At the Beeston test centre today, all the examiners came out wearing identical reindeer sweaters. I thought that was a really nice touch. They’re all really nice people up there, and a real credit to the DVSA.
Unfortunately, my pupil failed, bringing my recent run of six passes on the trot to an end. Just one more test to go before Christmas.
An email alert from DVSA advises that from 8 June 2015 the paper counterpart will no longer be valid and will no longer be issued by DVLA.
You can find a little more information here, but basically from that date you can tear up your counterpart. Those who still have the old paper-style licences from pre-1998 should not destroy them.
DVSA says it will have more information on the run up to the abolition date on how this affects ADIs and learners.
An email alert from DVSA says that CGI clips are due to replace the current video clips from early in the new year.
The quality of the clips is stunning – I’d challenge anyone to be able to identify them as CGI while watching them. However, it will be interesting to see how quickly the usual crowd of anti-DVSA Luddites find fault. I predict that someone somewhere will post the usual asinine comment about HPT being “a computer game” before the week is out.
I hope that these clips – or similar clips, at any rate – make their way across to Driving Test Success.
An email alert from DVSA advises that next year – no dates given yet, though somewhere between January and March is mooted – Leicester’s Gipsy Lane test centre will close and tests will relocate to the ex-VOSA building on Cannock Street. Driving tests should be booked as normal in the meantime. The new location (or old, depending on how you look at it) will be refurbished before tests move there.
I’m sure the usual vipers will see something negative in this. However, since DSA and VOSA merged to become DVSA, having separate facilities would be stupid, and the new location is less than 2 miles away from the old (existing) one.
As an update to this, DVSA is asking for feedback on the move. I don’t think they want to know if you like the idea, but rather what your views would be on a gradual switch.
Obviously, only those who use the test centre really ought to be completing the questionnaire.
And in a further update, the majority favoured a straight switch rather than a phased one. The switch will occur between 3-9 February 2015. An Open Day will be arranged prior to the switch.
And one more update advises that there will be an open day on Friday, 6 February 2015 between 10am and 2pm.
This is an old post – so old information
This BBC article outlines proposed changes to the driving test. It is suggested that the turn in the road and corner reverse exercises could be dropped in favour of using a satnav to get to a destination and reversing out of a parking bay. The proposals are supposed to reflect “real life” driving.
In my opinion, removing these manoeuvres would be a big, big mistake. It was bad enough when they dropped having to do two manoeuvres so they could fit independent driving in, but cutting these other two completely would be stupid. For a start, both of them DO reflect real life driving and not knowing how to do them will just encourage bad alternative methods of dealing with having gone the wrong way. It’s already bad enough with boy racers flinging their cars into U-turns without checking behind in places where they can’t get round without smacking the kerb. This would just force them into that corner even further.
What makes me laugh is that the DIA “welcomed” the plans. Well, I suppose it would do, since it was apparently involved in the discussions in the first place, and some of this crap is no doubt its idea. It’s a bit like asking David Cameron to give an objective comparison of his own party against the others.
On that subject, there is a General Election coming up (remember taking learners on motorways?), and these sorts of ideas traditionally appear round about this far ahead of the polls, only to disappear without trace once the new government is installed. And if we’re not careful we could end up with one which is so far to the right it would need Stephen Hawking to explain curved space using Imperial measurements in the rosy glow of all the bonfires made out of burning immigrants up and down the country. There won’t be any time for altering the driving test amidst all that.
I agree with the RAC, in that knowing how to use the satnav is important in its own right. But being able to turn around if you go the wrong way is still a vital skill. DVSA should be looking at making the test longer so they can test for more skills. They need to stop just trying to cram things into 40 minutes.
Note that parallel park and bay park would still be included under the proposals. Note also that these changes are not going to happen anytime soon.
An email alert from DVSA warns learners how they can save money by avoiding scam test booking sites. DVSA doesn’t refer to them as scams, but that’s what they are – even if they do actually book your test for you. If you book your test thinking you’ve done it using the official route then you have been scammed.
The theory test costs £25.00 (down from £31.00 from October 2014). The practical test costs £62.00 (or £75.00 on weekends). If you get asked to pay more than these prices you are being scammed. If you don’t get a booking immediately, or if you cannot choose the date from a list, you are being scammed. You should only book through GOV.UK.
As DVSA says (in the link embedded in the email), it is difficult to know when you are on the official site and when you’re on a scam site. Many of the scammers deliberately make themselves out to be the official DVSA site, and ALL of them want to purposely mislead you to take your money, no matter what words they have put in the small print now that the hounds are on to their scent.
If you see a misleading advert on any web page, you can report it here. Don’t be afraid: do it. ANYONE who is trying to handle test bookings for you other than your instructor is a scammer one way or another (and if your instructor tries to charge you a fee for doing it then he’s a scammer, too). It’s best we all report them.
