Archive for the ‘Learning to drive’ Category

New Changes To Car Driving Test – ‘Independent Driving’

Monday, June 7th, 2010

You may have seen in the news recently that the car driving test will be changing from October 2010.

What’s changing is the practical driving test, which will have a new section called independent driving.

What’s Independent Driving?

The powers that be at the Driving Standards Agency decided that learner drivers needed to demonstrate that they can follow directions or signs without needing constant step-by-step instructions. At present, test candidates are given constant directions and do not have to navigate for themselves.

According to the DSA, the independent driving section of the practical driving test will last around ten minutes and will require test candidates to follow signs to a destination or to follow a set of simple directions that they will be shown on a basic map.

The idea is that it’s a useful test of their real-world driving ability and will hopefully improve safety in newly-passed drivers. It seems reasonable to me.

This video has been published by the DSA to show how the new section of the test will work:

Tags: car driving test, Driving Standards Agency, driving test, DSA, independent driving, practical driving test
Posted in Learning to drive | No Comments »

New Government YouTube Videos For Learner Drivers

Monday, October 19th, 2009

If you are about to start learning to drive, you may want to take a look at some new videos the DSA has published on YouTube, the video sharing website.

Not all of them are aimed at new car drivers but some are. The best one to get started with is probably this one, “Are You Ready? A Guide for Learners“. It’s a series of videos, covering the theory and practical test, plus a few other things.

Here’s the first video in the series, to give you a taste of what’s on offer:

Tags: DSA, Learning to drive, video
Posted in Learning to drive | No Comments »

A New Way To Learn To Drive

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

care-motoringLearning to drive can be expensive – and many learner drivers (or their parents) struggle to afford the cost of a full set of lessons.

The result is often that new drivers learn to drive with their parents – before having a few driving lessons to finish off with before they take their test.

The problem with this approach is that many older drivers – although they are experienced – have picked up some bad habits over the years and are not familiar with the driving techniques an instructor would teach you. The techniques you need to demonstrate in order to pass your practical driving test.

The result is often a fail – the pass rate for learner drivers who have been taught by an ADI-qualified driving instructor is higher than the pass rate for those who have been taught by a parent or friend.

I’ve recently come across a solution to this problem – the Virtual Driving Instructor (VDI). The Virtual Driving Instructor is a series of audio recordings that helps you practice your driving in private (with a supervising driver such as a parent).

Made up of a series of lessons, the Virtual Driving Instructor follows the DSA (Driving Standards Agency) syllabus for learner drivers – just as a real driving instructor would (click here to see the full syllabus for the lessons).

The difference is the cost – each module of five VDI lessons costs just £4.95 and the complete series of VDI lessons only costs £24.95 to download. Each lesson is designed to provide a mixture of tuition and driving time that should take around an hour. In other words, each lesson costs you just under £1.00 per hour, instead of the £24 per hour charged by most instructors. That’s pretty good value – especially as you can listen to the lessons as many times as you want.

The Virtual Driving Instructor is the brainchild of Jackie Willis, a very experienced (and highly qualified) driving instructor. Through her website, Care Motoring, she provides expert advice and assistance to help learner drivers pass first time and became safe, confident drivers. In addition to the Virtual Driving Instructor audio lessons, Jackie offers regular driving lessons to learners in Norfolk.

Tags: Care Motoring, driving lessons, learner driver, Learning to drive, practice driving, Virtual Driving Instructor
Posted in Learning to drive | No Comments »

13% of Learner Drivers Can’t Check Oil

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

A new survey by the Driving Standards Agency – the government body responsible for driving tests – has found that 13% of test candidates don’t know how to check the oil on their car. The result is that the fail the “show me, tell me” section of the practical driving test – although this doesn’t automatically result in a test fail.

Checking the oil is about as simple a task as you can imagine – but a great many drivers never do it. I think that one of the problems (apart from laziness) is that cars are sold as requiring no maintenance between services. Indeed, many of them don’t – unless something goes wrong.

The point is that quick, simple checks like checking your oil and water are an effective way of alerting you to any problems with your car – such as leaks. By catching these early, the cost of fixing them and the damage they cause can be minimised.

Failing to notice an oil leak, on the other hand, can result in your engine running out of oil and seizing up – costing you a new engine (£’000s)…

Note: It’s not just learner drivers who don’t know how to take care of their vehicles, either. Just after I hit the publish button on this article, a press release from the RAC popped into my inbox, claiming that more than 13,500 day’s vehicle downtime are caused every year by fleet drivers failing to take proper care of their vehicles.

The RAC’s top 20 callout reasons include being unable to change a wheel, damaged tyres, flat batteries, misfuelling and, bizarrely, in sixth place, ‘no fault found’.

Tags: car checks, check oil, check water, Learning to drive, practical driving test, Show Me, Tell Me
Posted in Learning to drive | No Comments »