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.
This is a really, really, REALLY old story from November 2012. This update is from late 2021, as a result of a run of hits on the article.
When Chalfont closed, tests were variously conducted over a couple of years from Colwick, Beeston (near the train station), Chilwell (from The Village Hotel), Clifton (on the Trent University campus), Clarendon Street (Trent University campus), and Watnall (the old LGV testing station).
As of 2021, test locations have been stable for several years and located at Colwick, Chilwell (Eldon Road, just behind the Village Hotel used before this facility opened), and Watnall.
This article (below) is now summarised from the original sequence of will-it-won’t it relocations in 2012 and 2013.
The DVSA had to vacate the Chalfont Drive location as the lease had run out (the entire site, which housed many government offices, is now deserted). They seemed to have left it a little late to start looking for a new location, and for a short time tests moved to Watnall and the DVLA local offices (which have now also closed).
DVSA announced that a new centre would open on the Beeston Business Park in the Rylands before the contract had been finalised. As a result, the whole deal almost fell through when the area was inundated with idiot ADIs conducting their lessons in the Rylands (in actual fact, no test routes cover the Rylands, and there is a notice up in the test centre waiting room informing instructors of this fact as a result of complaints by residents).
Anyway, to cut a long and very confusing story short, the Beeston Test Centre began operating in June 2013. And after the closure of the Clarendon Street trial, tests have once again started being conducted out of Watnall.
63-year old has 12 points for using mobile phone, speeding, and shooting red lights
56-year old has 12 points for drink-driving and having no insurance
19-year old has 15 points for speeding and failing to identify the driver
Of the 20 youngest to have 12 points or more, only two have been banned
All those in the legal system associated with not banning these people are complete arseholes, intent on sending this country into the sewer (and it doesn’t really need much help with that as it is).
These miscreants should be named. Come to think of it, so should the morons who didn’t ban them.
I saw this topic on a forum recently. It concerns emerging – usually on to a roundabout – using a vehicle on your right as a “shield”. I’ve covered roundabouts in detail before, but this is a separate subject.
There is no official guidance that I am aware of which says you should or shouldn’t do it. I have to be honest and admit that I do it myself sometimes, but only if I am confident that I’m not taking too big a risk. Because it IS a risk, and doing it right depends heavily on how well you can control the car – being able to accelerate briskly, and to brake quickly and effectively if the situation changes – and on how well you can read other people. Most new drivers do not have those skills, and this should guide their decision about whether or not to do it.
So, what are the risks? Well, imagine that you’re sitting at the entrance to a roundabout in the left hand lane, and that there is a van to your right. The van is blocking your view of traffic coming from the right. Suddenly, the van moves off, and you follow suit. If everything goes to plan, you drive merrily on your way and everyone is happy. But consider the following possibilities:
The van driver made the wrong decision and a bus or lorry was coming from the right. The bus/lorry collides with the van and pushes it into you, or the van sees the bus/lorry and realises he’s made a mistake, then takes evasive action by turning into your path.
The van driver made the wrong decision because something was coming, and brakes sharply. You continue ahead and are suddenly exposed to whatever it is that made the van brake.
The van moves off, but something was coming. The van manages to get away, but you move off a fraction of a second later – perhaps jumping a little as you rush the manoeuvre, thus slowing you down a bit more – and are exposed to whatever the van was trying to beat.
The van moves off, but he was timing his move because there was something coming. You accelerate ahead and are exposed to whatever the van was waiting for.
The van stops. You also manage to stop, but the car behind you had tried to move off with you and doesn’t react in time. He drives straight into the back of you and pushes you further on to the roundabout.
The simple fact is that no matter how well it turns out, you were simply guessing that the road was clear, and in the case of using a van as your shield were relying on someone who almost by definition was not the best example to follow. The examples above CAN happen.
Now, if the vehicle you’re using as a shield is bigger – a bus or a lorry, for example – it is likely to move off more slowly, and that means you can do the same. If it stops, you’ll have more time to react. Generally speaking, buses are less likely to take risks compared with van drivers, and lorries are less likely to be pushed into your path if someone collides with them. But even so, this is a mercenary view of a situation which still boils down to you taking a gamble on something you can’t see.
