other than looking at the photo card. I suppose that ADIs come in earlier in the learning process and have slightly (and I mean “slightly”) more reason to want to check entitlement – the View Licence service shows penalty points and disqualifications. However, it is not necessary for an ADI to routinely carry out this check – 99 times out of a hundred all they need to do is check the photo card.

One significant change is the fact that pupils are going to have to send off their licences on their own when they pass if they have switched addresses at any point. Fortunately, they won’t have to pay for it and they can do it online or by post – I’ve given more details on the Information page.

Pupils with EU/EEA licences will need to apply for a D91 form before they can book their tests. At the moment, I cannot find any reference to D91 other than in this DVSA email. That must be on its way.

You should destroy your counterpart after 8 June 2015 (I’d wait until 9 June if I were you).

Edit: I noticed someone on a forum complaining that pupils wouldn’t be comfortable entering their National Insurance number in front of the ADI on a laptop in the car. Erm! I don’t think that’s how it works.

What happens is that the licence holder (pupil) generates a code at home, or wherever they would normally access the system, using the View Licence feature. They send this code to their instructor, who then uses the separate Check Licence feature to redeem the code (the ADI also needs the last 8 digits of the pupil’s licence, which they should have anyway). The code is valid for 72 hours and can only be used once.

The system is designed such that non-essential confidential information is not compromised. The pupil shouldn’t be doing it in the car with the instructor present, and the instructor shouldn’t be requesting that they do so.

Edit: I noticed on another forum – and in spite of DVSA setting out clearly how to do it – someone complaining about having to handle NI numbers or obtain “printouts” from pupils.

Look, people! The pupil logs into a special site and obtains a share code. They give this share code to their instructor, who then logs on to a totally separate site using the code – not their NI number – and is then able to see their licence details.

Yes, the pupil could print the code out. But they could also text or email it – the email option in particular allows cut-and-paste of their share code. It really isn’t rocket science.

I’ve given step by step instructions on the Information page.

Edit: I’ve had several tests since 8 June and examiners are definitely not asking for the paper counterpart. You can dispose of yours without any worries.

Edit: Just a reminder that the vast majority of ADIs do not need to access online licence details for the vast majority of their pupils. Unless specific entitlement details are required which are not shown on the photo card, ADIs do not need the other information. They just think they do, and are creating needless extra work for themselves and pointless embarrassment for their pupils by requesting access.

Beeston Test Centre Plausible Pettiness II

12/06/2015

DOAADI

Driving Tests, DVSA

Only a few days ago, I wrote about how a notice had appeared stuck up on just about every wall in the building which houses the Beeston Test Centre informing driving instructors that they MUST stay in the waiting room while their pupils are out on test, that they MUST NOT go into the reception area, and that they MUST pass through the reception quickly when entering or exiting the building in order not to be seen by anyone who might be visiting.

The tone of the notice suggests that typical visitors include royalty, senior politicians, and the non-corporeal figureheads of most major religions.

Shortly after I published that article I received an email via the Contact Form from an instructor in this area. Here’s what he or she says (the email address doesn’t make their gender clear):

I saw your story about those letters at the Beeston test centre and thought you would like to hear what happened to me today.

It was a nice day and I went into the reception to get a coffee so I could go and sit outside. I saw the reception woman come in and I could feel her standing somewhere behind me. I assumed she was waiting to make sure I didn’t sit down anywhere so I ignored her. I picked up my coffee and went to the door. As I was just outside I heard “excuse me, excuse me”. I turned and said “yes” – spilling hot coffee all over my hand as I did so. She just said “THREE cups? THREE?”

What I had done is use three paper cups nested inside each other because the coffee from that machine is very hot and you can’t walk far without having to put it down. Unable to bitch at me for sitting down in the foyer she decided to go for something else. Like I said she was standing behind me just looking for something to complain about. I just said “its because the coffee is hot. Why don’t you put up another notice about it?” and walked out.

I’m not sure if I would have been as diplomatic. All I can say is “three cups! I mean, THREE paper-bloody-cups”. Someone call the police.

One thing I didn’t realise is that the woman in question is new. I never had any problems with the previous receptionist, who was quite friendly, nor did I encounter any loud or noisy instructors. However, it would appear that this harridan is prepared to lie through her back teeth to get what she wants, and from what I have been able to pick up from others ADIs have been smoking, crack-dealing, and plotting bank heists using a 500W PA system just outside this woman’s lair. Such has been the nature of the justifications given to DVSA prior to posting all those notices. Whenever I sat in there, I saw very few other instructors. What I did see, though, was an endless stream of noisy and dirty workmen and delivery boys.

