Let me just set the record straight. Travellers (note that I said “travellers”) are filthy, lawless, putrid scumbags who deserve nothing. They are no better than the bags of shit they leave in the bushes of any site they illegally enter and deface. And the Law needs changing so that instead of the lengthy legal proceedings to move them off the places they criminally enter, JCBs should immediately be brought in to trash them and their caravans once and for all.
Not one single infestation of travellers (note that I said “travellers”) has a positive effect on those unfortunate enough to live within 5 miles of them.
The filth who have been involved in situations in Nottingham have gone so far as to cut down hedgerows to get into private fields, and no one is ever going to convince me that when these sewer dwellers occupy someone else’s property, the property owner should have fewer rights than they do. And every single one of them has left the most foul mess imaginable behind. I’ve seen them doing it time after time, going into the bushes to urinate or defaecate. There was even a situation last week where they had been moved on almost immediately and had dumped sacks of human waste in a Country Park car park (that was in a police report, by the way).
Other recent problems have been the closure of car parks, the cancelling of events after the scum moved in the day before, and there was even that one a month or two ago where they trashed Thwaites Brewery, resulting in the loss of thousands of litres of beer and damage amounting to around £100,000 (and they shit all over the offices – they seem to have a bit of a problem with being able to use toilets properly, since Thwaites would have had those). These are not isolated cases – they are the norm.
Councillor Bird is quoted:
I deeply regret any offence caused, it was certainly not intended or meant.
Like him, I’m not trying to cause offence, Unlike him, I mean every word I say. I’m just stating facts, and if anyone is offended by that, tough.
The article further states:
Phien O’Reachtagian, chairman of the Gypsy and Traveller Coalition, said previously: “His suggestion that communities are lawless is cause for concern from someone in his position.
“We’d be looking to make a formal complaint and liaise with police to see if a crime has been committed.”
O’Reachtagian might do better to address the problems which are staring him and everyone else in the face instead of trying to twist and defend the indefensible. This has got nothing to do with Gypsies or Roma. It’s the vast majority which are no more Gypsy or Roma than I am which are the problem. “Travellers” are not the same as Gypsies or Roma. And “travellers” are a problem.
In case O’Reachtagian tries his pathetic hissy-fit behaviour here, my comments are purely to do with those who are demonstrably lawless, who demonstrably piss and shit on private land, and who demonstrably leave skip loads of filth behind when they’re finally and justly – if very belatedly – evicted.
My comments are nothing at all to do with Gypsies and Roma – there’s a quaint Gypsy caravan which moves around Nottinghamshire (it’s been in Bunny and Stoke Bardolph recently), which stops for a day or two and has its horse grazing on the verges. They DON’T leave a mess and aren’t doing anyone any harm, and I would have no problem with them stopping outside my house.
I updated this again. I’m still getting hits on the same search terms, such as:
13/10/2015 – “bribe driving examiner uk”
14/03/2016 – “how to tell if your driving examner is corputed [sic]”
26/03/2017 – “driving test how does bribe work woth instructors [sic]”
26/03/2017 – “bribing driving examiner”
28/03/2017 – “how much to bribe a driving examiner”
12/12/2017 – “have someone else do my driving test”
15/01/2019 – “can i bribe my driving examiner”
I wrote this article back in 2011, but I’m still getting people finding the blog on the search term “how do I bribe driving examiner” or something equally lacking in good English and grammar.
Look. If you are so stupid that you don’t know how to do this, ask yourself if you really should be driving a car unsupervised. Because you really shouldn’t. But since you obviously are that stupid, it means handing over money in return for a favour – in this case, a test pass even if you are a crap driver.
The simple fact that you’ve typed the question into a search engine means it can be traced back to you, and for all you know the agencies could be looking for people just like you. So well done for flagging yourself up to them as a cheat and a liar (and hope they go easy on you because you’re an idiot).
It’s hard to fathom how weak-minded someone needs to be to consider a criminal act such as this as a viable way to get what they want.
Bribery of driving examiners has less than a 0.1% chance of succeeding. However, the risk of jail (or deportation if you’re not from the UK) if you try it is so high, it is pretty much guaranteed. It’s far easier – and cheaper – to learn to drive properly and to take and pass your driving test legitimately. Just look at some of the idiots who have been prosecuted – two morons in this story, lots of them in this one, two more here.
One thing that’s becoming apparent is that the people most likely to consider paying someone else to do their test for them are usually from countries where fraud and corruption is a part of the political constitution. It’s also apparent that those most likely to take money from these idiots and then to try to impersonate them (even though they look nothing like them) come from those same communities!
Let’s try this in big red letters to see if it helps some of the stupid ones out there understand it better:
IT IS EASIER AND CHEAPER TO PASS YOUR TEST LEGITIMATELY THAN IT IS TO TRY AND BRIBE THE EXAMINER OR TO PAY SOMEONE TO IMPERSONATE YOU.
IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY – WHETHER IT IS IN THE EAST OR THE WEST – YOU MAY WELL FIND THAT EVERY ASPECT OF GOVERNMENT IS CORRUPT, AND EVERYTHING CAN BE OBTAINED IF YOU PAY THE RIGHT MONEY TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE. IN THE UK IT IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE. THEREFORE YOU ARE TAKING A HUGE RISK.
YOU ARE PROBABLY DESPERATE TO DRIVE SO THAT YOU CAN GET A JOB. IF YOU GET CAUGHT TRYING TO CHEAT YOU’LL BE LUCKY IF YOU EVER WORK AGAIN IN THE UK.
EVEN IF YOU FOUND A CORRUPT EXAMINER (HIGHLY UNLIKELY IN THE UK), AND ASSUMING THAT YOU GOT AWAY WITH IT (EVEN LESS LIKELY), THERE IS A GOOD CHANCE YOU WILL END UP KILLING SOMEONE BECAUSE YOU STILL CAN’T DRIVE.
