Too many learner drivers are using our roads, say residents (From Worcester News)

We were all learners once and used some area to practice. But now because we have passed it’s not ok for the next people to practice in the same way? Its always the way with learner drivers... you want others to give you space when your learning...soon as you pass you also turn into the anti learning to drive group and over take.. Have no patience for them ECT etc

As a resident in the area I have no problem with learners per se but a bit of consideration would go a long way. Its the same with anything - in moderation its OK but when its day in day out it gets a bit wearing.

Although not Warndon Villages but close to I've seen three sets of learner drivers doing three point turns in Prescot Drive at the same time during lunchtime causing considerable disruption. It doesn't take a genius to think that lunchtimes will be busy on the road so maybe not a good time to block a road with mutliple learners.

It does bring into question the ability of the instructor if they are taking students into areas where it's causeing nuisance, congestion and obstructions. I've come across a learner driver with an instructor doing a turn in the road just after a difficult left hand bend, I stopped and sat there for a good 30 seconds before they even noticed me! It doesn't bode well for the next generation of road users does it?

I agree and have thought that for many years, jb!

Like you, I have seen adverts on TV saying "No job? Become a Driving Instructor and earn up to £30,000 a year!"

No mention of training - and judging by the results I see driving around, they are not given any!

How can you reach proper road skills (like signalling at a roundabout, don't drive too close to the car in front and always obey the speed limits) if the instructor doesn't have these skills themselves?

I now wait for an irate response from the one qualified Driving Instructor in our area!

Along the same lines as the post above, I'm amazed at how many driving instructors seem to teach their pupils to turn left at a roundabout - even if there's a vehicle about to go straight over it from their right in the outside lane. This happened to me just the other day on the A449 at Hartlebury.
The argument is that because the L car will be exiting in the near-side lane and the car to the right will exit in the off-side lane, there should be no trouble. What they fail to realise is that the car going straight over from their right can't see any indicators and doesn't know if the L car is turning left or crossing their path to go straight ahead.
I once memorised the phone number of a driving instructor who did this once and phoned him when I got home, only to be told that's what they teach.
Unbelievable.

OK then Bloke,
What makes the instructor wrong and you right.
Suggest you read the latest version of the Highway Code.

No offence but how old are the ones who are complaining? Part of the older generation i bet..

Its not the tutors who are saying..drive up peoples ****..its just them being AN **** once they pass there test.

I was driving to a hosptial today and i had a mid aged guy driving right up my sodding rear.. sadly we must admit we have some realy A Holes about..

Back onto the subject..IF we say dont use this area as much or just using it.. then they will only have to go to another area and we will have the same problem..its always ok once WE pass but im sure we didnt mind when we were learning?

And bloke.. if you read the highway code your wrong im afraid like varien pointed out.

People are always ready to shoot the gun to have a good moan about anything..and on this case the tutors are acutally very good and like in every job.. im sure there is a few not so good ^^.. Im sure all here are fantastic at our jobs and never put a foot wrong?

Not having a go and please dont take it personal..


Adam

All Instructors have to pass 3 exams to qualify. For every 100 people who try to qualify only about 10 will pass all 3 exams. Have a Google for 'Adi pass rates'.

I rarely respond to annoying comments made on comment boards but some of the statements made here have really riled me.

I am a Driving Instructor, I would first of all like to point out that Driving Instructors do not select the test routes! And if we didn’t use the test routes for practice, the percentage of people passing their test would drop significantly. Most pupils take between 25 and 50 hours training to pass an increasingly difficult driving test, if we were not permitted to practice on test routes it would take many more.

I’m going to respond to the individual comments made above.

Councillor Buckly in the article above states: “A young girl was almost knocked down” I can assure you, as far as the safety of pedestrians is concerned, driving instructors spend their working lives teaching learners about all aspects of safety and will always take control of their vehicle at the first sign of any dangerous situation. Pedestrians are in much more danger from a fairly high percentage of dreadful drivers who speed through built up areas ( and by speed, I don’t mean driving at 50 in a 30 zone, I mean driving at any speed which exceeds the speed limit! ), also, drivers who fail to signal at selected junctions ( a lot of drivers seem to feel that using their signal is a bit of a waste of time at some junctions! For example, next time your driving, count how many people us their indicator at a T-Junction, you’ll be surprised at the result). The councillor is being very selective in the point he is making, maybe he should find out how many people almost or actually have been knocked down in his area by qualified drivers. I do understand residents concerns and I do understand that some people get frustrated by the amount of learners practicing in their area, I’m sure it can be very frustrating but Driving Instructors are not the problem, we have no choice!. Ironically, we’ve all heard it before, but the people who complain all had to learn to drive themselves and seem to forget this point. And I would add, for most of them, the test they undertook, years ago was not anywhere near as difficult as it is today!.

To ChimChim (above): Again I understand your point of view, it does seem to me that at busy times it would be better not to do 3 point turns but tests are carried out at busy times and we have to teach learners how to deal with these situations for their test and for their future driving. We start of with new pupils in very quiet locations and build up to busier areas, so although it may seem that all learners are always practicing at busy locations, this is not the case but it is important that we cover these situations.

To jb (above): You should try to think before you make silly comments, too many people seem unable to think from the other person’s perspective! First of all, you say we shouldn’t teach learners in areas where it will cause a nuisance. Do you really think that we should avoid teaching people how to deal with busy situations! Secondly, the instructor is teaching pupils how to spot and deal with other vehicles during a manoeuvre, once the other vehicle has stopped, they are taught to avoid making repeated eye contact with the other driver again until they are about to proceed, this is to avoid confusing the waiting driver. If the learner keeps looking at the waiting driver, it misleads people, they then think that the learner is waiting on them to pass.