DVSA is a tenant of the Beeston Business Centre just as much as anyone else. I can only assume that this vicious woman – who never seems to do any work – is either prejudiced against them and/or learners and instructors, or is just a bitch to everyone who works there.

The centre manager needs to get his act together quickly. He needs to remember that he (and his staff) work for the tenants – it’s not the other way around. It sends shivers down my spine, because it reminds me so much of some of the scumbags I used to have to work with. All it takes is one promotion, one single change in their job description, and their ego runs riot, sprinting miles ahead of their actual ability.

Beeston Test Centre Plausible Pettiness

04/06/2015

DOAADI

Driving Tests, DVSA

You know, when I lost my job and became self-employed I thought I was done with the rat race and its crapola for good. Unfortunately, it appears to have festered and grown, and there’s so much of it about these days it’s like stepping in dog shit every five minutes.

I don’t use the Beeston Test Centre as often as Clifton or Colwick. It’s not that I deliberately avoid it – if pupils want their tests there, then that’s where we go – but since I do a lot of my lessons on the south side of Nottingham both to avoid traffic and to get them out on different types of roads, pupils get comfortable with that area and often declare that they’d like to do their tests over that way. Personally, I find Beeston less comfortable – the chairs in the waiting room are hard, upright, and fixed against the wall, and on weekends you can’t use it at all because the main block of the Business Centre is locked up.

On normal days I like to sit quietly in the reception area with a coffee. But I can’t do that any more. This is the latest sign that has been sellotaped to just about every window and wall.

FOR THE ATTENTION OF VISITING DRIVING INSTRUCTORS

PLEASE NOTE THE MAIN BUSINESS CENTRE RECEPTION IS NOT THE DVSA WAITING ROOM, THEY PROVIDE THEIR OWN WAITING ROOM FOR THE SOLE USE OF ALL CANDIDATES AND THEIR INSTRUCTORS. THIS ROOM IS LOCATED THROUGH THE DOUBLE DOORS AT THE REAR OF RECEPTION IN UNIT A1:A2.

THE BUSINESS CENTRE IS A MULTI OCCUPIED BUILDING AND AS SUCH THIS RECEPTION AREA ACTS AS THE MAIN RECEPTION FOR ALL RESIDENT COMPANIES ALONG WITH PROSPECTIVE NEW TENANTS WHO MAYBE VIEWING THE PREMISES FOR THE FIRST TIME.

IT IS ALSO THE MAIN THOROUGHFARE AND FIRE EXIT DOORS IN THE CASE OF AN EMERGENCY AND IN LIGHT OF THIS, I AM SURE YOU WILL APPRECIATE WE MUST ENSURE THERE ARE NO OBSTRUCTIONS WHEN ENTERING OR EXITING THROUGH SAID DOORS, WHILST ALSO MAINTAINING A PROFESSIONAL FIRST IMPRESSION AT ALL TIMES.

THEREFORE, WHILST WAITING FOR YOUR PUPILS TO RETURN FROM THEIR DRIVING TESTS, PLEASE WAIT IN THE DVSA WAITING ROOM FOR THE DURATION OF THE TEST, NOT THE CENTRE’S MAIN RECEPTION. IF YOU WISH TO BE PRESENT JUST PRIOR TO THEIR RETURN, IN VIEW OF THE ABOVE CAN I RESPECTIVELY ASK THAT YOU EXIT THE BUILDING IMMEDIATELY AND REFRAIN FROM STANDING IN OR AROUND THE MAIN THOROUGHFARE AT ALL TIMES.

THANKING YOU FOR YOUR CO-OPERATION IN THIS MATTER.

CENTRE MANAGER

It’s slightly ironic they should mention “professionalism” and “[first appearances]” – I’ve always considered that having stupid Do This/Don’t Do That signs stuck up all over the place is about as unprofessional as you can get. And don’t even get me started on how pathetically childish it is.

From what I can gather, and having spoken with others, the woman who runs the reception shares a few chromosomes with the secretaries we used to have when I was in the rat race who – far from recognising their position on the lower rungs of the ladder in the big scheme of things – believe that they’re somewhere at the top. The problem is that in the modern world, ♀ + ♂ = ♀♀♀, so for all practical purposes they are near the top. Secretaries always report to someone higher up than you, and if that person is a male then he has no choice but to acquiesce over any complaint they might make, since he runs the risk of finding himself the subject of a Special Report in The Sun if he doesn’t. His only recourse is to agree with her totally and sanction the erection of a bunch of stupid signs.

