It's the end of the road for Fred!

Date of Test:  June 2011, 12.43pm
Test Centre: Upton, Merseyside
Reason for fail:  serious fault, Junctions - turning right

I was sat in the back for this one, so I saw exactly what happened, and the driving examiner called it exactly right.

"Fred" got to the end of a one way street and was asked to turn right. He should have positioned himself over to the right hand side of the road, but kept to the middle of the road. The danger is that another driver will come down your outside, and potentially you then have two cars alongside each other, both wanting to occupy the same space at the same time. It also shows a lack of attention or understanding to road signs and road markings.In this case a car behind us positioned itself correctly, but the driver wisely stayed behind us, but even if no other vehicles had been involved, this would have been marked as a serious fault.

So, what should he have done then?

Well the clues were there. The double row of broken lines extending right across the full width of the junction, and the give way triangle right in the middle of the road, instead of off to the left, are big clues. Another thing that can help is the backs of the circular no entry signs. There were one way signs at various points along the road, and all the parked cars were facing in the same direction. So Fred should have been aware that he was in a one-way street and should have positioned himself well to the right.

In fact, by the time he got to the end of the road, he sort of knew things were not right, but did it anyway. If he'd cancelled his signal and gone straight ahead, it would have been safer, and he would probably have just got a minor fault for incorrectly signalling. It would then be upto the examiner to get Fred back onto whatever route he was meant to be following. With a few exceptions, like trying to join a motorway, or attemting to turn into a no-entry road, you don't get failed for going the wrong way.