Learner drivers may be asked to use satnav and three-point turn could be scrapped in favour of more common manoeuvres
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014 ... hree-point

Lol at scrapping 3-point turn. In the age of satnavs, it's even more important to do correctly! The only manoeuvre I have yet to do is reverse round a corner. I guess I must do variations of it eg reverse around an obstacle, but never round a corner. Too dangerous unless it's a quiet small road. Much prefer to do a 3 point turn.

More important would be (IMO) integrating some of the pass plus/advance driver course eg motorway, icy conditions/skids, night driving.

I've been driving for.. 25 years since passing my test and I've never reversed round a corner once since that day. I have had to reverse into a parking space many times, which IMO is what they should actually have been teaching people. I appreciate they're similar skills but there are important differences.

They should probably include other tests that are more relevant to the majority of modern motoring. Waiting in a a traffic jam, paying a fortune for petrol, how to pointedly ignore the [LIFTED] in the BMW who is trying to push in...


Well they can't legally drive on a motorway until they pass, which is always something I thought was an issue. Having to do certain conditions of driving puts you at the mercy of the British weather, unless you use specialist facilities which we have few of. Night driving I'd definitely say should be included. You can do that as a learner and you really should appreciate the differences before you are allowed out on your own.

Did any of you guys have to take levels of the car as part of your test? I did, but took my test when they changed the rules 1 years ago


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I've reversed around dozens of corners over the years.

Here you can only learn with a qualified instructor and only in a car with dual controls. You must also absolve a set number of hours of night driving and motorway driving, before you can take your test.

Listening to a navi? How about teaching them to plan a trip in advance and read the signs around them, instead of blindly following the navi. I still don't trust navigation systems. I used the Nokia Here Drive+ last weekend, it was okay, but didn't offer anything useful in the first 3.5 hours of a 3.75 hour trip. I didn't even turn it on on the return trip.

I had to do a 3 point turn and reverse round a corner in my test and given the parking situation on the street where I live had had to both relatively recently while searching for a place to park (for which I normally have to parallel park) so I can safely say I've used all three of the maneovers I had to learn for my test.

I can certainly see value in teaching how to park considerately/properly in a car park parking bay. The number of people who merrily abandon their cars so close to the lines it renders the adjacent space unusable (unless everyone down the line does the same thing) is extremely irritating.

There's defintie benefit in requiring learners to do night driving and I'd also argue that driving in the country and driving in a built up area are sufficiently different that it would be worth trying to cover both as well.
When I learned to drive I did a lot of country driving at night and it's been very useful. As was being taken on the A74 (before it was upgraded to A74(M) even if it was vaugely teriffying trying to pull out of a parking place into 70 mph traffic. I certainly think it made me a much better and clamer motorway driver once I'd passed my test.

They really need to change the test so the current practical is a bit like the cbt then you have 2 years after that to pass the advanced bits like night driving and motorways etc. then a retest every few years.
Also put a limit on the number of times you can fail a test

Indeed. If you can't pass after 5 attempts maybe driving just isn't for you.

I've always thought reversing round a corner was a silly thing on a test. Specifically that you had to stay within a certain distance of the kerb. In real life you wait until nothing's coming and reverse round teh corner in the middle of the road. Much quicker and easier.
They need parallel parking and reversing into, and out of, a car park space. The amount of idiots that can't do that is staggering.

They also badly need a test on motorway lane discipline.

What, like sit in the middle lane so if you nod off you've got a bit more time before you plough into the central reservation or hard shoulder?
Or my personal favourite - make sure you hover just inside the car in fronts blind spot rather than actually overtaking.

Reversing into a parking space is the same mechanical operation as reversing round a corner. But I think they'd actually be much better testing that specifically, because most people will do that more often. And, to be honest, I think most of the people who park badly know how to park properly, they just can't be arsed. They all passed their test at some point, you assume...



They'd have to change the law to allow learners onto motorways though. Pretty sure there'd have to be strict limits to that, so it'd always be a pretty poor examination.

Oh god, a million times this. GET SOMEWHERE I CAN SEE YOU YOU IDIOT!

I took 5-6 goes at passing the practical.
In the last 6 months, when driving 'professionally' on jobs, I've been complimented on my driving by the people I was driving on a few occasions. On one job at the start of summer, it was one reason they took me to Ireland.
And yes, I reverse around corners frequently. Like into parking spaces at work most mornings.

Mechanically, yes. But there are differences. 1) You can't widen a car park space by waiting a few seconds. Whereas you can have a road's width of space if you wait for no traffic. 2) It's actually easier to reverse into a space as you've got the cars on either side to make the gap easier to spot.

I reverse into parking spaces every morning and parallel park every evening, and I do reverse around corners - yesterday most recently.

Motorway tuition should be mandatory, IMO.

I'd happily support a limit on failed tests, if I had confidence in the examiners doing their jobs professionally - not failing competent drivers due to quotas and not passing imbeciles due to government pressure because of test waiting times.