Driving Test Failure

Richard53

baza52 wrote: »

I bet most people that have had a licence for that long would fail the theory test now let alone the practical test.

I've done several of these online, both car and bike versions, and got 95 or 100% each time. I would regard getting less than the pass mark as a sign of dishonour Perhaps I am unusual, in that I regard driving as a skill that needs constant development and attention, and I do keep up to date with the HC and so on. Test passed in 1971 (car) and 1973 (bike).

Tothepoint.

baza52 wrote: »

lol. where did you hear that?
I'm assuming it was an experienced driver that could not pass it and used it as an excuse rofl

There's one where there's a kid on a bike on a slip road to the near side. He's a potential hazard as soon as you see him on the first screen. To pass that part of the test he's only considered to be a hazard immediately before he emerges into the path of you vehicle.

So yes experienced drives do fail it.

Mercdriver

I suspect she may have entered the second lane from a roundabout. Sometimes when making a right turn on a roundabout, the lane you choose can leave you stranded when you get to your exit and you have no choice but to enter in lane 2 and move into lane 1 when safe to do so. I was warned about this and advised if there were two lanes marked for a right turn to take the leftmost one when possible to avoid getting into this situation. It may be that she failed to look in her blind spot when she did so, which meant she committed two faults at once and if she had already had 2 faults for observation, she would have failed under the 3 strikes in one area rule.

On entering lane 2 from a roundabout the examiner will have been watching her like a hawk, as moving to the left is quite a hazardous one (one that many drivers avoid by staying in the middle lane on the motorway).

baza52

Tothepoint. wrote: »

There's one where there's a kid on a bike on a slip road to the near side. He's a potential hazard as soon as you see him on the first screen. To pass that part of the test he's only considered to be a hazard immediately before he emerges into the path of you vehicle.

So yes experienced drives do fail it.

so did you pass or fail?

baza52

Tothepoint. wrote: »

There's one where there's a kid on a bike on a slip road to the near side. He's a potential hazard as soon as you see him on the first screen. To pass that part of the test he's only considered to be a hazard immediately before he emerges into the path of you vehicle.

So yes experienced drives do fail it.

Its not about potential hazards though, Its about developing hazards otherwise any pedestrian could wander into the road or a car waiting to exit a junction could just pull out.

If you clicked when you saw the kid on the first screen you would have lost marks.

Nick_C

stevepb101 wrote: »

My daughter failed her 1st driving test yesterday which i think was harsh.

No doubt. But luckily, the assessment as to whether or not sometime is safe to take charge of a vehicle is given to independent professionals and not parents.

forgotmyname

bigadaj wrote: »

I've heard that a lot of experienced drivers fail the hazard perception test as they click too quickly, so perceive the hard before the system would expect a learner driver to have picked it up.

yep its true, if the poster above doesnt think its true then they should try it or get an experienced driver to try it.

Try one of the examples on the DVLA site etc, if you fail to click before it starts scoring or the instant it starts to score then your not looking ahead enough.

The first time i tried it with a DVD based one i didnt know your could click more than once and clicked most obstacles before the scoring zone has started. This is not made up, its backed up by the examples giving you the exact time you clicked and the exact time of the scoring zone.

I didnt miss any, and most learners shouldnt either, its just how quickly and whether they perceive it to be a hazard or not.

bigadaj

baza52 wrote: »

Its not about potential hazards though, Its about developing hazards otherwise any pedestrian could wander into the road or a car waiting to exit a junction could just pull out.

If you clicked when you saw the kid on the first screen you would have lost marks.

So it teaches you how to pass the test, not to drive well.

The latter ultimately comes about with experience, as a learner you can't be expected to achieve a high level of competence, and a pass is based on reaching an arbitrary basic level of competence.

I certainly know about hazard perception as it is there every day, standards of driving are poor and often reckless and the lack of traffic police on the roads mean that people get away with it until they have an accident.

lister

Well there is a lot of guesswork and regurgitation of 'driving test facts' here, so I'll do my best to explain the realities and debunk a few of the myths.