You cannot be certain how quickly or slowly your shield is going to move. Some lorries (e.g. motorway maintenance ones or those that often carry earth or rubble for building sites) can move off very quickly, especially if they’re unladen. Some vans – in spite of always adopting the “fast” lane as their default – move away extremely slowly (usually the old smelly DAF vans, or old rust buckets). If you can read this it definitely helps you make your decision. Oh, and consider which route you intend to take – if you’re going straight ahead, using a shield makes a lot more sense than if you’re simply turning left. Using a shield for left turns is roughly equivalent to trying to do roundabouts wearing a blindfold!
I always teach my learners that if they can’t see, then they shouldn’t go. Early on in their training they can easily be led by what other drivers are doing, and I often have to warn them “don’t copy him – wait until you can see” as they start to move off whilst completely unsighted (and sometimes in the wrong gear). Later on, I explain that using a shield during normal driving is only even passably acceptable if you’re bloody sure about what you’re doing. Don’t copy cars (especially Audis and BMWs, which are faster than you, and are driven by bigger idiots), and be very careful with vans (the drivers of which probably own Audis or BMWs anyway). And yes, I use that sort of language to get the message across.
I’ve seen a new advert the last couple of days for one of those magazines where you get a few parts for an on going model construction project. This one results in a 1:1 movie model replica of the Millennium Falcon from the Star Wars films.
The first issue is £2.99, but subsequent issues are £8.99 each (though you can choose a free gift with your subscription, one option of which is a free issue of the magazine). But the best part is that the series is 100 issues long!
I wonder if the kind or person who is likely to subscribe is aware that the finished model they end up with in two years time is going to have cost them at least £880, and yet it will have nowhere near that value if you wanted to sell it?
This is not in the least funny, and the poor woman involved is not a last-minute contender for the 2014 Darwin Awards.
— The video has now been removed from YouTube —
She drives on to a garage forecourt and realises that the petrol cap is on the other side of her car from the pump. Note how she keeps checking to see that her flap is on the nearside each time she notices it hasn’t got any nearer to a pump. She drives around in a circle until – on her fourth attempt – she suddenly realises that the nearside and offside of the car remain on their respective sides no matter which way you’re facing. She finally realises that she’s got to actually turn around in order for the nearside of her car to be next to a pump.
What makes it even worse – and none of the media sources who have covered the story seem to have picked up on it – is that the nozzles at that petrol station are on rollers, and they would reach around the other side anyway, no matter which way you’re facing. This is one of my pet hates: sitting in a queue at the garage while several unused pumps remain blocked by old people and… ahem… non-male drivers as they wait to get to their “favourite” one.
Back to the video. You also have to wonder how many times she’s filled the car up before. And she still doesn’t get it.
According to the CCTV stamp, this only happened a couple of days ago.
Vodafone has released this video of some kids examining one of the first mobile phones. Maybe it’s just me, but what it shows is how bloody stupid some of today’s kids are. Note the one who reckons the world would have been “in black & white” before mobile phones, and the one who would like future incarnations to turn her “into a fairy”. They need some serious education… and quick!
I got my first mobile phone back in 1994, and I can well remember some of the comments I got from my friends. Like “why do you need one of those?” and “why do you want people to be able to contact you when you’re out?” Of course, the cost of a call – it was more than the BT local land line rate – was always the favourite target (in actual fact, I had always been on a pay monthly contract, and I started out with Orange, and stayed with them, so my calls were never in the 40p per minute range of the crappy analogue phones). Now, they all rely on them.
But why is it that people take the piss out of the past? The present is always at the forefront of technology, and it becomes history tomorrow. Each day is a step forward in terms of technology – tomorrow couldn’t exist without today anymore than today could exist without yesterday. So why ridicule it?
DVSA has been putting out reminders about the Highway Code and how it relates to driving in bad weather. Quite right, too.
Snow On The Roof
Anyone who drives their car with a thick cover of snow on the roof doesn’t deserve to hold a driving licence. Furthermore, if the idiot in question has kids with them then they are in need of an urgent visit from Social Services to discuss suitable foster homes for the protection of their offspring.
Look at the picture below, which shows how a covering of snow on the roof can suddenly slip and obscure the driver’s view (and this appears to be on a stationary vehicle).
It is not a rare occurrence – it happens more times than it doesn’t in this country, I can assure you. I witnessed it happen to several moving cars while out on lessons over the weekend, but the “best” one was on Sunday.
