Should motorway driving be part of your test?

I agree that novice drivers should get experience of driving on motorways, though I am uncertain about whether this should be the final part of preparing for a test or done after passing the test.

I also very much agree with Chris about the importance of gaining experience, as a learner, of driving at night, in poor weather conditions, and in rush hour traffic.

I believe the driving test now includes a section of multi-lane dual-carriageway trunk road with grade-separated junctions and no right-hand turnouts because every county now has such a highway. In fact test centres have been relocated in order to facilitate this. Such a road gives all the driving conditions found on motorways, except some of the signage, and certainly incorporates all the driving techniques required [including a few more as cyclists, mobility scooters and tractors are permitted to use them]. Indeed, motorway driving is probably easier overall because, on all-purpose roads, the entry/exit acceleration/deceleration lanes are often less generous and the geometry of motorways is generally more forgiving. Maximum speed limits are the same but there is probably more over-speeding on motorways [not recommended on the driving test!].

It have always been considerate when there are learners around but I have to admit that my tolerance levels are declining rapidly. The problem is not the learners, they have to learn somehow, but rather with the way that driving schools operate. Perhaps I should explain that there is a driving test centre about 300 yards from where I live. Those taking the test are no real problem, most of them have gained enough competence to fit in with all the normal traffic.

Where it all goes wrong for all of us living round here is the way that driving schools carry out the majority of their training on the roads that the learners will be using when they eventually take the test. The result is that the local roads are full of learners, many of them in very early stages of the learning process. There are three possible routes I can use when approaching my house from one direction. On one occasion all three were blocked by learners. One was, I suspect, on a very early lesson because every time he came to a halt it took six or more attempts to get moving again, another route was blocked by a learner practising three point turns and the third by one practising parallel parking. On each route, one of which is also a bus route, there were queues of traffic in both directions being held up.

I’m not blaming the learners for this problem, as I mentioned previously they have to learn somehow. In fact I feel very sorry for them because it is obvious that they are aware of the problems that they are causing and this is flustering them thus making the situation worse. I suspect that for many of them they wind up in quite a state of tension, which cannot be beneficial for the learning process and probably leaves many of them as nervous drivers when they do eventually pass the test.

The solution, in my opinion, is to split the learning process into two parts. The first part would be on a training ground away from traffic so that the learners could concentrate on the simple mechanics of driving, including such things as three point turns, parallel parking, hill starts and so on. Only when they have achieved proficiency in this area could they be exposed to traffic on normal roads. In addition, I would ban all learners, other than those taking the test, from the area round the test centre. This would have two benefits: firstly, the load would be spread over a larger area and secondly, the test itself would be more searching because the learners would not have ‘learned the roads’.

The driving test routes used to be published on the DSA website but that was stopped a few years ago because learners were becoming too practiced and it was was causing problems for local residents. The driving school tutors still know all the right places to take their pupils for parallel parking and three point-turns so there has been little relief. Most test centres had around twenty routes but, for obvious reasons, the first and last sections of all the routes were more or less the same and this remains the case, so people living in the vicinity are still inconvenienced by a constant stream of learners. Roundabouts on the test routes have to be approached with caution -there’s usually a learner doing a crash course on it, and the double roundabouts in Bury St Edmunds seem to be the most hazardous places on the roads.