The past couple of days have been very hectic, so I haven't been able to let you know what's been happening with my driving life, so I'll try to summarise.
Last Saturday I had an early morning wake up call because my mature student had her test at 08:40. Having set the alarm, I got to my pupils house at 07:50, rang the bell, and had to wait 10 minutes for her to come down (okay we had agreed 08:00 as pickup time, but I would have thought she would be up early for a test)! Anyway she missed out on a few extra minutes of tuition, even though her last few lessons had gone very well and there was a possibility that she could pass. We went through the show me tell me procedure, concentrating mainly on what's under the car's bonnet. We drove down to the test area, practised a few manoeuvres, and it was soon time to head towards the test centre.
On arrival, I asked her to do the bay parking exercise, as she is most likely to get the exercise at this centre, her first attempt saw her heading straight towards one of the parked cars, so I stopped her, we looked at the clock, and it was time for her test, so I asked her to go in and I'll park the car for her, this I did without moving the car seat. I walked into the waiting room to she my pupil making her way to the rest room, looks like the nerves have kicked in. A few minutes later she walks out, and she and her examiner go to the car, well lets hope that she can pull it off.
As usual during a test, there are a few ADI's in the waiting room, so we have a chat, while we look out of the window expecting our cars to return anytime. One amusing incident that happened was when 2 BSM cars almost collided while doing bay parking in the test centre car park. One BSM car was already into the manoeuvre, when another one turns up, and proceeds to start its own bay park on the same side of the car park! I don't know how the instructor in the second car actually allowed the pupil to begin the manoeuvre, when it was not safe! They came within 2 metres of each other before they both stopped!
Not long after that the cars started returning, mine turned up, and I was surprised when she drove straight into the bay forwards (no bay parking, this was a first for me at that test centre), I walk up to the car, looking at the driving report sheet, trying to see if the serious or dangerous error column were empty. The examiner says something to my pupil, then winds down his window. 'I'm sorry to say you didn't pass', he then when on to explain that she had made a couple of errors with her position when turning right from a major road. This came as a surprise to me, as she had never had a problem with that during her lessons, he said that she had done this on more than 2 occasions, and therefore he had considered it a serious driver error, and that was what she failed on! I couldn't argue with him since I wasn't there during the test, even if I was, I wouldn't be able to make him reverse his decision. My pupil was disappointed, as she thought she had given a perfect drive (well not with 12 errors in total), but more importantly no problems with manoeuvres which she had sometimes struggled with. She drove back home, with me advising her to book another test soon, before she gets rusty with her skills.
The rest of last week I've been working with my new pupils, building confidence with moving off and stopping, dealing with junctions (major to minor), emerging and the turn in the road.
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Life as a driving instructor
Oh well... Examiners often seem to pick up on really obscure things... I don't think the driving test is a consistent measure of one's driving ability, I had three tests within 3 months (recently) and each of the reports came back totally different... (ie: One gave me 6 mirror faults, the next gave none. The first gave no control faults, the next gave me 5, the last gave me none...) I don't see how my driving could really change all that much in such a short time, so I have little faith in it's true ability to assess one's driving.
ReplyDeleteHopefully they'll do it next time.