Driving Examiners

I failed today....thanks to a Miserable Old Man John who is the chief examiner of my local centre....complete prick!!!.....renound for being a prick. I Had a few minors on my sheet and stalled once thats fair enough but he sat in his chair silent and intimidating with Dark Blue glasses on not making conversation and generally making me feel nervous.....I know not all old people are like this guy but Euthanasia seemed a great idea after meeting this tosser...Watch out if you ever get an Instructor called John and he is old...he will fail you


Anyone had any experiences on Tests or with instructors..why did you fail?

I passed first time with 4 minors. Hope that makes you guys feel better.
Seriously it doesn't matter who takes your test. If you fail, it's your own fault.

not true, the examiner *should* be able to judge whether or not a driver is capable and safe to drive on their own, unfortunately too many are machines.

just like you i got 4 minors, but apparently on the last double-mini roundabout, i didn't look to the right and so caused another car to have to ''''hesitate''''.

I say apparently because i noticed nothing at that roundabout, and so had no reason to store it to memory. it was simply the examiners view that i hadn't looked at all hence the major for observation. when i would say i had looked early, judged it was safe and so progressed to worry about the next roundabout and the area in between with lanes to choose. ok i should have checked again when i was literally about to go onto the roundabout, but that should be a minor. for i was still looking, i had my eyes open, and nothing happened in my peripharel, after all examiners own words i made another car 'hesitate', not slam on the brakes, or cause the examiner to do it for me... i mean he could of made that up, but i couldn't argue it whatever.

so don't try and be an expert, i'd say the only difference between your test and my test was that when you and i got back to our test centres your examiner said well done pass, mine said, fail, because of an incident that practically didn't even exist and that i had no memory of occuring (because it wasn't anything).

If an examiner cannot say if i'm good enough to pass after 45 minutes of near perfect driving, 4 minors ok, but u know how ridiculous minors can be. Then what the hell is he doing being an examiner, ok maybe he followed protocol, and u can't say he had no right to. But its the same as if a parking warden gives you a parking ticket because you pulled up on double yellows to save a dying child. Hes allowed to, its his job, but you'd hope he might have compassion, and just maybe be 'human'??? so it does matter who you have with you. ultimately a driving test is subjective, and so by definition its the persons opinion.

basically they need a hawkeye system, at least a computer won't make mistakes that its then too proud to admit were mistakes, 99% of examiners won't give a **** if they fail someone, which is wrong, they have power but no responsibility, spiderman wouldn't like that.

sorry bout the rant but i hope u agree with my points.

examiners own words i made another car 'hesitate', not slam on the brakes

i'm not gonna argue with all your points.
But just a few.

regarding the roundabout fail, imagine you'd driven for an hour then been told that on one part something had happened, your hardly ever going to have a memory which you have no doubt is right when questioned. So that avenue is pointless, i'm not gonna start doubting myself, though equally i'm not saying i was 100% right.

When you've just driven for slightly over 30 minutes (not an hour) you should be able to remember if something dangerous or out of the ordinary happened. After my test (and all my mock tests) I was able to drive through the test in my mind and remember what I did. It wasn't that hard. Also, examiners are trained to give detailed debriefs at the end of the test and have to be able to weight the fault so that the candidate understands why they failed (this wasn't always the case - examiners have become far more pleasant in recent years. There used to be no debrief or pleasantries).

Advisor your points are fine, the 1st, i agree with totally, my problem with that is more the system, everyone makes mistakes from time to time, if u drive for long enough you will make a mistake, you also never stop improving (hopefully with your driving), so to say when your near the bottom of the learning curve if you make 1 mistake that causes another driver to react in 45 mins you fail isn't wholly right. for a lot of learners there is luck involved...

You can't drive on luck. You can't be taught how to deal with everything that is going to happen on the roads. So you need to be able to deal with anything. If you show that you can't deal with a hazard (even one caused by someone else) then you have shown you aren't safe. It is unfortunate that there are learners who wouldn't be able to deal with certain situations that pass since the specific situation arises, but those are the limitations of the test.

...with nothing happening, you hope nothing arises within the time your being examined, but if it does like in my case, which i'm not argueing... (its pointless), to have a system which catagorizes so much is wrong. Like R.Murray said... examiners are highly trained to notice and asses your faults. So surely they should be given more responsibility in the form... 'u made 1 mistake on a roundabout, but on the 10 previous ones you were v.good, therefore i will pass it off as a minor blip etc...'

They can do that, but if you cause another road user to have to take some kind of action, then you've taken that discretion away from them. Simple as that. I'm not going to track down the link again but there is a document showing how faults are assessed, look for it in one of my other posts (I have linked to it so often but doubt many people bother to look through it). Do read the disclaimer that I put against it too, because reading this does not qualify you to second guess an examiner.

naturally i'm relating it to my scenario haha, but its the same for other cases. In Germany its down to the examiner at the end to make a judgement, not just look and tick boxes. Because seriously all british ones have to do is watch what you do and how you react, and in the case of majors judge whether or not your actions cause another car to have to react.... no joke i could do that.