I’d just dropped a pupil off after a lesson, and on approaching the Crown Island to join the busy ring road I’d already had to negotiate a taxi which was stopped at a set of lights with its hazard lights on (I assume it had broken down, though with taxis it’s hard to tell, and having one of them stop in the middle of a box junction at a crossroads to pick up a fare isn’t as unlikely an event as you might think). Anyway, as I approached the island there was another major hold up. This time some prat had stopped in the right hand approach lane about two car lengths from the give way line. Why? Because he’d got a 3” deep slab of snow on the roof, had braked hard, and the snow had fallen down as a frozen sheet on to his windscreen. It was too heavy for the wipers to clear, so the dolt had had to get out and start shovelling by hand.
He was lucky he hadn’t driven into the back of someone. He was lucky no one had driven into the back of him. He was lucky his wipers hadn’t snapped or burnt out when he vainly tried to wipe the ice clear. And he was lucky he hadn’t discharged his battery. Mind you, come to think of it, any of those last three things could still have happened for all I knew after I’d got past him.
He should have cleared his roof before he left home, of course. But that would have meant dumping the nasty snow in his own driveway instead of on the approach to a roundabout where it could cause significant danger to other drivers. These prats who think it’s really clever to keep snow on the roof – either to amuse the kids, or themselves – inevitably lose it at some stage. Even if it doesn’t fall on to their windscreen it ends up all over the road when they brake sharply, which this kind of person is wont to do at every junction and roundabout. Eventually, there is just the right combination of melting underneath and freezing on top to send the sheet hilariously on to the road where a previously clear road now has an ice patch right where you least want one.
Steamed-up Windows
Then there’s the problem of steamed up car windows. I’m sick of being cut up by cars full of spotty-faced kids with windows completely steamed up. These people can’t drive very well at the best of times, so you’d imagine that they’d want to have a good all-round view, wouldn’t you? Apparently not, though, and they’d much rather just fling the car from lane to lane without having a clue who or what is behind them.
I took a young lad out on a Pass Plus session the other day. He wasn’t one of my own ex-pupils, and he had lots of questions. One of them was:
Is it normal for cars to steam up like this all the time?
We’d been driving for a few minutes and the side windows had started to mist up. I explained to him that yes, unfortunately it was normal. It happens because the cold air cannot hold the moisture that the passengers are giving off, so it condenses out on to cold surfaces. I then gave him my “show me, tell me” question talk, explaining that there are three main ways to clear mist off the windows:
The Heated Window button(s) – to demist the back, push the button that turns on the heated rear window. Some cars have a heated front windscreen, too, which has a similar effect at the front.
The Heater/Fan – by blowing a lot of warm air at the windscreen and side windows, the mist is evaporated.
The Air-conditioning – the aircon system dehumidifies the air, which completely prevents misting up to start with, and eliminates it quickly if it’s already happened. It uses a little more fuel at lower speeds – and I said “a little”.
He was amazed at how the aircon sorted out the problem within a minute. What’s more, after I switched it off the car remained mist-free for the whole 2 hour session. But I am fairly certain that a lot of drivers out there don’t even know about the heated rear window, let alone whether or not their car has a heated front window or air-conditioning.
Note that you can get demister sponges – made from chamois or faux-chamois wrapped around a foam pad – which work well up to a point. They’re ideal for cars which don’t have aircon. What puts me off them is that after you’ve used them a couple of times they pick up grease and leave smears on the glass.
Inappropriate Speed
On Monday this week I was sitting with a pupil outside his house at the start of a lesson. His roads were all covered in shiny sheet-ice as a result of compacted snow and no gritting, and since this was his first time in such conditions I was giving my snow/ice talk prior to going to look for places where we could skid safely. Three or four houses down the road was a t-junction and, as we watched, a Corsa driven by a woman (if she didn’t have kids in the car at the time, she certainly had all the things stuck on the back window that indicate she usually did) appeared. It slammed its brakes on, skidded across the entire road, and ended up almost touching the kerb opposite.
It took many wheel-spins for her to correct her position and carry on in the direction she intended. I asked my pupil what he though would have happened if someone had been travelling along the main road and had this happen in front of them, bearing in mind the conditions on the road? What would have happened to the kids in the back of either car?
Since Friday, when it snowed, I have lost count of the number of people who have overtaken me or a pupil in places where it was only by sheer luck that they didn’t skid or end up skidding as a result of having to brake hard. There is no way anyone can know what is ahead of them, and when your ability to stop is so severely compromised by ice it is sheer stupidity to drive like this. Even up until yesterday (the snow has all melted by this morning) many roundabouts and traffic light junctions were still restricted to one driveable lane because of snow cover, and yet far too many prats were using the snow cover as overtaking space. And yet, without fail we caught up with them at the next junction, so all they had achieved was to behave stupidly, dangerously, and illegally for absolutely no gain.
