Road Safety Minister Mike Penning has announced today that the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) will no longer publish details of test routes after 4 October.

This change will help make the test more representative of real driving. It also supports the introduction of independent driving, which will allow candidates to demonstrate their ability to drive safely in more realistic situations.

You can read more in the press release.

Since the press release is quite short, I’ve reproduced it here:

DSA press release

Real driving experience for learners

To help make the driving test more representative of real driving, the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) will no longer publish details of test routes, Road Safety Minister Mike Penning announced today.

Currently test routes used by each driving test centre are published online but this will stop when new routes are introduced at the beginning of October.

This change is being made to support the introduction of independent driving, which will allow candidates to demonstrate their ability to drive safely in more realistic driving situations rather than memorising a particular test route.

Mike Penning said:

“We want new drivers to be able to drive safely and independently and learning to drive test routes by rote isn’t the way to achieve this.

“Stopping the publication of test routes will help to make sure that the driving test better reflects realistic driving conditions and will give new drivers the skills and confidence they need to stay safe on the roads.”

DSA’s Chief Driving Examiner Trevor Wedge said:

“Evidence shows that the biggest challenge newly qualified drivers face after passing their test is learning how to cope when they no longer have their instructor there to help and prompt them.”

“We want to make sure that new drivers and riders are ready to make their own decisions when driving alone; learning how to do that in preparation for their test should lead to better and safer drivers.”

To better assess whether a learner driver is ready to drive unsupervised, independent driving will be introduced into the test on 4 October 2010. Candidates will drive for about 10 minutes, without step-by-step direction from their examiner. This will involve either following a series of directions, following traffic signs, or a combination of both. To help candidates visualise the directions, the examiner may also show them a simple diagram. The remainder of the test is unchanged.

In January 2010, DSA published independent research showing that with careful route design, candidates were able to complete the independent driving tasks without any significant impact on pass rates. Additional research found widespread support for inclusion of independent driving in the practical test.

I’ve been trying it out on my pupils (actually, I always expected them to drive properly so it isn’t much of a change), and they are all doing fine – even ones who have not been driving long and who aren’t test-ready yet.

As for driving test routes – the only time I ever downloaded one was just after I qualified as an instructor. I never deliberately took a pupil on the published routes, but what I did do was pick up from pupils after their tests where they went (bit by bit – most people can’t recall much of their test, and especially not road names). My view is that if a pupil can drive anywhere I take them, they can drive anywhere, full stop. It hasn’t let me down yet.

Roadworks are usually demarcated by those orange blinking lights (see inset, which these days are often solar powered and timed to come on when it gets dark) – but for some reason I just thought of those ones I used to see when I was a kid.

Inside there was a small metal container which contained paraffin, and in the top of that container was a small wick assembly. They often used to be lit and left running all day, and someone used to come and fill them up regularly. The case had three thick glass lenses to spread the light, and they used to be hung on the side of scaffolding or other attachment points, or just stood alongside the thing they were warning you of (building sites used them a lot, too).

The thing is, these lamps were in use well into the 70s and possibly even longer, so don’t think I’m that old!

Few people dreamed of stealing them or tampering with them, but – and I think this is probably why I suddenly thought of them – can you imagine what might happen if they were still using anything like this today? Even the electronic ones have to be nailed down nowadays.

I got this picture from a site which sells them for £35 as curiosities

Obviously, it’s hard to know exactly what problem this person is experiencing, but there are a few things I find with my own pupils.

First of all, if you are new to driving it does take a while to get used to operating the pedals, and if you combine that with being tense and nervous then it is quite common for your leg (either or both) to start aching or even to get a severe bout of cramp! But it gets better the more you practice.

Another likely issue is your seating position. If you sit too close to the pedals you’ll have to lift your foot from the ankle to a point where you put a strain on your shins. That can really make your foot and lower leg tired. To fix it, when you go through your cockpit drill first make sure your back is at a comfortable angle – then move the seat backwards or forwards until you can just push the clutch all the way to the floor without having to stretch. The ideal position will be around one or two clicks forward from there. What you want is to be able to comfortably push the clutch all the way in and still have a slight bend at the knee – but only a slight one. This way, when you operate the pedals your ankle will be doing it within its comfortable range without having to stretch to its limits.

Remember that if you adjust the seat first, then fiddle with the back rest (or height adjusters), your forward/backward position will change, so readjust as necessary. Also remember that you can usually move the steering wheel in or out – you want a slight bend in your arms, as well, and if your elbows are pointing down to your thighs then you are too close to it.

Another range of linked possibilities is injury, general weakness, or illness. I have a pupil at the moment who had a torn Achilles tendon who suffers pain and fatigue when she uses the pedals – especially towards the end of the lesson. Some time ago, I had an older (not “old”) lady whose legs were just weak and – combined with her being nervous at the start – I could feel the car shaking when we were doing certain manoeuvres. If you are unwell (or pregnant) it can also be tiring to use the pedals. If it becomes a real problem then  you ought to see your GP.