Not a chance in hell.

your second point Advisor, regarding my quote. that can act in two ways, either there was nothing to see that was a hazard when i looked, (yes i know i should have looked again when about to go onto it),

Look for bikes! If a biker had come onto the roundabout, with him having priority it's a fair bet that you'd not have seen him.

or the examiner was right, there was a car there right in front of me and i was looking somewhere else the whole time.

Quite probably.

As for hafa... ha, well yes it is. if it wasn't then every minor should be a major. For i got 2 minors for not checking mirrors when chaning speed, (i'm not debating whether or not they were correct minors)

Mirrors are essential! I can't see why you wouldn't check your mirrors. However, we'll leave that line of argument for now.

, but, if a car had been overtaking and i had caused a problem by accelerating having not checked that would be a major... the only difference between the major and the minor is factors out of our own control.

I agree with you on this one. I think that if you did something wrong and it was pure chance that no one was there to be affected it should be treated as if there was someone affected. If it was serious. Once again this is a limitation of the test and the examiners can't justify the fault since they don't set the standards it's done higher up the ladder than them.

If we were completely un subjective then u can't rationally say there is a difference between the two scenario's in terms how your actions (or lack of) should be judged. And i think you'll find basically everything is subjective, the examiner is viewing the test and judging based on how THEY see it. you seem to have thought when i said subjective i meant that the subjective bit was down to the person sitting the test...

And R.Murray, you seem to neglect the idea that i'd driven with this examiner for about 44 minutes previously, so i'd hope he'd noticed me checking then, and the other minors were nothing to do with observation at junctions.

I never said that they were. However, if you have done something right a 999 times, and on the thousandth, you screw it up and create a hazard, if you're on test that's hard lines but it was down to you.

You say
'not looking on approach to junctions is something i hate to see'
i agree,haha but what, u think 'thats my driving style' mate quite funny but no, i do check every time, i don't take risks. and like i'd said, i had already gone over at least 10 mini roundabouts, (seriously the test town couldn't have many more if they tried, like the ones where a normal junction wud do perfectly but they have a mini roundabout instead).

Mini-roundabouts are great since they keep the flow moving and give everyone an equal chance to get onto the road.

oh and i'm confused about this bit
'The fact that you didn't notice anything worthy of a serious/dangerous fault is frightening. Remember, the examiner is just watching, you have the car to control - maybe concentrate more on your driving and less on doing a job you're nowhere near qualified to do and you'll perform a bit better.'

yes the fact i was driving is probably why i wasn't staring to the right the whole time like the examiner...

A couple of things to pick you up on here. You shouldn't stare anyway, the car will tend to go where you're looking so it should really be glances not stares. The examiner can't stare either for a couple of reasons. They have to watch you, they have to see what's going on around the car and they can't prompt you to do observations by staring or making their own.

...to see if a car did have to 'hesitate', (u do seem to be acting as though i was about to drive onto a busy multi lane roundabout having not checked and then started complaining when the examiner put the brake on), in your words, 'serious/dangerous fault' was to apparently 'not look' (ur saying if the examiner is right and i didn't look, i should easily have noticed the major fault of not looking???) You clearly didn't - which is frightening (as I said previously). all that happened was that a car had to hesitate... pls stop exagerating, though again its quite funny.

And just judging you as a person 'And I'll agree that if I was the driver you inconvenienced I'd be quite glad you failed for that' MATE UR HARD.

Not at all, you were breaking the law. You weren't going to give way to the person on your right. Causing them to have to stop, then you went on your merry way. Inconsiderate drivers are a pet hate of mine, cos I've seen plenty.

you see mate, its not hard to look forward, (thats what u do when you drive right) and slow down if someone accidentaly doesn't spot you.

Actually I tend to use my mirrors quite frequently as well as making eye contact with other road users who may not have seen me. And if I had priority, why should I have to slow down for someone who thinks it's okay to miss the odd car now and again?

...Seems you'd rather drive into them then sue them for complete negligence.

I failed today....thanks to a Miserable Old Man John who is the chief examiner of my local centre....complete prick!!!.....renound for being a prick. I Had a few minors on my sheet and stalled once thats fair enough but he sat in his chair silent and intimidating with Dark Blue glasses on not making conversation and generally making me feel nervous.....I know not all old people are like this guy but Euthanasia seemed a great idea after meeting this tosser...Watch out if you ever get an Instructor called John and he is old...he will fail you


Anyone had any experiences on Tests or with instructors..why did you fail?

I'll respond to some of your points - since you're very wordy I'm going to do it in the quote.

I Had a few minors on my sheet