Faled Test

My mate failed test last week on something which suprised me let me know
what your feelings are on this.

Approaching a road where two seperate roads merge into a dual
carriageway, she looked behind and sees nothing approaching from the
right road. The trafic infront is doing 40mph on the 50mph dual, so she
indicates to move into right lane on checking mirror before pulling out
she sees a BMW tonking it , so she hangs back the BWM flashes her out
and away she goes.

At end of test examiner tells her , she should NOT have indicated as
this caused the BMW driver to be in two minds and caused him to slow.

Now I did my IAM advanced driving (car) a couple of years ago and was
told this:- Indicate when u wish to tell people you want to pull out, do
this regardless of who is in the right lane as if u wait for the right
time youll be there forever.

The examiner disagrees with this (I asked him) and he states you should
not indicate unless its safe to do so and will not cause the traffci to
slow.

Either the IAM are wrong or the examiner is? Any of you clever chaps /
chapesses steer me in the right direction. (I gave up my IAM
subscription so cant ask them).

Ken

 

I agree with the examiner.

 

I can understand his point , but its completely opposite to what she and
I were told on the IAM training, and Im just glad that situation didnt
rear its head on my test cos id have done the same.
I think this is the problem with the IAM certainly on cars anyway , it
seems to be very personal opinion, rather than strict guidelines.

 

in yellow crayon

As far as i am concearned, an indication is exactly that. "an indication to
other road users that you intend to turn right or left"

If the "bmw" driver slowed down, it's just due to (and i can't believe i'm
saying this) their consideration for other road users.

The beemer didn't have to slow down and flash her out, but it shows that the
inicators did thier job....

Examiners can be petty freaks at times.

Mick

 

I don't think either is right or wrong, they're both viable in certain
situations. It's a moot point anyway as your mate simply has to get through
the test, which has **** all to do with road sense or riding ability, and
then can set about learning to ride properly through experience, courses or
acupuncture.

 

I'm no Riding God, but it looks like she was doing the DSAs process
out of order. Was she failed for this instead?

From your paragraph above it appears this happened:

1. Lifesafer
2. Signal
3. Mirror
4. Manouver (although dithered causing other road user to flash her)

The DSA say this way:

1. Mirror
2. Signal
3. Lifesaver
4. Manouver

If the manouver does or does not go ahead is another matter. If it
doesn't go ahead then one could say that it was a Foreward Planning
error.

Going back to when I was having car driving tests my instructor told
me that there was no such thing as an "I intend to pull out of this
parking space" right signal, only a "I am pulling out of this parking
space." So it's swings and roundabouts.

DSA != IAM

My understanding of the DSA test is: Don't cause any other road user
to have to alter what they are doing because of what you are doing.

The DSA are looking for a very, very basic understanding of 'road
lore' and foreward planning.

There's nothing that you can do about the fail apart from having her
do the test again, then the real training will start.

 

I tried reading the posting and lost the will to live. Sorry.

 

1/ I personally believe you should wait until you see an approaching
gap BEFORE indicating when lane changing.*****

2/ It is impossible to descibe in any amount of words exactly what
happened out there on that day, only those who were there, eg examiner
/ mate / beemer driver know what happened, post mortems don't work.

3/ Examiners have some latitude, passing a test = making an examiner
relaxed sitting next to you / following you, even a minor wince or
sucked teeth moment will make him fail you, and he will use the nearest
appropriate fail category to do so.

4/ As an experienced rider the examiner may have the same attitudes as
me, L plates on bike = nil experience worth anything, + BMW = driver
who habitually drives at 20 mph over the limit and similarly
overestimates both his own and his car's ability (esp true of silver
ones) = possibly dangerous situation of biker being rear ended at speed
by car or car braking suddenly and being rear ended by silver merc /
volvo tailgating the beemer

***** being honest I don't have indicators, and at normal road speeds
simply cracking her open means I can out accelerate any cage out there,
certainly making up the speed difference between lanes is almost done
in a heartbeat.

-----------

I never ever ever hear about people whingeing that their mate who is in
a bad way in A&E shouldn't have been passed by the examiner and
therefore the "accident" is the examiners fault.... it's always the
case that people who do maybe 3000 miles a year on their bike and have
never instructed or examined anyone professionally feel able to
critique examiners who spend all day every day riding.

there used to be an examiner in plymuff, right miserable bastard,
failed a lot of people who turned up for tests, who rode the wheels off
his pan, a bloody good and bloody fast rider, but the people taking
tests never knew that.... I was lucky, had a foreign licence and turned
up for my test on a well used (used to dipatch 1500/2000 miles per week
on it) zed thou shaftie, he took one look at me and at the bike and
said "ok, we're going to concentrate on obeying the highway code, and
that means speed limits and lane discipline" it being obvious I could
ride.

he failed me, explained why he had quite correctly failed me, then
suggested I stick around for a retest in the afternoon as there were
always cancellations when it was raining (it was) spent lunch
discussing in details the sorts of errors I made, I passed in the
afternoon, for maybe a year afterwards until it wore off again and the
old bad habits resumed I was a much safer rider.

moral here is don't knock examiner failing you, and don't get an
attitude about it, it's just money and time, they are trying to save
your skin, literally.

 

I was pretty sure that I didn't care when I started reading, and I was
certain about it when I stopped.

 

IAM were teaching you the best way to ride in a real situation, the
test examiner is checking the ability to drive to a prerquisite set of
rules designed to be fail proof in all situations.

Mirror, signal, maneuver... If the BMW is approaching, then you don't
get past Mirror...

You should never do anything to make another road user break.

I know this is total bollocks but it is the hard and fast rule the
examiner goes by. I think they should have put it down as a minor fault
though, not a test failure.

Think about the advice for your test, drive 1m from the curb. Who does
that when you pass your test, in fact IAM would probably consider it a
more dangerous place to be.

The system is full of these. My wife failed her driving test for doing
an emergency stop when a dog ran out in front of her car on her test.
The examiner said she should have hit it as she caused a greater risk
to the car behind by slamming on. The examiner got out and drove the
car back to the test centre for her, wouldn't even let her finish the
test. What a silly cow. The examiner was suspended a month later and my
wife passed 2nd time round.

 

Magpie scribbled:

Well it is "mirror, signal, manouvre", so she got the first two the
wrong way around.

 

Your instructor was wrong, your mate who failed was failed for good
reason. You indictae what you're about to do, not what you'd like to do.
If I was behind your mate, id assume they hadnt seen me and were going
to pull out, I would then slap my break on assuming they were going to
pull out in front of me.

 

the fact they acted on the flashing of the head lights as anything
other than a warning might have been a factor. It is not a give way
signal.

 

BGN wrote

That is how I do it. Although I don't necessarily do number 2 as often
as all the others.

 

Exactly how I do it, too.

 

Not just me then

 

No.

 

Bran is the answer... and dates, they are good too )

I suppose it will come to us all eventually

 

In uk.rec.motorcycles, Monz amazed us all with this pearl of wisdom:

As are prunes

It's all that vigourous exercise all day long, innit.

 

You put your indicator on to inform other road users that you *intend*
to change lanes, but this doesn't give you an automatic right to do so.

So, your examiner is totally correct, and your IAM bod is wrong.

--
Lesley
CBR600FW
SBS#11 (with oak-leaf cluster)
BOTAFOT#101A UKRMHRC#12
BONY#54P BOB#18
Real burds don't take hormones, they rage naturally