Mock Test

Had a call from a chap late afternoon yesterday, opening gambit being “Can I use your car on a test I have tomorrow morning at 9am”. 

“Charming”, I’m thinking.  But if there is one thing this job has taught me it is to really try and see things from my customer’s point of view. So although this is not word for word, the conversation went like this:

“Hello, Tom Ingram”

“Can I use your car on a test I have tomorrow morning at 9am”

“Why?”

“Because I need a car”

“But why is it that you have a test booked tomorrow morning at 9am and you don’t have a car?”

“Because I went back home 5 months ago and I can’t find my instructor from ‘Red’ ”  (strong foreign accent).

“So when was your last lesson?”

“5 months ago”

“So why have you booked your test?”

“Because on my last lesson my instructor told me I was about ready to go to test.  So can you give me a car tomorrow?”

“How do I know that you aren’t going to trash my car tomorrow in the test?”

“Well you have insurance don’t you?”

“Yes”

“So you would just claim on the insurance”     (He really did say that, I’m not making this up)

“And then my insurance premiums would go up, do you understand what I am saying?”

“Yes”

“What I would be prepared to do is assess your driving standard by doing a mock test”

“What.... and if I’m ok I can have the car tomorrow for the test?”

“Yes”

“How much will it cost me for the car tomorrow?”

“£20”

“How much will it cost me to do the mock test?”

“£37”

“Can you do the mock test later on tonight?”

“Yes”

“Ok I will maybe call you in an hour or so”

I honestly thought that was the last I was going to hear of that chap.  This is the kind of stuff that occasionally comes our way.  You could argue the rights and wrongs of his approach to the test until the cows come home, anyone who reads my blog will instantly know that his attitude could not be any further in the opposite direction to my personal attitude on driving education. 

So from his point of view he is a cornered rat.  For whatever reason, the relationship between him and his instructor has deteriorated, he has taken it upon himself to book the test and yet he has no car.  As the test in question is the very next day, even if he were to cancel he would lose the cost of the test fee.... hence being a cornered rat; his options are few.  It turned out that he is 21, and I guess being a young man, he perhaps has not realised quite yet that getting yourself in these tight corners with few options, is not really the way to live your life.

So we met up last night.  He showed me his provisional licence that had 8 points recorded on it for licence and insurance offences. He gave me the £37, I wrote out a receipt including me writing his full name and drivers licence number and handed it to him.  (I would dearly have loved to have got a snap shot of his face on my mobile..... my extinct told me that would have been a good idea).   I drove somewhere quiet (damage limitation), and asked him about his instructor.  He stated that he could not find the guy since coming back from his home country, and as such he was ringing round about 20 instructors for a car tomorrow.  It turned out that he had since been taking lessons with his Father who is not an instructor.  So as I pass the keys over to him and I’m thinking “Ding ding round 1”.

First thing he did?  Looked at the controls, got himself instantly familiar with them with no assistance from me whatsoever, it was dark, raining and very windy last night.... testing weather conditions.  Next thing he sorted his seat position out, put his belt on (properly) but did not check it worked, he did not check the level of his head restraint although I could see it was set correctly.  He then adjusted all three mirrors with no input from me whatsoever (I later discovered that the side mirrors had both been set up to face down on the road in preparation for manoeuvres, so in effect his side mirrors were wrongly set up).  What he then did I thought was interesting, with the key not in the ignition, he tried out the pedals.  Now given the situation he was in, I thought that was quite some demonstration of clarity of detail..... I appreciate that he missed things out in that set up, he didn’t check the hand brake was on, didn’t check it was in neutral, got the mirrors set up wrong etc, but nevertheless the speed with which he apparently got accustomed to the car surprised me – got me thinking.

So engine on, superb obs, and away we go.  Very deliberate movements, nice structure to POM and MSpsl on the 1^st emerge..... I was watching closely, he had my attention.  I asked him a couple of questions to see if he could speak while still applying that system, seemed that he could.  I’m now getting quietly impressed, but continued to watch him like a hawk.

