A chain of circumstances

Date: October 2012.
Test Centre: Wallasey
Reason for fail: Reverse Park (road) - Control

Sharon failed her test yesterday. I was sititng in on the test, and watched as the examiner allowed her a generous amount of time to get the car close to and parallel with the kerb, but eventually, after repeatedly failing to get within about 4 or 5 feet of the kerb, he asked her to drive on.

Sharon also got another serious fault right at the end of the test for lack of observation at a junction, but I'd like to focus on the reversing exercise for this post.

The story here goes back to before the test even began. I'd just washed my car prior to picking her up for her pre-test lesson when I got a message from Sharon asking what documentation she needed to bring along with her. Since I was only a couple of minutes away, I didn't answer. I just went to pick her up. She and her boyfriend were in a state of turmoil. They'd turned their house upside down, but could not find the paper counterpart to her license. They thought it was at her Mum's house, and her Mum was busy looking for it and would call if she found it.

When you present yourself for a driving test (or your theory test for that matter), you MUST bring both parts of your driving license. The photocard and the paper counterpart. If you're one of those rare birds that has an old style license without a photocard, you MUST provide photographic evidence of your identity, such as a passport. Without this your test will not go ahead.

Driving tests can be nerve racking things. It pays to make sure you have all your documentation available well before your instructor knocks on your door. The last thing you need is to be frantically scrabbling around for your documents at the last minute.

Anyway, Sharon was pretty sure it was at her Mum's and we went out on the pre test lesson. Sharon was actually driving quite well, all things considered.

Twenty minutes in, her phone rang. We parked up and she answered it. It was her Mum. The license had been found, but we'd have to go and get it. She couldn't come to us. And so off we went from New Brighton to Moreton. And then back to Wallasey test centre. To get from Wallasey to Moreton takes only about 15 minutes. To get there and back takes around half an hour.

So that was the pre test lesson. Normally, I'd have given the reversing exercises a quick once over and if there was a problem, we'd do a bit of work on it to try to sort things out, but this time, there just wasn't time.

What caused her to fail was as much as anything, a lack of organisation.

Poor at Parallel Parking? Practice Precise Positioning!

It's been a while since I had anyone fail! This is a good thing of course, but it's also meant I've had little to say on this blog for the last few months.

Test Centre: Upton

I was sat in the back for this one. My pupil, Neil, was relaxed and confident on the pre test lesson, but when it came down to the real thing, he got a bit of the fear in him. And it showed.

He was asked to do a parallel park in Sparks Lane, Thingwall and ended up putting his wheels up on the pavement. The examiner let him try to sort it out for a little while, then when he couldn't correct it, asked him to move on.

The mark Neil got on his test sheet was a serious fault, reverse parking (road) - Control.

We'd actually done a parallel park as part of the pre test lesson. Neil did it quite well. He didn't do it in the structured way I'd taught him, but what he did do seemed to work for him so I left it at that. Shame really. If he'd made a mess of it, we would have done a bit more on it, and he might not have got it wrong when it mattered.

If you do get it wrong, and touch the kerb, you haven't at that point failed your test. Generally if you try to reverse further you're going to make matters worse, so if you do touch the kerb, put the car into first gear, Check it's Clear Around You!!!!, and correct it by going forwards. Often, if you can fix it, the examiner will mark it as just a minor fault.

Is this a clue?

Date: June 2011
Test Centre: Wallasey
Reason for fail: Reverse Park (road) - Control.

John was asked to pull up on the left, and the examiner asked him to pull up alongside the parked car, and to reverse into the space behind it, parallel to and reasonably close to the kerb. John did the reverse, but because a part of the kerb was missing due to a driveway, he couldn't see quite where he was up to, and finished up a couple of feet away from the kerb.

At this point, the examiner ostentatiously looked out of his window at the kerb, and asked john if he had finished. John said that he had. Then the examiner made an obvious show of looking in his door mirror, and looked at John, asking, "Are you happy with that?" John agreed, and the examiner asked him to drive on.

But don't you have to get it right first time?

If you want to become a driving instructor, you have to do the parallel park on your advanced driving test, and you are expected to complete the manouevre without adjustment, but on the learner test, they're not as strict. If you find that you've ended up in the wrong place, you can drive forwards and correct things. But make sure you check around before you do. If you knock someone of his bike while doing it, you'll fail.

The examiner tried to give John a big clue that he wasn't happy with his position. Unfortunately, John, mainly because of nerves, failed to pick up on it.

When people are nervous, they rush.they want to get whatever it is that is making them nervous, over and done with.