A recent report on pass rates for practical tests has shown that over 112,000 tests last year ended in ‘near misses’ and a fail for the learner driver in question.
Near misses are classed as incidents where bad judgement – speed, road position, decisions taken – could have led to an accident had emergency action not taken place. Whether the driver or the examiner takes the appropriate action is irrelevant – it is classed as a serious or dangerous fault, and results in an automatic fail.In fact, the majority of accidents were only avoided when the examiner took action. This shows the shocking number of drivers who take their test without being fully prepared – because if something similar happened in real life and they failed to act in time, the results could be fatal.
Thankfully, the vast majority of the 112,000 fails did not end in disaster, with only 339 tests resulting in injuries to either the learner driver or examiner. Unfortunately, however, 2 tests caused fatal injuries – so let that be a word of warning to any learners preparing for their tests.
The main reasons for failing a practical test come from regular problem areas such as observations at junctions (which accounted for 260,000 failures last year), incorrect use of mirrors (200,000) and parking errors (150,000). Of these, around a third were classed as ‘dangerous’ faults.
It appears that even parking errors are down to a lack of observation. It’s never an issue of missing the bay – it’s noticing that there are other cars around which poses a problem for learners. Similarly, observation skills at junctions are a major cause of accidents even for qualified drivers – and both these faults are compounded by the incorrect use of mirrors. It’s your mirrors that tell you what’s around you – you need to check them regularly to make sure you build up a picture of what’s happening, so when you change direction, or pull out into traffic, or reverse into a space then you know what you have to look out for.
But perhaps the most shocking statistic is the fact that in 1,000 failure cases, the examiner was then verbally or even physically assaulted by the learner driver.
It is clear that all learner drivers believe they are perfect drivers – and so failing your practical test always comes as a shock. But that’s no reason to blame the examiner. At the end of the day, they only judge what you show them. If you’re displaying dangerous driving habits, they’re going to fail you. This is not, however, a reason to abuse them. They’re simply doing their job – keeping the roads safe from dangerous drivers.
Of course, if learners made more effort to pay more attention to the road, there’d be less need for that ‘fail’ verdict to crop up in the first place. We can only hope that message sinks in!
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