How can I tell if my examiner is corrupt?
Or, as it was asked to find the blog, “how to tell if your driving examner [sic] is corputed [sic]”.
Ask him. If you end up in handcuffs in the back of a police van, then he obviously wasn’t. Or you didn’t offer him enough.
It’s cheaper to learn to drive properly, you idiot.
Can I get done trying to bribe an examiner?
Or more accurately, “can I get done tryong [sic] to bribe a [sic] examiner”?
See above.
Does bribing the driving examiner work?
Or, as was asked to find the blog, “does bribimg [sic] driving examiner work”?
See above.
Is it easier if I get someone to take the test for me?
If you get away with it, and if the person you choose is any good at driving, yes – but only in the sense that you won’t have to bother learning to drive properly. However, it will mean that you are still a crap driver and you may well end up killing someone. Paying someone to take the test for you is more expensive than learning properly. Your chances of successfully gaining a licence this way in the UK are almost zero, and even if you did initially get away with it, at some point they will catch the person you paid, trace all those he worked for, discover you were one of them, and take your false licence away. You will then be fined, perhaps imprisoned, or even deported if you are not a UK citizen.
If you’re still so stupid you want to try it, go ahead. And watch me laugh when you get caught.
Some idiot found the blog today on the search term “have someone else do my driving test”. Sorry, mate, but unless you get real you’ll be a loser until the day you die.
How could they catch me?
Look. This is the UK, and they take fraud very seriously. There is a special Fraud & Integrity department at DVSA which specifically looks for and investigates cases of bribery.
In any situation involving deception, you have the best chance of getting away with it if you are the only one involved, and the only one who is aware of it. By paying someone to take your test for you, or by trying to bribe an examiner, you are automatically increasing the number of people who know. You can control what’s inside your own head, but you can’t control others, and those other people – the test sitter or the examiner – are going to be involved with many like you also using their dishonest services. You can’t control any of those other people, and all it takes is for one of them to get caught, and the entire fraudulent network is immediately identifiable. Something as simple as someone being pulled over by the police for driving erratically could be enough to spark an investigation. The Fraud & Integrity group could even set up sting operations. Anyone an examiner has tested is known by name, and can be traced through their licence.
You would always be living in hope you don’t get found out. But eventually, you would be.
It seems to have escaped everyone’s attention yet again, but if we draw a horizontal line on a graph of temperature versus time of the year at, say, 10ºC, there is a tendency for the actual temperature to be below 10ºC in winter and above 10ºC in summer. It’s funny, I know. But as far back as I can remember, that’s the way it’s always been.
In 2017, for example, the mean UK temperature for each month is shown in the graph above. Notice how spring and summer was warmer than autumn and winter.
Let’s add 2018’s data so far to this graph.
The only anomaly – if you can call it that, since February and March were a lot colder than last year – is July. Nevertheless, this is sufficient for the amateurs who go under the title of “reporters” for rags like the Daily Mail and The Sun to get their rulers out, draw a line through May, June, and July, and start predicting that we’re all going to die because by October it’ll be above 60ºC. Of course, come September, they’ll be predicting the usual Ice Age accompanying “the coldest winter on record” (and that’s an actual quote from at least one of those two comics over each of the last three or four years).
Yes, it’s been hot. But it’s not like we haven’t had hot spells before. Just like when it’s cold, it isn’t like we haven’t had cold spells before, either. And it goes up and down throughout the year as we pass through the seasons. Furthermore, even though it has been hot, this year’s “hot” has been quite pleasant most of the time (and I hate hot weather) since it hasn’t been accompanied by the usual humidity we tend to get in the UK.
Here’s the same chart with 1976 added to it.
Fair enough, this July was about 1 degree hotter, but other than that there’s nothing much different. Christ, I was in a maths lesson at school in June in ‘76 and it snowed on the 14th (or was it the 12th… whatever), and it’s not done that since!
When you look through the data from 1910 until the present, July had the same mean temperature recorded for 1983. It was slightly hotter in 2006, and almost as hot in 2013. Other years have simply fallen within the range.
There’s no question that average temperatures have risen over the last hundred years or so – especially since the 1950s – but that doesn’t mean that any new high or low is a sign of Armageddon. Most of it comes down to the Jet Stream. The last few years, it’s spent summer down by the equator, flinging low pressure system after low pressure system at the UK. This year, it’s vacationing somewhere up near Iceland, and fairly consistent high pressure is pulling air up from Europe. It happens.
Sometimes, I’m embarrassed to be British. We moan when it’s hot, we moan when it’s cold. We moan when it’s wet, and we moan when it’s dry. We moan if it’s a crap summer, and we moan if it’s not. For f*$k’s sake, get a life, people. It’s been one of those “glorious” summers just over 50% of the twats out there voted to go back to in 2016. Enjoy it – you might not be able to afford the next one.
Just remember. In a couple of months it’ll be bloody cold again. And probably wet – just like it was before it got hot this year.
My own trees started going yellow this time around in mid-June. After a lot of research, I concluded that it was due to heat stress as a result of the prolonged warm weather and low rainfall we have experienced. I know that some places have had torrential downpours, but it isn’t enough. The temperature has remained pretty much in double digits the whole time, and has been in the mid-20s and low-30s most days for almost two solid months, and with no end in sight.
I commenced deep watering right after I found it as a remedy in June, and it has worked like magic. Right now, I simply set the sprinkler going for about an hour in each of three separate locations, and I do this each night (next year, I’m going to install deep-watering spikes to help the water get deeper into the soil). I have also found a way of watering and fertilizing at the same time.
When trees are stressed as a result of high humidity and low rainfall, they can’t get enough water and begin to shut down just as they do in the Autumn. It doesn’t kill them unless it happens year after a year, but obviously you can take steps to deal with it once you notice it.