He came to a right turn on a cross roads and paused too far back.  Not the end of the world, but I banked that one in the memory... along with the cockpit drill under the heading ‘lack of detail’.  He then came to another crossroads where I had asked him to go straight over.  At the moment he approached the give ways, a kid came from the nearside kerb on a cycle with no lights, straight across his nearside, straight across the crossroads into the new road where we would be going.  The kid had a buckled rear wheel but was still able to ride it.  I watched the learner, he did obs, and slowly entered the new road, at that very point of entering he did not check his mirrors in the new road, and what followed him in was a car that was so close up his rear end, that I could not see the cars headlights, I don’t believe it could have been any closer to the rear of our car.  The learner continued to ‘holdback’, really quite some distance from the kid on the bike that was in the process of moving across the road, diagonally right.  My learner had not seen the car behind, and continued behind the bike about I would guess 12 car lengths doing no more than 10 mph.  The inevitable happened, the car behind did an abrupt positional change to the right and then an overtake – this is in a 30.   I don’t have a problem with giving vulnerable road users space, but THAT much space and THAT slow speed was almost inviting the overtake.  A more appropriate response would have been to anticipate the overtake, mirrors, signal and pop over to the parking bays on the left side of the road, let Mr. Manic go about his manic life and then continue.  So I pulled him over (nice routine and accuracy) and he argued the toss about this incident.  Noted.

I then asked him to do a left reverse which is actually a junction the DSA use on test for a left reverse.  He initially set it up just fine positionally, but then we sat there with the reverse lights lit for I would estimate 2 minutes, waiting for the world to go by.  He did not make progress in the small periods of time when they momentarily became available.  He did the reverse, but he did not hug the kerb so he ended up in the centre of the new road.  I paused him, pointed out the positional error and we moved on.  He desperately wanted to do it again, but I told him we have plenty of other stuff to do (the fact is, you only get one go on the test, you can’t negotiate having repeated attempts until you get it right).

I then asked him to take 1^st exit left on a busy roundabout.  He was fine in terms of being safe for traffic to our right but I pointed out to him that the nearside wheels went over a hatched area on the left that is surrounded by a solid white line.

“Do you know the significance of the solid white line?”

“Yes”

“What is it?”

“I must not go over it”

“But you just did”

“No I didn’t”

Oh boy.  My reply.... “I do nothing else in my life, but drive round in this car with learners and trainee driving instructors, it is my job to know the position of this car in relation to the road, and I’m telling you, not asking, that you just went over that solid white line”

“No I didn’t”

Wrong answer.  It was precisely at THAT point that I had my suspicions confirmed as to why he was in the position he was in of not having a car available for his test the next day.  I could see he was getting increasingly angry with the realisation that he has blown £65 on a test fee.

We did a bay park where his nearside rear wheel drove over, cutting across the white line in the bay, we had some dual carriageway driving where the entry and exit were good.  His general driving lacked forward planning.  It was exposed by the fact that he was incorrectly assessing the necessary speed (and hence gear) for given hazards.  So the consequence of that was that he was braking on bends, he was changing gear on bends, he was changing gear while steering.  It’s not nice to see someone finding themselves in the wrong gear ON a hazard, or at the wrong speed on the approach.  Now I appreciate that we could all assess that differently, some instructors may give him a good few isolated driving faults for each of the end results, but for me, that was a biggy – I know that I would not allow that with one of my learners, it is a fundamental flaw in his driving ‘system’. 

On one right turn at some lights, he asked for me to confirm it was ok to go into the ‘right only’ filter lane – this is not a sign of someone being test ready.

I asked him “Do you know about the independent drive section on the test?”

“Yes”

“What is it?”

“Where I drive independently”

“How do they ask you to do that on the test?”

“They just make sure I drive on my own”

Wrong answer.  Knowledge gaps are fine, but it’s the denial that anything is wrong that is the killer.... it actually inhibits learning.

He then drove back home, and said “I guess you will not be providing your car for tomorrow”, which I confirmed.  His driving then took on a nasty twist bordering on recklessness, I was very close to terminating the drive.  I was anticipating something potentially quite nasty when we got to his.

When he stopped the car, he said he was still going to test in the morning.  When I asked how, he said an instructor had called him about an hour before our mock test, and she was able to provide a car for tomorrow.  Male bravado perhaps, although anyone who reads my blog will know that some instructors are more than happy to do exactly that. 

So I asked,

“So if you intended to go to test anyway, why on earth did you just pay me £37 for a mock test?”, he thought for a few seconds (an uncharacteristic delay).

“I’m going to take it anyway”

“But why? You will fail”

“I hope not”

“Well listen, do me a favour, no matter what the result is, will you please text me to say how you got on, pass or fail, it matters not, but let me know?”

“Ok”

As I write, it is 11am and I have had no text. 

I very much doubt he took his test this morning, but one thing I do know, is if he did, he would not pass.

I bang on about how important it is to give good consideration to how you intend to learn to drive.  It’s massive in my book.  It is one of the most fundamental causes for failing to achieve your goal.  By failing to consider your strategy, you are in effect, devising your downfall – anyone reading this who plays chess will instantly appreciate my point.