{"id":18152,"date":"2015-09-02T01:01:48","date_gmt":"2015-09-02T00:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=18152"},"modified":"2015-09-02T01:01:48","modified_gmt":"2015-09-02T00:01:48","slug":"driving-test-shake-up-planned-by-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/?p=18152","title":{"rendered":"Driving Test Shake Up Planned by Government"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article in the Independent makes interesting reading<\/a>. It reports that the Government is planning a shake up of the driving regulations \u2013 the \u201cbiggest since 1935\u201d, if you believe the hype.<\/p>\n

There is talk of partly privatising the driving test itself, closing test centres, and increasing the age of self-certification from 70 to 75 years. The article states:<\/p>\n

\n

Ministers want to improve the driving test pass rate, which is languishing below 50 per cent. The document states that there is \u201canecdotal evidence\u201d that ill-prepared learners are booking their test date after only a handful of lessons, possibly because of concerns over waiting times between booking and taking the practical examination.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This is complete bollocks. The pass rate has gone up every year since 2002<\/a>, and 47% is hardly \u201clanguishing\u201d below 50. And waiting times have only gone up over the last year, so God only knows where this \u201canecdotal evidence\u201d has come from. Here are the historical pass rates:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\n

2002\/3<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2003\/4<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2004\/5<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2005\/6<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2006\/7<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2007\/8<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2008\/9<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2009\/10<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2010\/11<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2011\/12<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2012\/13<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2013\/14<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

2014\/15<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

43.2<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

42.8<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

14.9<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

42.6<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

43.3<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

44.2<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

45.3<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

45.9<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

46.3<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

46.9<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

47.1<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

47.1<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

\n

46.9<\/font><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

I couldn\u2019t find any data from before 2002, and that figure from 2004\/5 has<\/strong> to be an error, but here\u2019s what the data look like (without 2004\/5) when plotted on a graph:\"Historical<\/p>\n

It\u2019s bad enough that the Independent hacks didn\u2019t research it properly, but I really do wish that those people cutting-and-pasting it on to forums would do their<\/strong> homework first. The situation is not as the Government (or the Independent) is reporting it, and that makes it invalid as the justification for change. The Government is merely pursuing an agenda \u2013 more on that in a moment.<\/p>\n

The driving test pass rate has always \u201clanguished\u201d below 100% for the simple reason that not everyone passes the test! The reason they don\u2019t pass is because there is effectively a \u201cpass mark\u201d \u2013 dictated by the driver fault\/serious fault boundary – which quite simply means that if they don\u2019t drive well enough on the day then they will fail. It\u2019s nature in action, and it results in a national pass rate of around 47% at the moment. You wouldn\u2019t expect it to change much year on year unless someone was fiddling the results.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s what the Government is proposing. One of the ways they will do it is already being trialled<\/a>, and the actual changes being looked at include replacing most of the existing manoeuvres<\/a> (which people can currently easily fail at) with ones that only a complete idiot could fail at. I mean, they are looking to replace the turn in the road and reverse round a corner manoeuvres with \u201cpulling over on the right\u201d and \u201creversing\u201d!<\/p>\n

To get an idea of what the Government is trying to do, you only have to look at the GCSE grading system. GCSEs are graded A to G and \u2013 like it or not \u2013 every one of those grades is officially considered to be a \u201cpass\u201d. It means that the \u201cpass rate\u201d for GCSEs has been above 97% since 1989, and every year you have people walking around with Es, Fs, and Gs pretending \u2013 having been led to believe – that they have a \u201cpass\u201d, when the reality is that no employer (or university) in the land is going to be demanding a handful of Gs in order to be considered for a position with them. The only grades that mean anything are the As, Bs, and Cs, and that brings the \u201cpass rate\u201d down to around 60%. Consider also that under the old O Level system, I believe that around 40% of candidates achieved an A-C grade (anything below that was NOT a pass), and you can see how the figures have been artificially elevated \u2013 don\u2019t get me started on how GCSEs are far easier than \u2018O\u2019 Levels were.<\/p>\n

But this is what they are proposing to do with the driving test. They want to make it so easy only a complete moron would ever fail it, and this will bring the \u201cpass rate\u201d up. What they blatantly fail to realise is that the higher pass rate will bear no relation to actual driving standards. In fact, it will mask a serious decline, as candidates will not be required to master more difficult skills and will only be asked to demonstrate much easier ones. Yet these people will be sent out on the roads with full driving licences.<\/p>\n

There is mention in the Independent article of \u201cthe private sector [being] asked to help to fill any shortages of examiners and test centres.\u201d I can\u2019t get as worked up over this as some ADIs seem to be doing. It doesn\u2019t specify who the \u201cprivate sector\u201d are, and it\u2019s only the usual bunch of anti-DVSA instructors who are assuming that it means random people taken off the streets.<\/p>\n

Another change that looks like it is going to happen anyway is that people will no longer have to declare themselves fit to drive when they reach 70. The age limit will be raised to 75. This is frightening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article in the Independent makes interesting reading. It reports that the Government is planning a shake up of the driving regulations \u2013 the \u201cbiggest since 1935\u201d, if you believe the hype. There is talk of partly privatising the driving test itself, closing test centres, and increasing the age of self-certification from 70 to 75 […]<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[80,81,84,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adi-related","category-driving-test-related","category-dvsa-related","category-news"],"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\/18152","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=18152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diaryofanadi.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}