One thing I have noticed with the benefit of hindsight is that the foliage on virtually every Silver Birch I have seen this year is thinner than in previous years (that’s also true for a lot of other trees I’ve seen). The leaves are actually smaller. The reason I say “hindsight” is that about a month into deep-watering and my tree has put out some significant new growth and the leaves on that new growth are much larger, and just like the photo I took last year.
Note that we have no hosepipe ban, and I wouldn’t be doing this if we did.
Once I commenced the watering, the yellowed leaves all fell over the next week or so, but no more were produced. Right now, not a single leaf has fallen in the last month at least and the whole tree is green with the aforementioned new growth. It is also producing fat catkins.
Will a Birch recover from drought?
It depends on whether the drought killed it or not. A reader wrote to me last year, mentioning that his tree had lost its leaves, and I advised that the only thing he could do right then was to feed and water – and hope for the best. He wrote to me recently to tell me the tree had started to rock in the wind, and that a tree surgeon had subsequently declared it dead, and had had to remove it. Apparently, the roots were rotten.
There’s no way of knowing if it was just the drought that did the damage. The tree may have been weakened by not feeding and watering over previous years, and the drought was just the final nail in the coffin. But last year’s drought certainly caused problems.
By now – early April 2019 – Birches are showing profuse growth of leaves and catkins (mine is). If yours is still completely bare then it doesn’t look good. Last year’s drought did a lot of damage, and since not many people do the feeding ritual that I have covered in the main leaf drop article, trees may already have been struggling.
That said, mine has certainly recovered from last year’s drought, although I did catch on very early and stopped it becoming a major issue.
All I can say is: water (if it’s not raining much) and feed.
One of the most popular posts on the blog is the one about Silver Birch Trees shedding leaves in the middle of summer as a result of nutrient deficiency in the soil. The remedy involves applying fertilizer and watering it in so the trees can get at it.
Ever since I found the solution to the nutrient problem I had toyed with the idea of semi-automating the fertilizer/watering process by combining the two and applying it via a sprinkler system. Indeed, I toyed to the extent that I bought a cheap Venturi mixer – which should have worked, but didn’t. I concluded that my water pressure was not sufficient to provide the necessary lift in the Venturi, because I just couldn’t get it to suck anything up. So I gave up on the idea for a year or two until 2018, when watering became such an issue in its own right.
I started Googling and many things came up, but they were all on a small scale – watering plants in greenhouses or by drip-feeders. But there was an American dilutor which apparently did exactly what I was after. You put your fertilizer in the mixer container, connected it to a tap, connected the other side to a hosepipe, and let it do the mixing before sending it down to your sprinkler or spray nozzle. The problem was availability in the UK. It came in various sizes, and the only one carried by any UK-based seller had a capacity of one pint (damned American units), which is no bloody use at all except for window boxes or greenhouses. The next size up was only available from American suppliers, so apart from the $100+ price tag, there was also the $100+ shipping fee – not to mention whatever UK Customs & Excise (who have become very sharp of late) slapped on it when it came into the country.
I was just steeling myself to order the American product, but while I was searching for the best price I accidentally came across the Access Irrigation Static Dilutor. It hadn’t come up on any of my previous searches over the last three years, and even when it did this time it hardly stood out until I followed the link and read the specification sheet and user manual. As an aside, whoever designed the Access Irrigation website decided to use images of text for product titles instead of just plain old searchable text. As a result, Google isn’t indexing them and normal search terms like “inline fertilizer dispenser” or “fertilizer dispenser using sprinkler” don’t stand a chance.
Access Irrigation were very helpful with my pre-order questions, so I went ahead an ordered it. It came next day.
I’ve also recently bought a new sprinkler – a Gardena ZoomMaxx. Depending on water pressure it can water over a range of between 3m and 18m, or an area between 9m² and 216m² in an almost circular pattern (though the pattern is adjustable). In my case, with a water flow rate of 7L per minute (which is classed as “low pressure”), it was able to cover an area of around 80-90m² – which is about 5 times what my old bar sprinkler could manage.
The Access Dilutor consists of a thick plastic bottle which can hold about 9L of liquid. A screw-fit head assembly consists of a Venturi unit with a choice of Hozelock or GEKA fittings (Hozelock fitted as standard, but both types supplied).
For anyone who is interested, a Venturi is so-called because of the Venturi Effect. This is where a fluid flowing through a constriction in a tube creates a pressure drop, and this can be used for various effects. I became familiar with it when I was still at school, because we used small Venturi devices connected to laboratory taps to produce a partial vacuum when filtering liquids using conical flasks. In the case of the Dilutor, water flowing from your tap goes via the Venturi and down to the sprinkler head, and the pressure drop created inside the Venturi is used to pull liquid fertilizer from the bottle and into the main water flow. There is a bit more to the device than that, though, because as the fertilizer is removed, it is replaced by clean water to keep the bottle completely full. Since the fertilizer solution is more dense than water, this clean water sits on top, so you have a distinct border between fertilizer and water. Access Irrigation says you should use food dye if your fertilizer is colourless so that you can see when it is all used up. In my case, my mixture contains chelated iron, so it is almost black. Incidentally, this is why they call it the “static” dilutor, because you mustn’t move it when you’re using it, otherwise the divided liquids get all mixed up.
Until I tried it I was sceptical, but it really does work. The Dilutor is supplied with a range of nozzles which fit on the end of the dip-tube that carries the fertilizer. This allows you to control how quickly the fertilizer is used up. In my case, since I wanted to irrigate for an hour at each of several locations, and since my water flow was 7L/min – or 420L/hour – I used the light blue nozzle corresponding to this volume of water (edit: I have since changed to the grey nozzle, which uses the fertiliser more quickly, my logic being that I want to get the fertiliser on the lawn, then make sure it is watered in properly). I was doing my first run in the dark – literally – and using a torch the border between the black solution and clean water was dramatic. It was all used up in slightly more than one hour.
