A story from Scotland culled from another pointless FOI request reveals the staggering figure of 46 accidents involving learners on test since 2008.
Simple arithmetic doesn’t seem to be the strongpoint of the author, who wants to make a big deal out of the fact, in spite of it only equating to 10 accidents a year. Considering that there are in the region of a quarter of a million tests or more conducted in Scotland annually, it means nothing.
The FOI data don’t identify WHO was to blame for the accidents, either.
Making matters worse is some jackass from one of the “associations” who reckons that a learner making a mistake isn’t ready for test. That’s bullshit! And so is this nonsense about the word “accident” – three little syllables convey all the necessary meaning in any normal conversation. It doesn’t need some pseudo-academic trying to enlighten us to imagined philosophical connotations of the word.
Without knowing the specific details of each accident – and even insurance companies and the police often never get to the bottom of that – you cannot automatically blame the learner for any they might be involved in. Accidents DO happen – and they happen to innocent parties.
At least someone at the DSA has got their finger on the pulse (instead of up their backsides):
…thankfully accidents on test are extremely rare.
Precisely.
Even big-nuts advanced drivers who are mouthpieces for some of the organisations were not perfect when they first passed their tests. They continued to learn once they got their passes. It’s always been like that… and it always will.