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Pause for a second and think, where is your Driving Licence ? In the drawer in the kitchen ?, in your wallet or purse ?, maybe your really organised and everything is filed away so you can find it easily and quickly.

I bet though that the plastic card is in your wallet as it’s so handy for id purposes and the paper counterpart is somewhere else completely, maybe in that box of old receipt’s and other stuff that you’ve been meaning to sort out for ages.

When you find the paper bit have a look at what it say’s, For those of you who still can’t find it this is what it say’s : The photocard and paper counterpart together make up the complete driving licence and should be kept together. Both must be produced when required.

You will be required to produce both parts of your licence on your 1st driving lesson as I am by law required to check it, You will also need to produce both parts when you attend for your Theory Test and most importantly your Driving Test. I see quite often pupils turning up at the test centre all raring to go and then have to go home dejected as they have forgotten or usually lost the paper part.

The cost of this mistake can be expensive, £48.50 for the test, 2hrs of tuition on day of test £40.00 (depending on the school) and another £48.50 to rebook your test and another 2hrs tuition on the new test date. That’s £177.00 all in.

So please keep those documents all together or filed away so you know exactly where they are.

There can be a thousand and one things that you can fail your Driving Test on. From the obvious to the unlikely, the kind of things that you just can’t plan for during your driving lessons. A good example of this is, how to deal with horses and there riders safely.

Now you may be thinking?, what would be the chances of seeing a horse and rider whilst your driving round somewhere like Whalley Range for example, but not a lot people realise is that the Greater Manchester Police’s stables are based on Mauldeth road, only about a 4 minute drive from the Test Centre. The officers will on a daily basis take the horses out onto the road on routine patrol and exercise the horses. Now if you were to come across this situation on a lesson, then problem solved. You will have been shown how to deal and overtake the horse and rider safely and correctly as stated in the Highway Code. But if this situation was to arise during your actual test then would you know how to deal with it?. In theory you should as you would have studied for it whilst revising for your Theory Test.

Anyway the DSA have put together a top 10 list on the common reasons why people would fail there driving test, Here is a link to the list http://www.dsa.gov.uk/General.asp?id=197

As you can see horses don’t feature in the top ten

There are proposals of Theory test and Driving Test fee increases for April 2008. The theory test fee would increase from the current £28.50 up to £30.00 (Hav’nt they only just put this up 3 days ago?) and the biggest increase will be to the Driving test which would rise from the current £48.50 up to £56.50.

Here is a link to the dsa website, it details all of the Show me Tell me questions that you may get asked at the begining of your Driving Test and importantly the correct answer to give to the examiner.

http://www.dsa.gov.uk/Documents/FOI/Other/IA00969P.pdf

The examiner will ask you two questions. listen to what the Examiner is asking, do they want you to tell them how to check something?, in which case you just need to explain how to check it, or are they asking you to show them how to check something? in this case you will need to physically check it. Remember if you are not sure want they would like you to do just ask them.

Here is a picture of the engine bay of a BMW 1 Series :

Remember they are not expecting you to be Mechanics, and so long as you are giving them a good explanation of how to check something you’ll do fine.

This is just one of the proposals MP’s have recently put forward in an aim to cut the number of road deaths for persons aged between 17 and 25.

The proposals put forward include :

People learning to drive from the age of 17, but not taking a test until they are 18.

Drivers completing a set minimum number of lessons with a structured syllabus.

Extending hazard perception training using computer simulators to encourage better habits in young drivers-to-be.

A zero alcohol limit for all drivers for a year after passing their test.

Banning drivers from carrying passengers aged between 10 and 20 from 11pm to 5am for a year after passing their test.

The full report can be found here http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmtran/355/35502.htm

As of Monday 3rd December, Whalley Range Driving Test Centre will be operating new appointment times for Driving Tests. The new times will be as follow’s :

08.10am,   09.07am,   10.14am,   11.11am,   12.33pm,   13.30pm,   14.27pm.

As far as i’m aware these changes are only local to Whalley Range, I shall update this if this is not the case.

Here is a question for you all, What do you think the national average pass rate is?. Well if you guessed correctly at 42.8 then give yourself a pat on the back.

Has that surprised you?, did you think it would be higher or lower than that?.

Here are the 2005-2006 pass rates for some of Manchester’s local Driving Test Centres.                                                                                                                                                              

Whalley Range - 41.75

Buxton - 44.10

Reddish - 47.15

Sale - 44.39

Cheetham Hill - 48.25

Hyde - 39.34

So as you can see they are all pretty similar, and all but Hyde and Whalley Range are higher than the national average. Why??, well could be any number of factors really, the Test Routes used, the standard of pupil presented for test, the standard of the Driving Instructor etc etc.

Just out of curiosity I also found the Test centres with the highest and lowest published Pass Rates, the lowest I could find is Woodgreen 26.7  (it’s in London somewhere) and the highest is Portree 63.6 (on the isle of Skye)

This is a bit of fun really, The game gives you several parking spaces to practice your reversing skills. The good thing I like about this game though is that you can actually see the front wheels of the car turn as you steer, letting you see what is happening to the wheels as you turn the steering wheel.  It is common for pupils to get confused when reversing with which way you turn the steering wheel. Basically, you turn the wheel the way you want to go, regardless of whether you are driving forwards or backwards, if you want to go left, then steer left, if you want to go right, then steer right.

Have a go and have fun, http://www.freewebarcade.com/game/parking-challenge/

If you are still to book your Theory Test?, Then you need to be quick. As of the 3rd September 2007 the Theory Test will be getting harder. The current pass mark is 30 correct answers out of 35, As of the 3rd September this will raise to 43 correct answers out of 50. There will also be a test fee increase from the current £21.50 rising to £28.50

Visit www.dsa.gov.uk for more info and to book your theory test online.

… soon