Previously, and as I have pointed out in my article about summer leaf drop, I was dissolving solid ericaceous fertilizer in water (which takes a couple of hours), and using this as a concentrate in five watering cans-full each liberally spread over 10-20m² (about half an hour overall), then watered in using a bar sprinkler for about half an hour in each of five locations to get the coverage. Overall, it was maybe 8 hours involving frequent interventions by me.
Now, using a liquid version of the same ericaceous fertilizer, I can make up a full batch in the Dilutor in about three minutes, and just set the sprinkler running for an hour. Then, I make another batch, move the sprinkler, and repeat. It only takes a couple of hours now to get the same coverage – and I’m doing a lot more irrigation because of the heat stress problem this year.
What are the different nozzle colours?
I don’t want to state what the colours are (though I did mention a couple, above), because Access Irrigation might change them at some stage, and then whatever I’ve written would be wrong (one of mine was not quite the colour the instructions said, anyway). However, four of these are supplied, and they give you a 10:1, 25:1, 50:1, or 100:1 dilution ratio.
Obviously, the 100:1 jet will be the smallest, and the 10:1 jet will be the widest. So you can work it out from there just by looking at them. The lowest ratio jet (widest) will use up whatever you’re spreading quicker than the highest ratio (narrowest) jet.
To be honest, unless you’re doing something really strange, the best thing is not to overthink these numbers. In my case, for example, I use a jet which empties my feed in about 45-60 minutes. That’s long enough to get an even spread and deliver an effective watering over about 100m².
I first published this back in 2012 after someone had found the blog on precisely that search term!
Passing the driving test is a skills-based event, so probability doesn’t come into it – not in any way that could be manipulated or measured, anyway. But I had another one recently come to the blog via the term “the probability that a person passes their driving test is 75%”.
The problem here is that people get probability and statistics mixed up – and they don’t understand either.
Every test centre has a pass rate. These are all statistics – measurements of what has actually taken place – and any given test centre might have a pass rate anywhere from under 30% all the way up to 80% or more. Why is this?
Take Mallaig in Scotland, for example. It is a tiny fishing village in the middle of nowhere. It has something like 10km of roads in total, no dual carriageways, one roundabout, a total population of about 1,000, and is 140 miles away from the nearest motorway (it’s actually only a few miles north west from the place where Connor MacLeod was born in Highlander). In the business year 2017/18 a total of 21 tests were conducted at the test centre there, with a pass rate of 71%. In contrast, Nottingham has three test centres, and between them there were over 20,000 tests conducted during the same period, with a pass rate of about 45%. Nottingham has a population of over a quarter of a million, lots of dual carriageways and complex roundabout systems, a busy city centre, and protracted rush hours vying with overrunning roadworks and ever-changing road restrictions. Similarly, Bradford’s three test centres conducted around 15,000 tests, even though it has a slightly larger population than Nottingham and similar types of roads. However, one of its test centres had a pass rate of just 37% in the same period.
In 2012, Bradford – well, one of the test centres there – was highlighted as having the worst pass rate in the country at less than 30%. Bradford’s problem at that location is that there’s a high sub-population of non-UK nationals. As unpalatable as it might be to the politically correct mob, non-UK provisional licence holders have a tendency to want to go to test before they’re ready, and they will often do it in their own cars without ever having had any formal training in the UK. And they do it again, and again, and again, test after test, with no training in between tries. All large cities have this problem one way or another.
I’ve got just such a pupil right now. There is no way I would ever let him go to test using my car the way his driving is, and I have told him he needs more lessons before he tries again. But he won’t listen, and keeps going in his own car after taking a single hour with me each time. It’s hard to put this into words, but he hasn’t got a bloody clue how to do even the simplest of roundabouts, and when he encounters one with lanes marked on it the lines may as well not be there. In fact, in his head, they aren’t there. As soon as he realises it’s a roundabout he panics and – poof! – the lanes just vanish as far as he’s concerned. He is in his 30s and has driven for many years in one of those places where you are “able to drive” if you can put your head down and accelerate into heavy traffic and weave around hundreds of others all doing the same. It’s also one of those places where the men will never admit that they can’t do something, even when it is completely obvious to everyone – including them – that they can’t. He simply cannot get it into his head that he hasn’t got a cat in hell’s chance of passing his test until he sorts this out. But he’s got another one booked even now.
DVSA actually publishes pass rate data by ethnicity – something which surprises me, given the risks of misinterpreting the data to suit personal agendas – and if you look at the lowest rated Bradford test centre, the pass rate among those identifying as Asian or British Asian and Black or British Black is 34.5% whereas among those identifying as White it is 47%. You have the same skew in Nottingham under those same headings, and pretty much everywhere else. It’s a big difference, and although the data don’t go into finer detail, I would lay money that it is the non-British element within those groups which is pulling the figures down. Where the ratio of non-UK to UK is higher in any given community, the overall pass rate in the location covered by that test centre is so much lower.
Non-British Asian/Black people taking tests tend to be older, have families to support, have low-paid jobs (carers or security, for example), are desperate to get a licence to improve their prospects, and are isolated from their larger family and have no financial backup beyond their wages. They also tend to have many years’ previous experience of driving – albeit badly – and believe they are capable of passing the test over here. Habits are deeply ingrained. Whites tend to be 17-24 year olds who are only learning to drive because its the next thing they need to do in their lives, who haven’t driven much before (if at all) and so don’t have habits to break, who probably won’t get a car for the next year or two anyway, and who can often sponge off mummy and daddy for the lesson fees. It’s not a clear cut division, but it is the tendency nonetheless. And that affects the statistics.