In this country snow-chains are pretty pointless, as they can only be used on contiguous snow cover without damaging the chains, your tyres, and the road surface. We rarely get those conditions in England or where roads are treated and maintained. Snow socks are an alternative worth considering. They fit easily, and can be used over patches of tarmac, though care is needed as your tyres effectively do not meet the minimum tread depth specification. However, they could get you up (or down) that last hill to your driveway.
Correct Preparation
Just prior to driving off.
Clear off all snow from the windows, roof, bonnet, lights, and mirrors
Use an ice scraper or a car squeegee to help dislodge and move large areas of snow
Use an ice scraper and/or de-icer to remove frost and ice from windows and mirrors
Use the car heater and heated window/mirror controls to help you dislodge ice on windows and mirrors
Use the air-conditioning, hot air blowers, and a suitable cloth/sponge if you like to de-mist the windows inside
Don’t forget that your rear view mirror will also steam up when it is cold, so give it a wipe
All you have to do is wait 2-3 minutes with the engine running and the heater blowing at the windscreen and the windows will demist – do it while you’re clearing snow or scraping ice
There are other car checks that you should carry out routinely anyway, especially if you’re going on a longer journey.
Check your tyre pressures
Check your screen wash fluid level and make sure you have some spare in the boot
Fill up with fuel before you leave town, and make sure you know where fuel stops are along the way
Make sure your screen wash fluid is the right concentration not to freeze
Carry de-icer, ice-scrapers, and clean rags for cleaning purposes
And a few other things that just make sense:
Make sure you have suitably warm clothing with you
Make sure you have your phone with you
Make sure you have money or a means to pay for things with you
Maybe a pair of snow socks just in case
Other advice you’ll see is to carry cat litter or sand to help you get out of ruts if you get stuck, a snow shovel to dig yourself out, and food to keep you going if you are stranded. Well, all that’s up to you – most people get stuck driving home from work or Tesco, and the chances of being marooned for several days until the rescue helicopter finds you are fairly remote. However, if you are planning to drive a long way you can consider these options.
Bottom Line
If you drive with snow on the roof (or anywhere else) or badly misted windows you don’t deserve to hold a driving licence! Don’t be a prat – just clean it off, turn up the damned heater, and find something else that amuses either you or the kids.
People in this country rightly take pride in our national flag which is why I am delighted it will now be displayed on British driving licences.
Celebrating Britain strengthens our sense of national identity and our unity. I will feel proud to carry my new licence and I hope others will too.
Well, actually, no. The change is pointless, and it smacks of nationalism, which I detest. Hopefully, the idea will get reversed (or an opt-out introduced) some time in the next 10 years before my licence is due for renewal.
Unfortunately, I can see it appealing to quite few people and, therefore, gaining a few votes for the current Mickey Mouse government we have. Incidentally, no one has claimed anywhere that the change has anything to do with cutting bureaucracy or reducing costs. In fact, with 127,000,000 licences having been issued since 1998 even as little as a tenth of a penny on the cost of each licence would amount to over £100,000.
Surrey and Hampshire News (an outfit that obviously can’t afford a real web server for its publication, because this story is no longer available after less than two weeks) reckons that only 1 in 3 learners are taking lessons with qualified instructors, opting instead to be taught by family members.
I’m not sure I trust their figures. If nothing else, they fail to follow up on all those who start out with the cheaper option, then end up failing their tests and have to go to a proper instructor for remedial training later. Perhaps the quoted figure by MoneySuperMarket – that is costs “a whopping” £1,128 to learn to drive with an ADI – reflects this?
You see, £1,128 would equate to around 50 hours of lessons (well, 45 hours, plus the theory test and practical test fees) using my hourly rates. During this last year I’ve had one pupil do it in 14½ hours, and many others manage well under 40 hours, and I can’t see how or why this should be much different elsewhere if the training is up to scratch. In fact, what I think we’re starting to see is the effect of cheap lessons – the story and MoneySuperMarket only seem concerned about that, anyway – and the resulting quality issues.
I lost count long ago of the number of people who had been “taught” by mum or dad, or by a cheaper instructor, but who subsequently realised they weren’t getting anywhere. The biggest problem in most cases was getting rid of their appallingly bad habits.
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.
