Instructor causes Driving Test Failure

ADI causes Pupil to fail the Driving test?

I was on my way home after a driving lesson, coming up the A41 dual carriageway (watford way) towards the aerodrome road junction when I noticed an AA Driving School car on the slip road to my left about to merge onto the dual carriageway. I was in the leftmost lane, and there was a lot of fast moving traffic in the 2 lanes to my right.

As I got closer to the junction of the slip road, the AA driving school car was also getting close to the end of the slip road, I was expecting the car to stop, since it was not safe to emerge, but It continued, and I had to use my horn to alert the driver to my presence, which is when the learner driver of the AA car then stopped. As I drove past the junction, I glanced over to try and see what the instructor was doing not to have stopped the car earlier, which was when I noticed the high visibilty jacket of the DSA driving examiner.

Ooops I taught, that learner in the AA school car is most likely to have failed the test there, but there was nothing I could have done, except stop for the car which would not have been safe on a 50mph dual carriageway. It just goes to show how easy it is to fail the driving test if you don't concentrate fully, plan properly. I've had to dual control many test standard pupils at that particular junction because they fail to approach properly or don't even notice the dual carriageway.

That learner was less than 5 minutes from the Hendon Test Centre, and that could have been the only serious driving error commited by the driver of the AA school car.

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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:20 pm

    According to the highway code you should have slowed down and let the learner driver pull in if you couldnt merge to the right lane, as you would have spotted him/her early.
    Poor learner, please tel me your not a fully qualified instructor!

    Regards Sharky

    ADI trainer, Grade 6 Instructor

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous6:36 am

    Sharky, can you tell me which highway code rule states that vehicles on a dual carraigeway travelling at 50mph should give way to cars joining from the left going over a junction stop line?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous6:05 pm

    According to the Highway code the cars on the dual carriageway have priority but should move across and allow merging traffic into the road if safe to do so. If not possible then being a courteous driver, the adi should have either slowed a little to allow the learner into the dual carriageway or gone passed it. Definitely should not be competetively driving and forcing cars to stop on slip roads. Understandably the learner would have failed for not filtering in properly. However, the adi didn't cause the pupil to fail the test, but didn't help him to pass either.

    ReplyDelete

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