You can already see how complicated this is. A test centre’s pass rate is meaningless except for comparing that centre’s performance over time, and it has no clear bearing on the rates from other centres in other parts of the country because other factors are involved. For example, Bradford’s apparent “improvement” since 2012 is highly likely to have been a deliberate manipulation to make it look better following the bad press it received back then. As an illustration, Mallaig’s pass rate could go up to 90% or fall to 20%, but that would not affect Nottingham’s statistics unless the change were the result of something which affected everyone in the UK, and in a quantifiable manner. I mean, imagine DVSA adding a motorway element to the test. Mallaig’s nearest motorway is further away than London is from Nottingham, so they couldn’t possibly do it, but test centres like Nottingham Watnall and Chilwell – which are both right next to the M1 – would see it affect on their pass rates.
Statistics are a statement of what did happen. They are not probabilities – a prediction of what will happen.
If someone takes a driving test having never driven before, and never having had any lessons, they will fail – no matter what their test centre’s pass rate is. Statistically, the centre could have a 100% pass rate, but someone who can’t drive has a 0% probability of passing. It follows logically that even if someone has had lessons, unless they’ve had enough to make them good enough they will still fail. Only when they have had enough training to make it possible for them to pass a test does probability enter into the equation – but even then it is still not something you can assign a definite number to, because so much depends on nerves, road conditions, events on the day, and so on.
All you can say is that if a candidate can drive to an acceptable standard, and doesn’t do anything stupid on their test (for whatever reason), there is a high probability of them passing. That probability is much higher than the pass rate at the test centre they’re using, but definitely much less than 100%.
If they can’t drive to an acceptable standard, the probability of them passing is close to 0%.
DVSA is not looking for perfect drivers who don’t make any mistakes. The criterion they are using is that the test candidate should be safe enough to drive unsupervised so that they can then gain more and more experience over time.
What are the chances of passing a driving test?
If you can’t drive, they’re approximately zero – you have no chance whatsoever. If you’re a good driver, your chances are very high. It’s that simple.
So my chances are better if I take one or two lessons?
If you can’t drive well enough to pass the test during those lessons, your chances of passing a real one are still almost zero.
Take the parallel park exercise as an example. If you can’t do it during lessons, you’re not going to be able to do it on the test. The same goes for every other aspect of driving that might result in a serious fault on test if you don’t do it properly.
What are the chances of passing my driving test after failing the first time?
Your chances of passing have nothing to do with your previous attempts. If you can drive without your instructor intervening on lessons, you’ll probably pass your test. If you can’t, then you will probably fail it.
Too many people go for their test before they are ready – especially when they’re desperate for a UK drivers licence. Some think they’re ready, some want to be ready, and some just don’t want to (or can’t) spend any more money. Then they fail.
If you’re not ready you will fail. Even if your dream came true and you scraped a pass, you’d be dangerous on the roads.
Yes, but what are my chances of passing second time?
Exactly the same as they were the first time if you still can’t drive properly.
I can drive, so why did I fail?
Assuming that you really can drive, it might just have been a bit of bad luck on the day – some other road user doing something you didn’t expect, or that you’d never had to deal with before. It happens.
However, a lot of learners mistakenly believe that they are better than they are. Many take their tests based on how many hours of lessons they’ve had (in turn, based on how much they could afford). The risk of failing is much higher if you approach your test that way.
What is the best time of year to take your driving test?
There isn’t one, any more than there’s a “best time of day” to take it. If you can drive – and don’t make any serious mistakes – you will pass, whether it’s at Christmas or in summer, morning or afternoon.
What are the statistics that somebody will pass their driving test 2nd time?
That term has been used to find this article. If you can’t drive properly, your “chances” are exactly the same as they were the first time. Passing the test is about ability, not chance.
What are the chances of passing the driving test third time?
That term has been used to find this article. The simple answer is that your chances of passing your test are the same every time you take it if you assume that your ability remains constant. If you get better at driving, your chances increase, but they only become “good” once you can drive well.
The likelihood of passing your driving test is based on your ability, not probability. People who fail at their first attempt are usually better prepared for the second. However, some people are simply not prepared at all and are just gambling on scraping through every time.
If the probability of passing your test is 75%, what is the probability of passing in under four attempts?
Someone found the blog on that search term. I suspect it is a maths question rather than a driving one, but I will answer it as though it were the latter.
Passing your test is not based on probability. If you can’t drive, then you have no chance of passing, and the probability is effectively zero. As your driving ability improves, so does the probability that you will pass. However, it is impossible to put a number to driving ability such that the probability of passing can be calculated, and even if you could, you’d then have to factor in other equally unmeasurable numerical representations of any number of unpredictable events on the day of your test which could shift your chances of passing either up or down the scale.
Just for the record, and as I’ve just explained, the probability of passing your test is not 75% in the first place. And whatever the outcome of your first attempt, that has no measurable bearing on what happens on subsequent tests. It is quite possible to only just fail one test, then fail miserably on one or more of your following attempts.
Generally, most people do improve between tests, but so many other variables are involved that general improvement in the candidate’s ability might not show up as a reduction in driver faults. I’ve seen people fail with perhaps two faults – one of which is a serious – and then pass their next attempt with maybe 9 driver faults.
Does everyone have the same chance of passing their test?
Everyone has the same opportunity to pass – they’re all being tested to the same standard. However, everyone is different, with different abilities, and success in the test is governed by ability.
Since I’ve been doing this job I have encountered people who, quite frankly, should be prevented by Law from ever going near a car. Frighteningly, I know of at least three of them who have passed their tests – one of those has had numerous minor accidents related to emerging without looking properly, and another did so much damage to her car in the fortnight she owned it by keep reversing into her gate post (three times that I know of) that she has given up driving and got rid of the car.
Aren’t you at fault for teaching these people to drive?
Believe me, I think about that all the time. I wish that we were allowed to tell people that they should give up the idea of driving. I have my own way of dealing with it – but I know that they just go and find someone who will carry on teaching them, and they take test after test until they pass.
