Week Twelve The Driving Test Turns Eighty Today
My knee is a chunk better and has the rubbery support the poor benighted thing needs, with neoprene and springs, while the two devices I have need of installation in my ride are still not in must do better. I want my Halo fore-and-aft cam and Magic Snadger Device on board! A set of neat multi-fitment component speakers and the headunit from JVC with a spot of Bluetooth, that I reviewed just recently, are going in my painty friend’s vancar this week (It’s a Berlingo, and I will say why I call them that, in a bit.) so I shall be bringing you some delighted results with a bit of luck. Poor family have had stock whizzer-cone door speakers and no teeth of any shade in there. No phone. And her lad, my Angling Padawan Luke (yes, that IS his name) likes that odd shouty dark metal stuff so many teens adore, which sounds pants in crap-audio. And pants in.. errrmm
However, now they will be able to have all NEW arguments. Like which offspring gets to pair their phone and inflict their musical taste upon the rest of family, wirelessly. So we got Classic FM (Da Mama), Thrash Metal (The Young Dude), Show Tunes (Diva Daughter) or whatever nine year old girl persons (littlest sister) listen to these days that their big bro and sister dislike on principle. I think Da Mama’s Classic FM may win.
Today is the 80th Birthday of the Driving Test. I was due to be on BBC Radio 5 Live at 06:50, having been called at 22:38 last night to be asked and idiotically saying ‘˜yes’. For I am really bad at being awake during those crucial few hours I normally am asleep, being an old git. I once flaked out and was simply not on air on R5L one evening gone midnight as I woke feeling a slight unease, before realising, next morning.
So this morning, the phone rings, with wife not quite up yet. (She has a proper job doing something far more worthy than I.) I am greeted and start to listen to the studio feed about seven minutes later, I am asleep, I gather and have had the phone quietly turned off by a wife who had no idea why I was asleep on the phone.
I had done a slice of home work, too
Folk needed a licence to drive from 1903 but there was no test. The first test was for only the disabled to check if they could drive and was started in 1930. In 1934, everyone was told to get tested voluntarily, to avoid a mad rush. By June 1935 it was everyone and hence the ’80th’ Birthday today.
July 1996 saw the ‘˜multiple choice’ Theory Test introduced, where you must score 43 correct out of 50 (86%) to pass. Lorry and bus drivers get 115 minutes to do theirs, instead of the 57 minutes car drivers get, as they have to answer 85 out of 100 questions correctly.
November 2002 saw the addition of a hazard perception test that I had NO idea about but you get shown fourteen one-minute video clips and have to say when you see the hazard.
And that 3-point turn and reverse around a corner are now part of a trio, with reverse park/park in a car park space as the other, to be chosen as a single manoeuvring test during the practical driving test. Current pass rates in the UK are 43% of the 51.6% who pass the Theory Test, then go on to pass the practical driving test.
But I never got to say so.
Mortified but there is a lesson deep in there to do with greed, attention-seeking and a bit more honesty when they call up Unless its in a studio, ‘˜unsocial hours’ means snoring like a pig..
‘And now here’s Adam Rayner’
Hooonnnkkkk, schnnurrrppppble PARRRPPP HONKKKKK!’
Oh and I once rented a Berlingo on hols in Spain, as they are HUGE inside for cases and bodies. I struggled to drive it. I found the steering all odd. Then I said, after a revelation, ‘IT’S A VAAAAAN!’ And after that I was fine.
Above, questions, allegedly from a far off land’s driving test. I have NO idea of its veracity, as I nicked it, of course.
Adam Rayner On Line Editor