Just for the record, whenever I’ve sat or stood quietly in that reception area, at least half of the time it has had a constant stream of noisy blokes in dirty overalls standing around, delivery men dropping stuff off, and on more than one occasion someone talking to that receptionist for the whole 40 minutes. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone who works in the place who was photogenic enough to be seen by the public in that reception area.

Among the other signs that have appeared, which have stopped just short of singling out ADIs, we have:

the one about closing the front door
the one about how the ladies toilet is for ladies only, and how there is a separate one for men
the one about how the office door in the corridor between the DVSA waiting room and the male toilet is not the male toilet

All of these are in addition to signs that are specific to other tenants concerning waste recycling, the state the ladies toilets are being left in, and so on. There’s hardly any wall space left.

Thinking back, it all started when the DVSA first located to the Beeston Business Park. The first time I went there I hadn’t got a clue where to go after I entered the building. However, as my first test at Beeston was a few weeks after it opened, there was already another bloody printed sign on the reception desk with a terse message about where to go. You could smell the “attitude” even then – the receptionist obviously got tired of directing people very quickly.

One thing is clear: DVSA are not welcome as tenants of the Business Park. After all, none of the other tenants are confined to their offices, and ordered to exit the building immediately they leave them. The “centre manager” needs to get it into his skull that although there might be one or two ADIs who really are so stupid that they can’t identify a ladies toilet or close a door, not all of them are like that.

Driving Test Turns 80

01/06/2015

DOAADI

Driving Tests, DVSA, News

An email alert from DVSA reports that the driving test is 80 years old. Compulsory testing began 1 June 1935.

As you can imagine, the media has picked up the story, and this report by the BBC is interesting. I mean, there’s only so many words you can write around the premise of the test being 80 years old, so they’ve somehow managed to bring up the slightly negative issue of pass rates.

It’s not as if this is new – it was in the news in 2011, and I wrote about it then (Mallaig was still the “easiest” place to pass your test even then). The same topic has been in the news several times since, but the Beeb has obviously decided to dig it up once again.

The story is pretty mundane, but the comments made by driving instructors make it much more interesting. In the article, Belvedere in Bexley is identified as having a pass rate 15% below the average. A local instructor offers his wisdom on why this might be… no wait: on why it most definitely is:

…Mark Hewitt, who stopped taking pupils to the Belvedere test centre a year ago because of its reputation, said it was not the busy roads that make it tough.

“I don’t think it’s the test centre, it’s the examiners,” he said.

“A few of them are all right, the rest just don’t chat. They are so dead quiet. Pupils need to see that the examiners are human as well.”

Oh dear. Not again. How do these people ever become instructors? And why?

Examiners are supposed to be quiet, and the majority conduct themselves accordingly. The chattier ones soon shut up when they have their supervisor in the back assessing them, and they also know when to shut up during the test. Every test centre has a mix of quiet and not-so-quiet examiners. However, it amuses me that no matter how an examiner conducts his or her tests, there’s always someone ready to blame them for their (or their pupil’s) failure.

At one of our centres there is an examiner who you could legitimately describe as “a lovely woman”, in the sense that she is like everyone’s mum or auntie. She’s always friendly, always tries to put the candidate at ease, and always ready to have a chat about holidays or work with the pupil. But believe me when I tell you that she is the devil incarnate as far as some candidates are concerned… if she fails them. Those dreaded words “I’m sorry, but you haven’t passed” are a potent magic spell that Gandalf or Harry Potter would die for to possess. In roughly the 10 seconds it takes to say them, then have them sink in, the nicest examiner becomes an ogre. Examiners simply cannot win.

The instructor quoted in the BBC story reckons Belvedere has a lower than average pass rate because the examiners “don’t chat”. That’s just complete crap. Far more relevant is the fact that the non-UK born population in Bexley has risen by 73% in the last decade, and in some of the surrounding areas it has gone up by even more. If you look at pass rates in Barking you see a similar trend – higher immigrant population, lower pass rate compared to the national average. That – and the busy roads and frantic junctions – are bound to affect test outcomes.

It doesn’t matter that a particular test centre has a higher or lower rate, nor does the candidates’ nationality or ethnicity. The two pieces of data are merely facts which show a reasonable degree of correlation. What’s more important is that pass rate is not a probability – something I’ve written about before. A pupil who can drive well has as much chance of passing at a test centre with a 20% pass rate as they do at one with 70%, because it is bad drivers who pull the figures down.

