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from the youtube-dashcam-accidents-guaranteed-for-years-to-com dept.
Sunday Times Driving reports under 50% of surveyed UK drivers know what a roundabout sign looks like, and only 68% knew what the speed bump sign means.
The survey was conducted by the Institute of Advanced Motorists, with 1,000 participants.
Only 32% of drivers knew you should allow at least a two-second time gap to the vehicle ahead when driving on a dry open road. It appears many motorists are conflating this with two car lengths in distance, as 53% of those surveyed responded with that answer.
[...] Younger motorists were the most likely to answer incorrectly, with 17 to 39 year-olds having the lowest correct answer percentage rates in 14 of the 23 questions, but older drivers didn't do very well either.
The Sunday Times article has an embedded googleforms survey, so you can test your knowledge of UK road rules.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday October 22 2018, @08:47AM (4 children)
I failed my first driving test "because I did not know what a roundabout sign looks like". It went like this :-
Q (examiner) : What does a sign with three arrows mean?
A (me) : Er .... A road with one lane in one direction and two lanes in the other (?) .... "
(Examiner) : No, a roundabout. Fail.
Ridiculous. I had known what a roundabout sign looked like from about the age of 5, but not from his vague verbal description. I have a hard time believing that 50% of UK drivers don't know a roundabout sign, I wonder how the question was put to them - perhaps I should read TFA.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday October 22 2018, @10:02AM (2 children)
When was this? I assume this was in the practical?
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday October 22 2018, @11:57AM (1 child)
Some years ago, in the UK. The examiner sat with you around a route for 15-20 minutes, then when you stopped they asked half-a-dozen random questions on road rules and signs. I guess that when the examiners had not filled their quota of failures for the day, they pulled that one or similar out of their arses.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Monday October 22 2018, @03:23PM
It shore is good 'dat in 'da US some states give you an open book written test. All you need is someone who can read and write to help take the test.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ledow on Monday October 22 2018, @03:05PM
Bearing in mind that I only started driving as an adult (30) and that I'd been driving for about 6 years on a learner's licence (with a qualified driver in the passenger seat at all time), and covered some 100,000 miles before I even started doing a test:
I failed a test for doing "only" 30mph on a 50mph narrow single carriageway with hairpin bends every few hundred metres. I hindered nobody (road was empty), was not a danger (hairpin bends were literally hairpin so anyone coming up behind had to be sensible anyway), there was zero visibility around said corners (hedgerows, etc.) and did not see the point of getting to 50 "just because I could" in between signposted hairpin bends.
I also failed another test because, when asked to stop and reverse into a gap (reverse parallel parking), I looked in my mirror... I indicated... I stopped parallel to the car in front of the space... I checked the mirror again... I selected reverse gear... I turned and looked behind... Some loony came out of nowhere from the end of the street behind me, so I did not try to move off until I knew what he was doing. In a quiet residential road (30mph limit), he literally didn't slow up for even a second - he zoomed up behind, went to overtake me (I was in a car that was indicating and had reversing lights, and L plates so it was obvious that I COULD have jutted out onto that side of the road at any moment if I'd started to turn) using the wrong-side of the road, mounted the pavement ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD at about 40mph, as he went round me (there was plenty of room, he was just a pillock), then sped off.
The examiner guy later told me I failed at that point (even though he said nothing) because I should have abandoned the manoeuvre before he got to me, and I "made" him mount the pavement - in those 2 seconds it took for that guy to round a corner and decide to overtake a reverse-indicating learner driver by mounting the pavement on the wrong side of the road at 40mph.
Oh, and I failed a test because an passenger airbag light on the car I'd hired from an instructor SPECIFICALLY to do the test in was illuminated. The instructor who gave it to me had given me a lesson minutes previously, then let me use the car to do the test. They had hired the car as their normal one was being repaired. Someone who hired it previously had disabled the airbag because of using a child seat, and the light on the passenger side clearly said that it was merely disabled (not faulty) for that and there were instructions for re-enabling (put the key in a thing inside the passenger door). The examiner even knew the instructor but literally terminated the test immediately and walked away... I didn't even get a chance to re-enable the airbag. Cost the instructor £70 (I wasn't going to pay for it, it was their mistake!) for me to retake it, and I had to wait another month for another test.
After that, I literally ignored all the examiner/instructor bollocks as it appeared entirely random (one instructor tried to tell me that if I pulled the handbrake on such that it ratcheted, I would fail - they wanted me to hold the button in when pulling it up). I then passed on a test where I guarantee you that I rolled back from a roundabout while trying to move off to join the roundabout traffic, racheted the handbrake on every manoeuvre, went down at least one wrong road because I misheard the directions, and which was generally the worst I've ever driven in my life. I'd also like to point out that in that case, he was the most distracted examiner I've ever seen... barely looked at me throughout the drive, it was like driving a mate to work after you'd had a row... he looked out his side, I drove, occasionally he'd say "turn left here". That was it.
Strangely, EVERY SINGLE PERSON I know asks me to show their children how to drive, comments on how careful and smooth a drive it is with me, and how I can read the road. My only accident ever in the 10 years hence was a mild bump between two close traffic lights on a roundabout, at 10mph caused by an idiot cutting into a queue of traffic that he wanted to zip down the outside of to save a couple of car's worth of queuing. Damage to my car: £0. Damage to their car: £9000 of damage (apparently, so the car insurance said, but half of that was hire cars!). No dashcam or cameras around, and because "I'd hit him from behind", it was classed as my fault. I've had a dashcam in my car ever since.
Honestly... even assuming the urban myth of the "pass quotas" is bunk, passing a driving test is largely random and subjective. And they wouldn't allow cameras in the examined cars when tests are taking place, even for appeal basis, which I find incredibly telling. They know that they can't back up their reasoning in court. And without footage, any right to appeal is almost impossible to prove.