Firstly, just a little detail - there are no minor and major faults... There are driver faults, serious faults and dangerous faults (and faults deemed not worthy, but you can ignore those as they are not recorded).

There were no other vehicles around at the time but she was given a major and failed,the examiner saying she stayed in the outside lane "too long" and "someone may have had to undertake her!"

There is actually a can of worms here in that generally this wouldn't be given as a serious fault IF there were no cars behind. Normally a driver fault for 'position normal driving' would be recorded.

I would suspect that if I could see a front and rear video of this event, I will find that there are cars behind in lane 2. They haven't overtaken on the left, and may not even be very close, but if they are holding station at a distance that will still be interpreted as likely to want to be going faster and being baulked by the candidate's position.

The other possibility is the length of time the car has been in lane 2. In my experience when a student says it is only for a short time, it could easily be a couple of minutes. That is far too long and could induce the examiner to record a serious even without vehicles trying to overtake on the left.

This is why if attending with an instructor, the candidate should always ask them to sit in the back. Not to argue the toss with the examiner at the end, but so they can explain afterwards why the fault has been recorded as it has. I have sat in on 250+ tests and the only time a candidate has been adamant a serious fault didn't happen is when I haven't been sat in...

And if they lazy, indolent ADI refuses (and so many try to make sure they don't sit in so they can park their sorry backsides and chat for 30 mins), sell them down the river and when the DE asks if the instructor is accompanying, say yes...

To be considered test standard by me, driving on the left should be total instinct. If you end up in lane 2 (usually turning right either at a roundabout or at traffic lights) you should be immediately building up to the speed limit (if safe), assessing if you are using the lane (i.e. overtaking or turning right in a short time), and if not using the lane, returning to lane 1.

To be safe on our roads this has to be 100% a built in response (and not just on multi lane roads, but throughout their driving). All too often I have skilled and confident learners who would sit in lanes 2+ for miles (while not making use of the lane) if I let them - more driving needed before going to test!

Depends what they are for. Multiple minors for the exact same thing will result in a major and a fail. Can't remember if it's 3 or 5 of the same fault before it's classed as a major. However 5 minors for 5 different things is not a fail.

Correct with regard to habitual faults. There is no set number that makes a driver fault a serious. Typically it is the fourth occurrence that becomes a serious, but I have had people pass with 5 driver faults in a box, and fail with just 1 and a serious (and the DE has been clear that it was because he considered it habitual). The reasons behind this are a bit complex to go into here.

another 1 was not checking properly on parallel parking but she assures me she extra checked on this as instructor had pulled her about it a few days before

Just because she 'extra checked' doesn't mean that the checking was conducted properly. The question the DE is asking themselves is whether the observation was effective - in other words did they look in the places they needed to, in a timely fashion, and did they respond adequately to what they saw.

My money says that it was the second of these factors which was the problem. Under pressure students simply forget to look in a particular location for too long during the manoeuvre. More than 2-3 seconds between checks and that could be heading into fault territory depending on prevailing road conditions.

In which case, take what she's said with a pinch of salt

+1000...:) That isn't to say the candidate is lying, they are simply recalling what they think they would have done. Students rarely remember details of incidents on test correctly in my experience.

I am surprised that rolling back on the hill start does not constitute a fail too

On a driving test, everything is assessed. It is (almost) never true that doing X gets a serious fault and doing Y gets a driver fault. The road situation and events are all assessed in combination.

So in the case of rolling back on a hill, the questions to ask are how far, how in control was the candidate, what traffic was behind etc. Generally a small rollback would either be no fault recorded or a driver fault. But if someone has stopped really close behind, could easily get recorded as a serious, even if the examiner doesn't intervene, because you are supposed to be aware of their proximity and be extra careful about your move away.

I'm surprised that what now constitutes a "minor" would have been instant fail when I took my test back in 1970

I suspect you believe you know far more about the 1970 driving test than you do. The above point would still have applied.

Hoof_Hearted

Just did the theory test and scored 47. It is pathetically easy. How could anybody fail this?