This Is An Absolute First!

29/05/2015

DOAADI

ADI, Driving Tests, DVSA

I picked one of my pupils up for his lesson last week, and he informed me he had failed his theory test. When I questioned him, it became clear he’d failed on the hazard perception part. He’d scored 0 for it – no points whatsoever for any of the 14 clips.

I know he’d been practising, because getting his licence is important to him. So what happened for him to get no points at all?

He fell asleep!

Yup. As the HPT began, he just sat there and fell asleep. I could scarcely believe it

What caused it was a combination of things. To begin with, he is a carer, and that means he works stupid hours for little more than the minimum wage. Secondly, he has a baby daughter, and he has to look after her when his wife’s at work and he’s not. I figure that some nights he must not get any sleep at all.

But as if those two things on their own were not enough, I have discovered that he now has a second job in a hospital. It hasn’t started yet, but it is the one he’s been looking for as it carries higher pay and greater security. When I asked him why he hasn’t dumped the first job yet, his answer was that he is currently caring for someone and he wants to finish that before he hands in his notice. What a great guy.

He nearly didn’t go to the interview, either. When they called him he realised he had no one to look after the baby and said he wouldn’t be able to make it – to which they replied “bring the baby along”. So he did.

In the latter years of my time in the rat race, I was literally praying nightly for something to happen which meant I didn’t have to put up with unnecessary crap any more (my prayers were answered, of course, and I became a driving instructor). If I’d have had to put up with any more nonsense from those prats I worked for I think it would have killed me. But this pupil has it even worse.

Malware And WordPress Exploits

12/05/2015

DOAADI

ADI, Computers & Tech, DVSA

WordPress is a powerful blogging platform used by about 75 million people around the world. At least half of those host their own sites rather than use the free WordPress.com platform. That’s because you can install various plugins and themes that the free option doesn’t allow.

Of course, freedom is always quickly followed by the scammers, spammers, and general scumbags, and a recent scare reveals that some smaller sites – probably run by people who don’t update very often – are being targeted.

As you are aware, I don’t allow comments on this site. Any form of live comments system (and that includes most forums) just attracts arseholes who think they can get away with saying things to others that they would get a punch in the mouth for if they tried it face to face. But probably the most common use of any system is to post URLs linking to (often illegal) pornographic material or, increasingly, terrorism-related sites. I don’t want any of that, so I’ve disabled commenting completely.

Unfortunately, though, this is still not enough. Those scumbags I mentioned are like dog-shit – once you get some on you, you can’t easily get it off again.

I installed some new security software recently and made an odd discovery. Although my site is secure, one infected link was discovered. It seems that an article I wrote about an examiners strike contained a link to the PCS Union website, and this was possibly infected with malware (well, the destination was, according to Google). It’s gone, now.

I’m not quite sure what to make of that. My anti-union stance is well known, as is my derision of any strike by PCS staff – intended, as these are, to cause the maximum amount of inconvenience and suffering to as many innocent people as possible. But the link was definitely clean when I first posted it.

Very interesting, to say the least.

Proposed Changes to Driving Test

16/03/2015

DOAADI

ADI, DVSA, News, Training

I saw this news clip on the BBC a couple of days ago. In one way, it’s old news (if you’re an instructor who reads the relevant channels). since DVSA announced its plans well over a month ago, and is due to commence trials very soon. It was also covered in various newspapers during February. The story concerns proposals to alter the content of the driving test.

Judging from the BBC news item, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was all about cyclists yet again. The item features a woman who lost her husband (a cyclist) when he was hit by a (female) motorist who was farting about with a satnav and didn’t see him. In typical, saccharin-sweet, knee-jerk manner, this now means that the driving test should change solely to teach people about satnavs.

For f***s sake, satnavs come with an instruction manual. Even if people bothered to read it – or look at the pictures if they’re especially stupid – they are unlikely to follow any rule if it suits them not to. For example, every satnav manual in existence says – in words or in pictures – that you shouldn’t attach it directly in your field of view. Of course, that’s precisely where the vast majority of people put the damned things, where they could easily obscure the driver’s view of pedestrians, cyclists, and even other vehicles. They do it because they’re idiots – you know the ones: they have the satnav running when they go to the shops or travel to and from work – and no amount of “training” would ever make them do it any other way.