I had a guy a couple of years ago who failed five tests with me (he’d failed several before). He refused to do more than a single one hour lesson before each attempt because he’d already “spent enough”. He argued that he failed on something different every time, and so all he had to do was not make that same mistake again and he’d be all right. He wouldn’t accept my explanation that his “different” mistakes were due to the same underlying issue, which if dealt with would increase the likelihood of him passing. That was in January 2014, and it was the last I saw of him. Well, until November 2014, that is, when I saw him coming out of the test centre as I was going in with a huge grin on his face. While he was with me, he spent £230 on lessons and £310 on tests over three months – pro rata, he would have spent a further £500-£800 in tests by the time I saw him nine months later in November.
This is how these people are. You can’t tell them directly that they can’t drive. And even if you did, someone would still teach them.
Well, when I say “Toblerone”, I mean Mondelez – the American jerks who own the brand now.
Back in 2016, they decided to do what most other commercial confectioners do to combat rising costs, and that was to reduce the size/weight of the product whilst simultaneously maintaining the price. Unfortunately – and as most people already know, if they’ve tasted a Hershey bar – Americans haven’t got a clue about chocolate, any more than they have a clue about tradition.
Toblerone originated in Switzerland in 1908, which wasn’t that long after the end of the American Civil War. The shape of a Toblerone is apparently based on the Matterhorn, according to some sources. Wherever the idea for the shape came from, it was trademarked in 1909. The name is a play on the inventor’s name (Tobler) and an Italian word for nougat (torrone). Key to its popularity – other than that it doesn’t taste like Hershey – are the a) triangular shape, and b) the close spacing of said triangles.
In a nutshell, a proper Toblerone looks like the picture above. The American solution to reducing the product weight in 2016 made it look like the one below. They just blanked off some of the spaces in the mould.
It was a stupid decision back then, and everyone told Mondelez this. It looked stupid, and screamed “we’re screwing you and we care THIS much”. But hey, they knew best, eh?
From what I can now gather – and it has honestly taken me the whole two years to discover this, though there is still some confusion – the change only affected the 170g pack (which fell to 150g). However, since I assumed that the entire Toblerone range had been screwed with (and there is still some evidence that it was), I haven’t touched one since – and I like Toblerone.
Back in 2016, it would appear that Mondelez hadn’t got a clue, since its Northern European president, Glen Caton, said it wasn’t a long-term solution because of Toblerone’s “iconic nature”. So this “short” term solution has lasted two years.
The company officially said that it was to “keep the product affordable for customers” – which is a load of bollocks, because the only thing any company is interested in is profit, followed by increased profit. That’s not a bad thing; it just becomes bad when they lie to you over it. The change was never about the customers, because I can guarantee that 99% of them hated it, but about Mondelez’s bottom line. It was also about Mondelez’s incompetent marketers believing that such a ridiculous change to something as iconic as Toblerone would not impact sales.
Mondelez claims that cutting the size, screwing the shape, and charging the same for it actually increased sales. Yeah, right. Of course it did. More incompetent marketing – if sales really did increase, and I seriously doubt that, what would they have increased to without the changes? There is no way on this Earth that the changes specifically and directly caused an increase in sales. That would be like saying breaking an egg makes it stronger.
Face facts, Mondelez. It was a crap decision that has inevitably damaged sales, and it was made by people who haven’t got a clue except when it comes to putting amateurish spin on stupid ideas.
I was teaching a pupil how to handle the Nottingham Knight roundabout today.
Oh, if only the f—ing halfwits who have licences had even a grain of a clue, how much easier my job would be.
Here, you can see a black VW Touran, registration number FD17 VWE, decide that lane markings didn’t apply to her as she cut dangerously across the lanes. She deliberately used one of the left-only lanes in order to cut over at the last moment and go straight ahead. She was also speeding, and pillocks like this usually have their brats in the back if Social Services are interested in checking for any unfit parents right now.
This is a still from the full video which shows absolutely clearly what she did. Stupid cow.
Another lesson, this time in Wollaton. School run time.
My pupil was following the sat nav, and we were turning right. We’d just passed a light-controlled junction with all the mummies backed up and I’d told the pupil to carry on to next junction away from the road the school is on. As we approached it, this stupid bitch in a silver Honda Civic (old style), registration number BN05 OLH, cut us up dangerously.
This is a still from the full video showing what she did.
We followed her for about a mile, and she went into the Hemlock Stone pub – most likely either to pick up her brats from an agreed meeting place, or to get pissed on Prosecco as part of her anger management programme. Either way, she was a crap driver who shouldn’t be on the roads.
The original version of this dates back to 2011, and there are updates here, and here. This July 2018 edit reflects the new driving test, which came into force in December 2017.
The new test has done away with the Turn In The Road (aka “three-point turn”) and Reversing Into A Corner. These have been replaced with Forward Bay Parking and Stopping On The Right. The Reverse Bay Park and Parallel Park manoeuvres are still tested.
At the time of the original article, some test centres didn’t ask candidates to do a reverse bay park simply because they didn’t have a car park to do it in. It was no secret that in those areas a fair number of ADIs didn’t bother teaching it (virtually no one taught it in Nottingham before Colwick Test Centre opened – the first TC in Nottingham to have a car park big enough to do it).
Since December 2017, there are now two bay park manoeuvres – the original reverse one, and one which involves driving in forwards, then reversing out again. A reader informed me several months ago that the reverse park is always done at the TC, whereas the forward park can be done at various locations outside (supermarkets, council parks, etc.). I wasn’t aware of that, and had assumed that they could both be done anywhere.
Many drivers are terrified of any sort of parking and spend a large part of their driving lifetimes avoiding doing it. So it must be a bit of a bugger now that all the test manoeuvres are parking manoeuvres. It’s actually quite funny (and sad), sometimes, if I’m in Morrisons’ car park in the mornings. You can watch mainly older drivers, some of whom clearly have trouble walking, parking as far away as it is possible to be from the store entrance – even though there are spaces very close to it – solely because they want to stay away from other cars.
