Category: John’s View

As the dust settles on the UK’s decision to leave the EU, many are asking what effect this will have on driver training and testing in the UK and on road safety matters in general.

The simple answer is probably nothing this week, next week or even next month, but fairly soon there will have to be discussions about how we move forwards on a whole variety of issues.

Exactly how we will set about disentangling UK law from EU Regulations; Directives; Decisions; Recommendations and Opinions will probably keep an army of lawyers and civil servants busy for years. Here are my thoughts on some of the challenges ahead.

Recently I was posed a question by a member who asked about a pupil who currently had six penalty points on their driving licence and was due to take a test.

He had been practising with a friend a couple of weeks prior to his test and they had fallen out (it happens when learning to drive!) argued and the friend tried getting out of the car while they were travelling at high speed on a dual carriageway.

Following the recent MSA conference at Wakefield Suzuki offered me the opportunity to test drive their Celerio model and my first impressions were very favourable. The Celerio is a cracking little car, the build quality is good, and the value for money excellent.

At the recent MSAGB National Conference and Training Day the question was raised – again – about the legality, validity and safety of the new exercise being tried out as part of the current driving test trial.

In December I wrote about the British government launching a Road safety statement: working together to build a safer road system the proposals cover a wide range of road safety measures including learners being allowed to take a motorway driving lesson with an approved driving instructor in a dual controlled car. You may have noticed that I was not particularly enthusiastic about this proposal and I have received some comments about this from people puzzled as to why I was not applauding this triumph from the rooftops. After all, it is something that I have been involved in championing for many years.

The proposals cover a wide range of road safety measures and are designed to ensure learner drivers are properly prepared before their test, including the chance to gain motorway experience with an approved driving instructor. The proposals include:

• learners allowed to take a motorway driving lesson with an approved driving instructor in a dual controlled car – this is designed to make drivers safer once they have passed their test
• a £2 million in-depth research programme will be launched to identify the best possible driver education, training and behaviour-change interventions for learner and novice drivers

The Department for Transport (DfT) has launched a new consultation document, entitled Motoring Services Strategy: a Strategic Direction 2016 to 2020.

The document concentrates on the possibilities of changes to the ways that the three motoring agencies, the DVLA, DVSA and VCA, work individually today and, perhaps, could work together in the future. The document was published before the 2015 Spending Review so does not include a formal impact assessment. DfT intends to publish a new motoring services strategy in Spring with an impact assessment.

The consultation asks a number of questions under five headings Digital; Efficiency; Agency Transformation and Deregulation. There are half a dozen questions directly related to road safety and others that are relevant to driver trainers.

It seems a little strange for DfT to release a consultation about driver testing when examiners are taking strike action and working to rule, while L-test waiting times at some test centres are stretching out towards next Easter.

The MSA is lobbying the DVSA, the DfT, the Government minister responsible for driving tests and the shadow minister for transport over this issue: we have also made contact with MPs from all parties.

The MSA has made clear that the situation regarding test waiting times is totally unacceptable, as are the differential waiting times around the country, and that this is having a huge effect on the ability of driver trainers to prepare pupils for the test.