DVSA says it is “working with the search engines” to have misleading sites removed. This is funny, since most of the scammers will have paid to get themselves to the top of the searches in the first place, and I can think of one very large search engine that is particularly averse to removing anything that affects its revenue in any way. So good luck with that one, DVSA!
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:
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.
An email from the DVSA advises candidates to attend tests as usual. This is because not all examiners are stupid enough to be members of PCS (the union involved), and of those that are, they’re not all so stupid that they will automatically go on strike anyway. However, like last time – if you believe the media – the further north you live, the more likely you are to find examiners who are stupid enough to strike (and don’t blame me for saying it: that’s just the way it is).
The action is due to take place on Wednesday, 15 October 2014. Theory tests aren’t affected – just practical driving tests.
Oh, and it is examiners who are striking, not instructors (someone found the blog using that search criterion)!
This article was first published in September 2014 when the recall first appeared in the media, and before DVSA had responded. Note the two updates at the bottom of this article. The recall date has now been extended back to February 2014.
No word from the DVSA yet (see addendum below), but Vauxhall has said that any Corsa or Adam registered since May 2014 should not be driven until it has been inspected and repaired if necessary.
Apparently, a component in the steering system “falls below Vauxhall’s quality standards”. You can interpret that any way you want, but what it really means is that a faulty part has been used. From tomorrow (Saturday, 27 September 2014) – and they probably mean sometime during the day, and not at 1 minute after midnight – you will be able to check to see if your vehicle is one of those affected by going to Vauxhall’s website and clicking the relevant link. In the meantime, their advice is not to drive it.
It is likely that DVSA will refuse to conduct driving tests in affected vehicles without proof of inspection and/or appropriate remedial work. Any ADI conducting lessons needs to be aware of the interim warning not to drive the car.
DVSA has issued the anticipated response to the recall notice as of Monday 29 September 2014, which can be read here. In a nutshell, they say:
If your vehicle is affected, you won’t be able to take it on test without written proof that the vehicle has been checked by the manufacturer and remedial work carried out if needed.
DVSA examiners will accept documents from the vehicle manufacturer or the manufacturer’s appointed representative or dealership.
They also point out that any tests taking place within the next 5 working days can be cancelled and rearranged free of charge. Outside of that, normal rules apply.
There is an update from the DVSA here (which was updated a few hours later to clarify the cut-off point for cancellations). The original notice mentioned above referred to cars registered from May 2014. This appears to have been extended backwards to February 2014. So Corsas and Adams registered from February this year – not just from May. The source information can be seen here.
DVSA is still offering a grace period if you need to cancel and rearrange.
Note this updated policy on the GOV.UK website. You may remember that I wrote about this topic back in February 2014.
Cameras fitted for insurance purposes will be allowed providing they:
- are external facing and do not film the inside of the vehicle
- do not record audio from inside the vehicle
DVSA will under no circumstances accept, comment on, or review audio or video footage provided by a test candidate or third party to facilitate a challenge to the conduct of any theory or practical test or its result. Any footage received in connection with an allegation of criminal activity or intent will be referred to the police.
I notice that certain individuals are claiming that this is evidence of the DVSA back-pedalling. It isn’t. You couldn’t record tests before and you can’t record them now. Nor would any attempt to retrospectively influence a test decision be given any consideration by the DVSA. Anyone stupid enough to try and take things that far would have to go through the courts using private and very expensive routes. Mind you, some people are that stupid.
It should also be noted that DVSA has stated:
If an examiner believes a test is being filmed they will ask the candidate to switch off the camera, if it can’t be switched off or the candidate refuses, the examiner will terminate the test.
Personally, I think DVSA is being too lenient and has merely bowed to pressure from the National Clown Associations. On the other hand, for all practical purposes DVSA has made no real concessions, yet the Associations appear to be well chuffed with their “victory”.
I just hope DVSA realises how far some of the Chief Clowns might be prepared to go if they get hold of video footage of contested tests from any angle.
Incidentally, in 2016 I began using a camera which turns on automatically as soon as the engine starts unless I remove it. I have audio disabled on it, and I have clarified with several examiners that it is not intended to scrutinise them.
It proved its worth a few weeks ago when a pupil failed her test and didn’t know where it had happened (as I often point out, if they knew what they’d done and where they’d done it, they probably wouldn’t have done it to start with). The examiner told me where, and all I had to do was fast forward to the location and send her a link to the HD footage I placed online. It showed her merrily crossing over two lanes on a roundabout – which she wasn’t aware of having done.
Unlike many other ADIs with cameras, I did not for one moment consider that the examiner had made a mistake. If the examiner said she did it, she did it. The footage showed her where.