Usually, though, it is just sitting too close to the pedals that causes strain and fatigue – and especially so with the gas pedal (which is not as stiff as the clutch, but which requires your foot to be in a raised/taut position for much more of the time, particularly when you’re doing a lot of stopping and starting).

I obviously missed quite a lot. This video shows them very young indeed:

Their sound really holds up well. This must date from around 1974.

He isn’t too far off test standard, so I suggested that we could look at any date from the beginning of October. He was a bit unsure because it is “only 4 weeks away” – but then he had a thought and asked “when are they changing the test?”

I explained again what the change was, and assured him he had nothing to worry about. I then told him part of where we were going to drive to on today’s lesson, and said I would let him do it without any directions from me.

He did it perfectly. All the mirror checks and signals were there – and, if anything, he did it better than he had done any time before. And I’ve found the same thing with various pupils over the last couple of months – not one of those who I have felt ready to try it have had even the slightest problem.

So, moving from the real world into its dark underbelly, I noticed a comment on one of the forums:

The most common [complaint by pupils] by far is when they are so focussed on the route that the most basic of routines (MSPSL etc) seem to disappear as if they were never learned.

Well, teach them properly and they won’t! It’s a fault of the pupil (and their trainer), not Independent Driving if they can’t do it – and it’s exactly what Independent Driving is designed to test, and therefore what the ADI is supposed to teach.

Some time ago, I posted a video titled (on YouTube) ”Worst Woman Driver I Have Ever Seen“. This one is right up there as a contender for that title!

Four and a half minutes of perfect comedy. I love it how she nearly gets in at one point - then goes further out again. The space is so large you could actually drive into it forwards!

Disclaimer: I’m just posting this for information. No offense is intended to anyone of the female gender

The aim of any business is to make as large a profit as possible, by charging the highest price the market will stand.

The market is different for every business. Smaller players may have to compensate for not having a known brand by charging a lower price for their products – although for luxury items, they can often increase their prices a little.

The biggest players will set the price that others base their own prices on.

And so it is (or should be) with driving instructors. The big national players like BSM and the AA set the base price – which varies from one county to the next – and the smaller schools charge somewhere around that figure for the area they cover. But there is a problem…

Driving instructors are not always the best business people you could meet, and this has become even more true over the last 10 years or so. The huge influx of uneducated people desperate to earn £30,000 (as seen on TV) has meant that good business practice has gone out of the window. Once they had been doing the job for a while, many of these people realised that they could only ever hope to get anywhere near £30,000 if they had bucket loads of work. Therefore, they immediately went out and bought lots of buckets and set out to fill them!

They reasoned that if everyone else was charging £25 an hour, then if they charged £23 or £24 they would attract more work. So far, no problem. This is standard business practice: small price cuts to provide an incentive to consumers (although you have to remember that it also has to be advertised, which also costs money – but this is a worthwhile investment if it gets new work).

However, as more and more people came in chasing the elusive £30,000 and started offering the same price cuts, the baseline being chased was no longer the £25 from the big schools, but the £23 or £24 being charged by direct competitors.  In order to maintain a differential as a marketing ploy prices fell further and further. At present, in an area where the national school rate is still £25, I’ve seen people charging as little as £15!

Bearing in mind that most driving instructors have weekly overheads of between £200-300, that original £25 rate would give a weekly income of around £625, based on 35 hours tuition per week. Allowing for 4 weeks holiday a year, that comes to an annual income of £30,000 (or just under £19 per hour). A reasonable salary, really.

If someone is charging £15 an hour, though, their annual income is only £13,200 (or around £8 an hour)! That’s not so good, is it? And bearing in mind that a 35 hour week is hard to maintain, the situation is far worse for those charging low lesson rates.

Anyway, back to the main subject. Fortunately, some instructors realised that price cutting only worked up to a point, beyond which they were cutting their own throats. But they still had to attract work somehow. This is where the Special Offer came in. I suppose you could argue that the current known form of Special Offer originated with the Bill Plant Driving School:

First 5 hours for £56

This was plastered all over their cars right from the start, and was instantly unpopular with other instructors. Why? Well, “first 5 hours for £56″ works out at £11.20 an hour, and almost to a man (or woman) everyone assumed that Bill Plant charged £11.20 an hour, when in fact they charge something like £21-22 an hour once the first five lessons are out of the way.

“How can anyone earn a living on that?”, they cried. “It’s destroying the profession” they postulated. “Bill Plant is scum”, they ranted.