Bays can be laid out in a rectangular pattern, diagonally (often called “herringbone”), and in regularly or haphazardly arranged linear blocks. I’m sure there are other types, but these are the most common ones.
Reverse Bay Parking
If you get this one on your test, it will be either right at the start, or right at the end of your test in the TC car park. The examiner will not tell you which bay he wants you to reverse into, from which side to do it, or in which direction you should be pointing. He will just expect you to do whatever you normally do and finish inside a bay. He doesn’t care what method you use, and within reason you do not need to be exactly in the centre of the bay or precisely straight. You can even be parked on one of the lines, and it still isn’t a fail.
So what counts as a fault? DT1 – the examiners’ SOP – says that faults are:
poor co-ordination of controls
ending up straddling two bays
unnecessary shunting forwards and backwards
turning the steering wheel the wrong way
stalling
Observation:
no blind spot checks
relying too much or entirely on the mirrors
ineffective observation
looking but not reacting to other vehicles or pedestrians
waiting too long for other users in the car park
Basically, faffing around and causing hold ups, and not looking for/reacting to people who you might be holding up or are likely to reverse into.
So how do you do it? There isn’t a “best way”, but there are several alternatives, all of which have their place at one time or another. Some pupils can handle one way better than the others.
My preferred method for beginners is to start in a fixed position at right angles to the bay you want to park in, and about a car’s width away from the end of the bays (the orange car in the diagram). The fixed point in question is usually relative to the third line away from your target bay, though I did once show someone how to do it in an 18’ minibus and that involved the fourth line – it’s just a case of knowing where to start from.
Important: This method will only work if the bays are of the standard size. It won’t work as written for parent/toddler or disabled bays, and you need to have a third line to line up with. Fortunately, the vast majority of car parks have standard sized bays.
Put full lock on and reverse until you are at 90º to your original position. Use your wing mirrors to determine when you’re parallel with the bay lines. Then straighten up and reverse into the bay.
Important: Do not look at the bays in front of you to determine when you are straight. Although that will work if the car park is laid out in a rectangular pattern, and if it isn’t (Colwick test centre definitely isn’t), you’ll end up at an angle
The method works just as well where the bays are in a herringbone pattern, although you have to angle the car to make sure you are turning through 90º.
Success with this depends entirely on being able to start from exactly the same position relative to your target bay every time you do it. You need to find a reference point on your car, and line it up with the third (or whatever) line away from your target bay.
I prefer this method because a) it requires the smallest amount of space, b) anyone can do it, and c) you can put it into written words and follow it prescriptively.
An alternative way is to simply turn away from your target bay as you approach it – possibly even driving into another bay opposite if it is vacant – then reverse back in a straight line. This is fine if you have enough room, and if you don’t have to correct your position too much.
The most flexible method is simply to use your mirrors to aim into your target bay – possibly with a little forward/backward shuffling if space is tight. The problem with this method is that it is almost impossible to put into simple words because there are so many variables, and since many learners steer the wrong way when reversing, the complexity just makes things worse. And it also needs a lot more mirror checks and observations, which they are likely to forget on not perform to the examiner’s satisfaction.
I explain clearly to mine that once they pass, they can teach themselves how to guide the car in using the mirrors, but it requires experience and time to perfect, and some people will find it much more difficult than others. I demonstrate it to them, and then show them the 90º method. I make it absolutely clear that the 90º method is completely acceptable both on the test and in the real world.
Whatever method you use, make sure you look around for pedestrians and other traffic before you start reversing, during any pause, and when there is something that needs an eye kept on it (i.e. people walking in your direction – at some stage you may have to wait for them to pass). My preferred method is broken down into three distinct stages, and pausing at the end of each one gives a window in which to look around. If you try to bay park in a single movement, be very careful not to miss your safety checks – you will fail if you miss them, especially if there is something you should be dealing with.
Forward Bay Parking
Driving forwards into a bay is as easy as reversing into one. You just steer in a different place. You also need to start further away from the ends of the bays so that as the car swings in it doesn’t cut too far into neighbouring bays. The examiner will be marking using the same criteria quoted from DT1 above. So don’t faff around, and keep a look out for anything that might need dealing with.
My preferred method involves lining up a specific point on the car with the nearest line of the bay you want to drive into at a right angle to it. Put full lock on and move forward until you are at 90º from your starting position. Straighten up and drive into the bay. However, this is only half of the manoeuvre, and you will now be asked to reverse out – which must be done safely and without excessively encroaching on the neighbouring bays.
Reverse out of the bay in a straight line until the ends of the bays are at roughly the same position as your reference point for driving in. Put full lock on in whichever direction you need to leave the car park, and carefully drive away.
Again, my method involves fixed stops, and these act as trigger points for looking all around – and especially behind you. Look before you move. At every stop. The forward bay park manoeuvre takes longer than the reverse, so more safety checks will be needed for that reason alone. You are also much more likely to be reversing towards or crossing the paths other vehicles or pedestrians because of your wider start position.
There is no reason why you can’t just drive into a bay in one single movement, but like I said earlier, if you miss any safety checks – and especially if you don’t see something you should have – you will fail.
Are there any other ways to bay park?
The fixed position method for reverse bay parking has two major drawbacks in the real world, 1) you have to have at least two more lines lines beyond your target bay otherwise you can’t do it, and 2) the bays have to be a standard size. So if you want to get into an end bay or one that’s been over- or undersized by whoever painted it, you’ve got to choose another way.
The 90º method is certainly the easiest. It works in the real world, but you must have room or else you simply can’t do it. It is perfect for use on the test because it works reliably and is easy to teach to a point where the learner can do it by themselves. Note that the size of the bays is irrelevant when forward bay parking.
