{"id":10039,"date":"2012-08-20T09:42:21","date_gmt":"2012-08-20T08:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=10039"},"modified":"2012-08-20T09:42:21","modified_gmt":"2012-08-20T08:42:21","slug":"aussie-driving-test-changes-proposed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=10039","title":{"rendered":"Aussie Driving Test Changes Proposed"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story says that changes<\/a> are proposed to the Australian driving test. A couple of comments in the story caught my eye.<\/p>\n

It proposes fewer chances for error, and recommends focus on manoeuvres such as right-hand turns and merging, which carry a much higher crash risk than things like reverse parks. <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why do people always seem to think that only things likely to directly involve accidents should be tested? Being able to carry out basic exercises and routines is a way of testing car control and manoeuvring skills – both of which are building blocks for driving safely.<\/p>\n

Personally, I think the only people who have it in for reverse parking are those who find it difficult themselves. And advocating dropping it is their insidious way of trying to dumb down the test (that applies whatever country we\u2019re talking about).<\/p>\n

Under the changes, drivers are permitted to exceed the speed limit by up to 4km\/h on three occasions before being automatically failed.<\/p>\n

Mr Emerson said he would seek public feedback<\/strong> on the review, which represented the first significant overhaul of the driving test in 14 years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What precisely do they think \u201cthe public\u201d will say? This is a \u201cpublic\u201d that wants to go faster, and which can\u2019t reverse park properly in the first place! In any case, if an idea is that<\/strong> good it doesn\u2019t need \u201cthe public\u201d to agree to it. After all, they wouldn\u2019t consult the public about cutting<\/strong> speed limits, so why consult them about effectively increasing the limit – unless they already have doubts about it?<\/p>\n

Ask the \u201cman in the street\u201d over here, and you\u2019d immediately be talking to \u201cthe best driver in the world\u201d (in his own opinion). He\u2019d have all kinds of suggestions for \u201cimproving\u201d the test, most of which would be utter rubbish if heard by anyone who knew what they were talking about. However, ministers and the media would take them seriously – and in our most notable case, if the \u201cman in the street\u201d turned out to be the daughter of The Transport Minister, then many of the changes could be rushed through Parliament without any form of additional \u201cconsultation\u201d.<\/p>\n

He [Paul Turner] said although reverse parking did not carry a high crash risk it was still a “technical skill” that deserved a place in the driving test.<\/p>\n

“We don’t believe it should be a matter of replacing things in the test,” Mr Turner said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At least someone has a sensible outlook.<\/p>\n

One final comment in the story. The article says:<\/p>\n

Statistics released by Transport and Main Roads show pass rates for driving tests in Queensland averaged 64 per cent last year. The rate has remained virtually unchanged despite the introduction in 2007 of the 100-hour logbook system for learners.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How would the logbook system change pass rates? And especially so when you already have a very high figure of two-thirds passing!<\/p>\n

What it would do is affect the number of people taking the test (if they actually used it), or perhaps the number having accidents in the first few years following their tests (if it worked as intended). The percentage of people taking tests may well have changed as a result, but why should it have anything but a minor impact on the already high actual pass rate? All people do, more or less, is turn up for test now with a bit of paper they didn\u2019t have before – it\u2019s getting the paper<\/strong> which is the new bit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This story says that changes are proposed to the Australian driving test. A couple of comments in the story caught my eye. It proposes fewer chances for error, and recommends focus on manoeuvres such as right-hand turns and merging, which carry a much higher crash risk than things like reverse parks. Why do people always […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80,87,82,101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adi-related","category-news","category-training","category-world-related"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}