The simple fact is that Bill Plant charges £21 an hour. But the school attracts new business by offering the first five lessons for £56 (and there are conditions attached, even then). Even taken at face value – minus the conditions – the offer translates to a £50 investment in each new pupil. If you didn’t have the pupil, you’d earn nothing. If the offer attracts them, all they have to do is a further 3 hours after the offer is up and the instructor is back in profit – and seeing as most of them will do 10, 20… 50, 60 hours… well, £50 isn’t a bad investment in something that would otherwise have earned you absolutely nothing.

The initial hatred and misunderstanding directed towards Bill Plant hasn’t eased much. Some instructors still stupidly believe that Bill Plant charges £11.20 an hour for its lessons. However, the Special Offer idea has crossed over to quite a few driving schools run by people who have a better business head than most. It is now common to see the “5 for £55″ type of offer (often worded as “first two hours free” or “£11 per hour for the first five lessons”). Terms & conditions often stipulate that the free/reduced price lessons must be taken at the start and end of the course – presumably to deter instructor-hoppers, who are too stupid to realise that keep changing instructors means it takes much longer to get to test standard, even if you think you’re clever by picking up all the Special Offer deals.

The simple fact is that if you don’t have the work, running a Special Offer is – as long as it works – a brilliant way of getting new pupils.

The big national schools do it, often giving away free lessons in national newspapers or via deals with certain large companies for their staff. However, they finance it themselves, and the instructor working under the franchise usually gets a full hourly rate. The solo ADI (and Bill Plant franchisees, I believe) has to bankroll the offer out of their own pockets, though.

It’s from 2009, and it is called Knowing - starring Nicholas Cage. To be honest, the only reason I started watching it is because it had him in it. I’m not particularly “into” any specific modern actor or actress, but I do admire some of Mr Cage’s films – 8MM in particular, though most definitely NOT The Wicker Man (it was sacrilege to even think about improving on the original of that).

Anyway, Knowing seems to be one of a rush of films trying to capitalise on The Da Vinci Code principle (find some sort of code from the past, decipher it, make a movie around it). I haven’t watched The Da Vinci Code all the way through – it’s rubbish, and the original story by Dan Brown plagiarises a book I read years ago called The Holy Blood And The Holy Grail. What with 2012, and morons all over the world accepting it as fact (like they did with the Brown story), these “Code” films don’t do a lot for me.

In a nutshell, Knowing starts 50 years in the past. A group of schoolkids is asked to write letters to seal in a time capsule, and one troubled young girl just writes two sides full of numbers. When the capsule is opened in the modern day, the letters are passed out to kids at the school – and the one written by the girl ends up with Cage’s son (who is also troubled). Anyway, Cage sees it and recognises a particular date and incident (an event, and the number of people killed). He then goes on to identify a whole series of other dates, and recognises the accuracy of the death toll in each case… but then it moves into future dates, which also turn out to accurately predict various events and death tolls. He realises that other coded data reveals the locations of the events. Then there is the final date…

Mixed in with the events Cage is investigating are the mysterious strangers, who are not of this world… but precisely which type of “world” they are from is kept ambiguous.

There is not a happy ending.

It’s a great film, in my opinion – by “great” I mean great to watch. Good acting (by most), good special effects, and suspenseful storyline. Definitely worth a look.

I downloaded an HD copy from my favourite video download site for a very reasonable $3.00, and I was amused by some of the comments people had left (spelling as written by them):

“This movie really scared me. I believed in their thoery which there is a possible the can to do that. I’m not sure the terms they’re using but totally I believe in this one… theres one part of this movie it is so fictional, and made me laugh a little. I think the writter want to show that still despite of this big tragedy in our world we need to believe there are still hope on something because thats what we are we believe and hold on something to survive. But it is great. nice one.”

And:

“Overall this movie is one big invitation to open your mind and consider a very different view on reality. The ending reminded me very much of the deeply inspiring channelings from Operation Terra. Please google this if you are prepared to challange your views on reality and if you want to discover the deeper dimensions of this filmographic masterpiece.”

If extraterrestrials (or deities) ever did decide to save some seeds of life from this planet and put them somewhere else, it is very clear which weeds they would probably not bother with!

Taking a wild guess, someone’s test is in October and they’re checking to see how pass rates in that month compare to other months.

I’ve said this before, but if you can drive – and you drive properly on the test – you will pass. If you make a serious mistake then you’ll fail. Whatever month it is. Your biggest worry by far is other drivers doing something stupid and forcing you into a situation you haven’t come across before, or being wound up thinking about talismanic procedures people have advised you to use. Things like:

“Drive slowly everywhere, then you won’t fail for speeding”

“Indicate every time you move off or stop”

“Check your mirrors every 6 seconds”

And so on. Just ignore that crap and drive safely – and concentrate on what you’ve been taught (and God forbid that that 6 seconds one came from your instructor!)