The mirrors method requires good reversing skills, which many learners simply don’t have – nor do they have the financial resources or desire to part with such resources in order to acquire such skills , particularly if it turns out they have a problem.
I show all these methods to my own pupils, but in almost all cases it is the 90º one that we go with. I explain that they will have plenty of time to practice the other ways once they’ve passed. Being brutally honest, taking two minutes to park in Asda once they’ve passed is only going to annoy a few drivers (and maybe give them a bit of a giggle), whereas taking two minutes over it on your test could lead to a fail. So it makes sense to focus on a method that works rather than one that they have got the next 40 years to perfect.
Which method should I use on my test?
It’s up to you. However, I always explain to my pupils that although I am teaching them to be good drivers for the rest of their lives, we mustn’t forget that I am also teaching them to pass their tests in the most cost-effective time frame for them (and no matter what they might claim, all ADIs are teaching their pupils to “pass the test” – it’s what they are paid to do!) This is not the same as only teaching the bare minimum to pass.
To that end, the 90º method is usually the best option for me and them, because it works every time as long as you get one simple reference position right, and it also works in real life.
I remember my own examiner telling me when I’d passed my driving test that it was only the start, and that I’d be learning for the rest of my life. She was right. And that is just as true now as it was then. If you can park reasonably well, you’re going to be fine – you don’t need a PhD in the subject.
Will the car park be empty when I have to do it?
Assume not. In the TC car park, it usually is substantially empty, but I’ve been there and seen tests having to do it when the park is full up with cars and vans, and it is far too common that some prat of a driving instructor (are you listening, SAM?) has yet again ignored the TC manager’s requests to stay out and gone there to practice (or pretend to need the toilet) as tests are coming back.
Supermarket and council car parks are unlikely to be empty, or to remain so while you’re in them. You may have to park next to another car, or even between two of them.
Can I open the door to check my alignment?
Yes. In all honesty, you shouldn’t need to – but, yes.
How does the examiner know I’m inside the bay?
Some will get out and walk around the car at the end of the manoeuvre (usually, if you’re not straight or are displaced to one side). Others will open their door and take a look – with practice, you can easily tell if the car is in and if it’s straight just by looking at the position of the bay lines next to you, and examiners are good at this. Some will just lean forward and glance in the left wing mirror (that’s how I do it).
How does my instructor know I’m inside the bay?
Same as the above. If we’re not straight or not in a bay, I will often get the pupil to get out and walk round the car and see for themselves.
Will I fail if I’m on a line or not centralised?
No. Finishing on a line or very close to one is not an automatic fail – the examiners’ DT1 document used to state that, and I am not aware that the criteria have changed. You should always aim to finish dead centre at the first attempt, of course, and you are allowed to correct yourself. But take this example.
A while back, one of my pupils hated the reverse bay park manoeuvre, even though as far as I was concerned she was very good at it. Of course, this was the manoeuvre she got on her test. It was at the end as she came back to the test centre, and I was watching from behind a hedge so she couldn’t see me.
She reversed back and was cleanly inside the bay, but for some reason she decided she needed to fix it. She drove forward, then reversed back into almost the exact same position. She tried again, and once more ended up in the same position. Then she had another try and this time ended up diagonally across the other side and with her rear nearside wheel half way inside the neighbouring bay. I saw the wipers settle and knew that she’d turned off the ignition, so I walked over thinking “damn, she’s failed”. As I approached the car, the passenger window was open and the examiner said “just a minute DOAADI, we haven’t finished yet”. I walked on and stood somewhere behind. The examiner said something to my pupil, who then tried adjusting it one more time. She finished not quite straight, but just inside. And she passed.
So never assume anything.
Do they do the bay park manoeuvre at Watnall?
Both forward and reverse bay parking can be conducted on tests at all the Nottingham test centres.
It seems to have escaped everyone’s attention yet again, but if we draw a horizontal line on a graph of temperature versus time of the year at, say, 10ºC, there is a tendency for the actual temperature to be below 10ºC in winter and above 10ºC in summer. It’s funny, I know. But as far back as I can remember, that’s the way it’s always been.
The only anomaly – if you can call it that, since February and March were a lot colder than last year – is July. Nevertheless, this is sufficient for the amateurs who go under the title of “reporters” for rags like the Daily Mail and The Sun to get their rulers out, draw a line through May, June, and July, and start predicting that we’re all going to die because by October it’ll be above 60ºC. Of course, come September, they’ll be predicting the usual Ice Age accompanying “the coldest winter on record” (and that’s an actual quote from at least one of those two comics over each of the last three or four years).
Fair enough, this July was about 1 degree hotter, but other than that there’s nothing much different. Christ, I was in a maths lesson at school in June in ‘76 and it snowed on the 14th (or was it the 12th… whatever), and it’s not done that since!
This article was written in the hot summer of 2018. It applies equally to the one in 2022.
One thing I have noticed with the benefit of hindsight is that the foliage on virtually every Silver Birch I have seen this year is thinner than in previous years (that’s also true for a lot of other trees I’ve seen). The leaves are actually smaller. The reason I say “hindsight” is that about a month into deep-watering and my tree has put out some significant new growth and the leaves on that new growth are much larger, and just like the photo I took last year.
I’ve also recently bought a new sprinkler – a Gardena ZoomMaxx. Depending on water pressure it can water over a range of between 3m and 18m, or an area between 9m² and 216m² in an almost circular pattern (though the pattern is adjustable). In my case, with a water flow rate of 7L per minute (which is classed as “low pressure”), it was able to cover an area of around 80-90m² – which is about 5 times what my old bar sprinkler could manage.
I first published this back in 2012 after someone had found the blog on precisely that search term!
Take Mallaig in Scotland
Statistics are a statement of what did happen. They are not probabilities – a prediction of what will happen.
Well, when I say “Toblerone”, I mean Mondelez – the American jerks who own the brand now.