Every satnav manual also says not to use it while you are moving. Some units (and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this applied to all of them) even nag you about it every time you turn them on – on my Ford, I don’t think you can’t turn the visual nag off, and you just have to press OK each time you start it for the first time after each engine start. And yet almost every driver in existence attempts to programme them or play around with the settings while they’re moving. Again, no amount of “lessons” now will ever change that – if they want to fiddle with it while they’re driving, then they will, and no one is going to persuade them otherwise.

It’s the same with mobile phones. Every jackass 17-year old (and anyone else, come to that) knows full well they shouldn’t use them while they’re driving. But of course, that rule only applies to everyone else, and not to them.

To be honest, I’m sick and tired of cyclists being held up as sentimental shields to try and prove points against motorists. The vast majority of cyclists are far less well-behaved on the roads than the vast majority of drivers. The majority disobey almost every Highway Code rule going at one time or another (not giving signals, riding on pavements, riding across pedestrian crossings which aren’t designated for cycles, red lights, and so on). The fact that they also ignore cycle routes and deliberately mix it with traffic might well appear to be a brilliantly militant way of proving their entitlement to use the roads, but it’s bloody stupid if they end up dead as a result of being right.

If these bleeding hearts are going to keep going on about petty issues like using satnavs, maybe they need to look elsewhere for the cure. Because another thing that makes my blood boil is the number of times I see mummies and daddies stopping on yellow zigzags in the morning to let their own brats out, obviously believing the rules about stopping on those only apply to others. And those idiots in spandex who shun cycle paths to deliberately get in the way of busy traffic on national speed limit roads. Or those who ride in huge groups on narrow country lanes.

Most of those people are parents, and their arrogant and ignorant attitudes are the real reasons why idiot 17-year olds use satnavs and mobile phones while they’re driving. Pity the kids being brought up by people who behave like this. It’s inevitable that if they are being taught adult skills by a bunch of retards who think it’s fun to get in the way of lorries and cars traveling at 60 or 70mph just to prove a point (or stop where it is illegal to stop, or cross where it is illegal to cross, and so on), is it any wonder they run the risk of killing someone when they become responsible for themselves? Poor parenting is the problem, and that’s where any training ought to be taking place.

As things stand, a 40 minute test involving 10 minutes of using a satnav – one of the changes being trialled – will have as much effect on the attitude of the average 17-year old as a drop of water does on the level of the Pacific Ocean. Much bigger changes are needed.

DVSA Sinfin Derby Test Centre Moving

12/01/2015

DOAADI

Driving Tests, DVSA

This an old article, and therefore the underlying sentiment is also outdated. At the time, DVSA was closing down a lot of smaller test centres.

It looks like part of a coordinated exercise, as this email from DVSA advises that the Sinfin test centre in Derby is moving to the ex-VOSA testing station in Alveston. The timescale is similar to that for the Leicester move in the recent article, and people should carry on booking as usual in the meantime.

This one might cause a few more hisses of disapproval from the vipers, as a distance of around 4 miles is involved. Jeez, when I first started I used to cover tests at Sinfin (not many), even though I’m based in Nottingham.

An update from DVSA reports that the last test at Sinfin will be 10 February 2015. Tests as the new Alvaston centre will commence 16 February.

Where is Sinfin driving test centre?

I got this in a search query in September 2016! Short answer: it ain’t there no more!

Hazard Perception Goes CGI From Monday

09/01/2015

DOAADI

Driving Tests, DVSA, Training

This DVSA email reports that from Monday 12 January 2015, the Hazard Perception Test will switch from real clips to CGI (computer generated) ones. The Theory Test is otherwise unchanged and it is quite likely candidates will be unaware of the change – the clips are so realistic.

I can’t wait to see comments from the ignorati out there. I think I’ll open a book on who brings up “video game” first.

Incidentally, the Driving Test Success (Focus Multimedia) app now has a Vol 2, which consists of CGI clips. It only costs £1.49 and is well worth downloading.

You can scan the QR code shown here to find it, or search the app store for your phone – search for “Hazard Perception Test vol 2”.

My advice is to download ONLY the Focus Multimedia apps for the theory test (questions and hazard perception). Nothing else comes close to the quality of these.

Technically, you can get away with just downloading the volume 2 clips now, but I’d strongly advise downloading volume 1 as well if you want to have the best chance of passing. Even if you buy all three apps – questions and two HPT volumes – you’re paying less than £6 for all the training materials you will ever need.

Driving Tests And Snow 2014/15

27/12/2014

DOAADI

Driving Tests, DVSA, Training

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.

Category - DVSA