To Common Sense (above): My friend, the one thing you seem to lack is ‘common sense’! No point in commenting to your ridiculous, uneducated statements.

To Bloke (above): In the words of one of my female pupils, “oh my god”. People like Bloke are so typical of a small minority of people, not only are his comments relating to roundabouts worryingly incorrect, this person is a qualified driver who lacks basic road knowledge and common sense. There are so many like him, willing to criticise other drivers but with very poor driving ability. The fact that he is criticising driving instructors and not questioning himself is frightening! Bloke, has it never dawned on you that if you see so many driving instructors teaching pupils this, maybe its you who’s getting it wrong!. I bet you constantly criticise other drivers?. I suggest you read Varian, Adaml and Martinsom’s comments. Its frightening that there are people on the roads like Bloke. I wonder if Bloke will learn from my comments – I don’t think so.

Sorry for going on. Finally, Driving instructors take between 12 to 18 months to qualify, a large percentage don’t make it. The ones that do get re-tested every 4 years. We spend our lives teaching about safety, consideration, rules and regulations and for the vast majority, we are extremely conscientious. We have to put up with angry, sometimes nasty people who seem to think that we are out to annoy them. It would be nice to think that my comments would help change the opinion of at least one of these people but probably not, if their capable of thinking like Bloke, I’m sure their incapable of changing their minds.

Thankfully, people like Bloke, ChimChim and jb are in the minority, in my experience most drivers are very understanding and helpful.

to AbbeyDriving - how do you know that jb abd myself are not understanding or helpful to learner drivers? Nothing in our posts says anything about NOT being so?

I'm also concerned about your comment:- "And if we didn’t use the test routes for practice, the percentage of people passing their test would drop significantly. Most pupils take between 25 and 50 hours training to pass an increasingly difficult driving test, if we were not permitted to practice on test routes it would take many more."

Teaching drivers mainly on the test route to increase the pass rate seems to be wrong in my opinion. I'm sure you will disagree!

it is not just people unable to signal at junctions , the ammount of 'passed' drivers that seem to buy cars without indicators is unbelievable. I am glad to see learners about, so what if you have to add 10 minutes onto your journey isn't that a small price to pay for knowing that someone is hopefully going to learn how to drive properly?
We all had to do it.

If you have a collision with an L-driver and the police attend you will be asked a catch-22 question.
Did you see the L-plates on the other car? Think about it.
Answer NO and you will be accused of not paying enough attention - Answer YES and you will be accused of not exercising caution and making adequate allowances when encountering a learner driver.

First, I should declare my hand. I am a Driving Standards Agency (DSA) approved Driving Instructor. I am also a citizen of Worcester. This post is not a plea on behalf of driving instructors - it is a plea for sanity.

Here's the problem. To become competent in, say, a left reverse an average learner will need to practise the manoeuvre around 20 to 30 times. They will start on an easy corner and build up to more difficult shapes and gradients in busy situations (dealing with other road users is fundamentally important, so it is necessary to practise lots in busy situations). So if you live on a corner that has some unique feature (e.g. odd shape, gradient, busy) you can expect learners to be practising. Conscientious instructors will make sure that their pupils are well rehearsed for the test. After all, their pupil is paying good money in order to be properly prepared.

So each pupil needs lots of practice. Now here's the rub. I won't bore you with all the sums, but in a typical small town like Worcester, there will be around 70 to 80 active instructors training some 2000 pupils at any one time. The Test Centre may have four examiners taking seven tests a day. That's 140 tests a week. Each test requires competence in four manoeuvres. Do the sums, and you know what's coming next! You'll find that a staggering 7,000 to 10,000 manoeuvres each week will be practised in the City! And that's a conservative estimate.

As soon as you see the scale of the problem, you realise that everyone in the City is going to be affected. Moreover there are surprisingly few roads and corners which are a suitable shape and size for manoeuvres to be practised safely. I'd estimate not more than 100 locations. So each one will get an average of 100 practices a week. Assume that 100 road users regularly use any one location, and maybe 10,000 people are affected. That's enough to be vocal in a City the size of Worcester, and to be honest, it's easy to see why they feel aggrieved. And don't forget that some locations will be used more than others.

It's not hard to see why Instructors feel aggrieved either. On an individual level, an Instructor may carry out two or three manoeuvres with each pupil spread around the City - maybe ten minutes in a one hour lesson. They don't hog any one area because their pupils need to practise a variety of situations. In fact, each instructor may only use any one junction once in every 20 lessons. Not much to ask for, they think. So why all the abuse?

The only common denominator in all this is the DSA. They construct the test, set the rules of the road and monitor standards. Maybe it's time for a change:

* In many countries, a left reverse is considered to be so dangerous that it is actually an illegal manoeuvre.
* Bay parking is an off - road manoeuvre, and so outside of the DSA's jurisdiction. There is no facility for practise, apart from private car parks (e.g. supermarket car parks) where instructors have no right to practise and are often not welcomed. The DSA allows three 15 minute slots each afternoon for the 80 or so local Instructors to practise.
* In the United States, for example, many States provide off road facilities for manoeuvring practice, and also test manoeuvres at these facilities

So here's a thought:

1. Separate a manoeuvring test out from the main driving test
2. Abandon the left reverse altogether (hands up all those who use this manoeuvre anyway)
3. Provide off road facilities for parking and turning manoeuvres
4. Test manoeuvres off road (the bay park is already tested at the Test Centre, so there is a precedent)

Then we'll all be happy!