Driving Test
So the driving test turned 75 years old this week. Happy Birthday to one of the most exciting rites of teenage passage. Ah! freedom....It was a day I rehearsed for in a Renault Espace on Cotswold lanes: a dicey combination, which saw my dad adopting the 'parent of learner driver' brace position. (feet pressed into the foot well, pumping an imaginary brake, and both hands gripping the handle above the passenger window.) Reader I passed first time. Not all are so lucky - I distinctly remember listening to the deputy head of our school crowing about the test giving some of the more boffin-y members of our sixth form "an opportunity to fail" at something. Perhaps for the first and last time. The driving test as leveller, then.
Despite sailing through with narey six minor faults to my name, (does this terminology age me?..) it is not without a deep sense of retrospective relief that I read about the new 'initiative' element of the driving test, set to be introduced later this year. Thank the Lord I wasn't subjected to that. I'd still be lost on a scooter in Hull. And I live in Cambridge...The says it will "help candidates demonstrate their ability to drive without step-by-step instruction." which they believe "will lead to better and safer drivers." Now I am all for independent thinking...and for independence full-stop. I am frequently ashamed of fellow women (often) who give up their rights to drive the family car along with their surname. I know women who could be driven the same route thirteen times in daylight and who wouldn't have a clue how to do it themselves... and it makes me mad. BUT while I drive often, drive my husband around often, and rarely get lost...when the journey is to somewhere completely new, or I am stressed about it - I switch on the satnav. We bought her (for it is a her), after sitting in a pub car park, late for a friend's wedding in deepest Dorset, as my husband famously hissed at me "Let Me Tell You How. Maps. Work...."
For easy journeys and journeys unconstrained by time and stress, for regular journeys and motorway journeys the sat nav is redundant. She rests wrapped up in a sock in the glove compartment... But stress and driving do not mix: and what car journey could be more stressful than the driving test? Feeling suddenly sorry for today's wannbe-driving stressed-out seventeen year olds, I take a quick look at the Driving Standards Authority to see how else the test has changed over the last three score years and fifteen.
Until the mid seventies, I was amused to read, you were still examined on your use of hand signalling. It was a skill I still practised as a child, lifting the flap of our 2CV's front window to wave a limb when my mother shouted. Sometimes the window stayed flapped up for long enough, sometimes it didn't. I am glad no one has to trap a fore-arm to do this hand-flailing any longer. It could be painful.
In 1996 the theory test was introduced. I am so glad that I was done and dusted by then, although I do sometimes wish I understood a few more of the signs which litter the nations' highways and by-ways. Had the dreaded exam been around when I was that show-off seventeen year old in her father's MPV, I would still be the proud owner of a provisional license, and that scooter.
So in summary: Better understanding of signs, and less need for clockwise circular movements of the arm (or whatever it was) to denote deceleration.... But where does the new initiative test fit into this evolution of the exam? To me it feels like a retrograde step....By all means make the test harder. Test the learners on their technique and their signs.. Make them do more lessons in more conditions over a longer time, maybe... but don't put them through the added misery of getting lost and getting flustered. Keep those instructions coming from the examiner, after all the last seventy five years have brought us indicators and GPS. Let's keep our hands inside the car and our minds on the task at hand: passing the test and tasting freedom.
Catherine will be taking a trip with her grandma who learnt to drive before the test, and is still on the road at the age of 92. We'll hear how they get on in a week or so on You and Yours.
You & Yours is on Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 4 at 1200 weekdays. Listen to today's episode on the Radio 4 web site.
Catherine Carr is a reporter on
You and Yours on Ö÷²¥´óÐã Radio 4
Comment number 1.
At 4th Jun 2010, craigface wrote:You seem to have a very positive view of driving tests. Try sitting the modern test and your views won't be so rosy. You say you passed first time - for me, a learner of over 2 years who has sat a fair number of tests (and failed obviously - i can accept this is perhaps reflective of inadequate abilities) the news they are to bring this section to the test is both upsetting and concerning.
As I finish university and enter the world of work, the ability to drive is not only very convenient but could prove essential for certain posts. I am, naturally, already extremely nervous on test day (this has been cited by examiners as a likely source of failure) and to face being told a destination and left to my devices could be potentially fatal to my chances of ever being successful.
You may remember I said I am a learner of over two years. What does that mean? I have to shell out and sit another (potentially more challenging) theory test very soon. It feels like the DVLA have moved from suitably testing an individual's abilities and safety to drive to a passive aggressive "barrier" to young people acquiring their licenses. Not to mention the astronomical rising costs of learning and sitting the test (are poor people not allowed to enjoy the privilages and freedom of driving?).
A rite of passage to freedom? Perhaps this is one I may now never achieve. I am thoroughly disappointed.
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Comment number 2.
At 7th Jun 2010, pauljay wrote:Slowing down was a slow up and down. A circular anticlockwise movement was a left turn. Apart from this (by that time unnecessary)info you were a natural. I do not recall a single kangaroo hop or stall. I do recall being thrown off Cheltenham Racecourse car park!
Craigface: do not despair, you will achieve the freedom of the roads. Conquering your test nerves is important, though. Try listening to something funny before you go, or some favourite music, smile at the examiner, and greet him/her cheerily to demo the confidence you may not be feeling. It might just fool you both. Good luck.
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