UK Driving Test - "Making Adequate Progress"

[karlt]

Or rather failing to, which can result in a fail. Essentially it's interpreted as "drive at the speed limit unless conditions dictate otherwise".

I wonder if this is over-emphasised? Might such an over-emphasis contribute to the "must get past the cyclist" mentality which puts us at risk from time to time? Has an expectation that a driver should attempt to essentially go as fast as is safe and legal led to an expectation that they should be able to all the time, which means that inherently slow vehicles like bikes are inherently a problem? I know that technically other traffic, i.e. us, is part of the "conditions", but you've only got to hear motorists ranting about codgers doing 45 in a 60 to know that they don't see it that way.

Is averring that travelling at 45 in a 60 is dangerous because it "encourages" other motorists to overtake dangerously mere sophistry excusing bad driving (i.e. dangerous overtaking) and legitimising potentially dangerous impatience?

Discuss.

[stewartpratt]

My tuppence-worth: http://www.stewartpratt.com/?p=495 ...which stemmed from The ABD tweeting the news some time ago in a way which I seem to recall came across as "look, this is like real science and stuff that shows that when fast drivers have accidents it's the slow drivers' fault". Broadly, cyclists are obviously placed massively more at risk by people who don't want to slow down at all; and I agree, I think there's some truth in the idea that the "make good progress" instruction to some extent helps cause that.

[snibgo]

I took my test somewhere around 1975. From memory, I was taught that I should make adequate progress, which meant up to the speed limit when it was safe to do so, never more than the limit, and often very much lower. I reckoned that much of the skill of driving was knowing what an appropriate speed was.

I don't know if training has changed since then. I'm not sure if it really matters, because motorists change their habits after the test (I know I did).

[thirdcrank]

I suspect that some of this comes down to a learner drivers interpretation of what they are being told. My daughter in law took a whle to get through her driving test and the instruictor recommended going out for longer practice drives with somebody else. Orf we jolly well went but when we got to a derestricted bit she put her foot down and we were going like the clappers with me screaming for her to slow down. We eventually stopped for a debrief which involved her telling me she wasn't going to repeat the mistake of not going fast enough. I pointed out to her that if we had continued at that speed some sort of mishap would have been inevitable when we reached this bend: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Long+Th ... 13,90,,0,0

Incidentally, since then, the highwaymen have almost come to their senses and replaced the derestiction with a 40mph; also, my DIL has been a qualified driver for several years now and I think she is a careful and considerate one.

In favour of the current test regime, I think a lot more emphasis is placed on taking care near vulnerable road users. Although there is a lot of inconsiderate driving, I am regularly extended almost exaggerated courtesy by some drivers, which didn't used to happen. ( That may be due to my appearance as a Grade II* listed road user. )

[drossall]

My daughter passed her test a couple of years ago. Our conversations when she was learning absolutely highlighted that she was being taught to put emphasis on "making progress" in a way that, in 1985-6, I was not. It was a whole different attitude to driving that I found quite strange.

[Phil_Lee]

I believe it is an incitement to dangerous (or at the very least, careless) driving.

The only safe way to deal with that requirement is to delete it.

[hubgearfreak]

+1

the instructors would be better to concentrate on teaching reading the road ahead. what's the point of overtaking closely 50 yards from a red light?

[jezer]

+1

the instructors would be better to concentrate on teaching reading the road ahead. what's the point of overtaking closely 50 yards from a red light?

And what's the point of a driver overtaking a cyclist just before having to stop for a narrow gap that the cyclist could easily have got through?

[thirdcrank]

On the matter of teaching new drivers, rather than testing them, it's been pointed out on here before that the typical modern learner driver has had no earlier opportunity to acquire any sort of road sense, other than as a pedestrian or car passenger. Once upon a time, independent cycling as a child was the norm: my own experience was nothing special for my generation but by the time I first sat in the driving seat of a car, I had been riding thousands of miles annually, throughout the British Isles and in France and most of my limited tuition time was spent on learning to control the car in low-speed manoeuvring, and daft skills like winding down the window, hand-signalling and controlling the car with the other hand. Even a couple of years later when I took my test to drive police vehicles, the test car was a Hillman Minx with the handbrake lever down the right of the driver's seat, just to increase the fun. On that occasion, the examiner seemed more concerned to ensure that I had no bad habits with my left foot which would prematurely wear out a clutch.

[Geriatrix]

+1

the instructors would be better to concentrate on teaching reading the road ahead. what's the point of overtaking closely 50 yards from a red light?

And what's the point of a driver overtaking a cyclist just before having to stop for a narrow gap that the cyclist could easily have got through?

I don't think that the relationship between making good progress and journey duration is clearly understood by most motorists. Both the above are examples of where a motorist would justify his actions as trying to make good progress, but where the attempt has no measurable impact on his journey duration. Futile behaviour. In urban areas I would estimate that at least 80% of impatient overtakes fall into this category. If an attempt to make good progress doesn't shorten journey duration then it doesn't meet the objective of making good progress. What's the point of it all?

[thirdcrank]

.... If an attempt to make good progress doesn't shorten journey duration then it doesn't meet the objective of making good progress. What's the point of it all?

What I was trying to get across before, probably without making it clear, is that historically, the driving test has concentrated on technical skills - three point turns, reversing - rather than mental attitude. The way to do well in a slow speed manoeuvre is to take it slowly and I'm pretty sure that the requirement to make progress began as a way of dealing with test candidates who were technically perfect at walking speed.

I've made the point on here many times that a highly-skilled driver in the technical sense, may be psychologically quite unfit to be in charge of a motor vehicle.

[byegad]

I trained as a driving instructor in the late 70s. 'Making Good Progress was part of the test criteria then. We used to stop the L driver on a hill, next to some houses to do a hill start. Then once we were under way point out that 30mph was not the limit on that road, they invariably got to 30mph and stayed there. It was actually a 60mph limit and part of a test route. Failing to exceed 50mph, if clear, was regarded as Failure to make Progress.

[karlt]

I'd like to see it replaced by a "showing curtesy and consideration to other road users" requirement; this can include not needlessly holding up a dozen other vehicles whilst pootling along a dead straight A road in perfect visibility at 45mph whilst not implying that the only "correct" speed is the fastest that is both legal and safe at any given point, and that the main point of driving is to reach a destination as quickly as possible.

"Showing curtesy and consideration to other road users" would by definition also include not driving up the exhaust pipe of anyone who is doing the above, and perhaps more pertinently, not displaying a "must get past the cyclist, must get past the cyclist" mentality.

[thirdcrank]

This has had me remembering my own driving test, taken in an original Mini, which had a join in the rear window surround which if lined up with the kerb acted as an excellent sighting device for the reverse. I'd driven around the various test routes, many on the cobbled streets of back-to-backs which were still common in Leeds loads of times and I thought I knew every inch. The test centre in those days was on Woodhouse Lane, just below the university. The first bit of my test was on a road which passes through the campus and has long-since been closed to the public. Within seconds of getting the off from the examiner, the road was packed with students crossing in both directions. I'd never been faced with this in any of the lessons so I stooped, applied the handbrake and waited for what seemed like ages but was probably, at most, a couple of minutes. It was manifestly obvious that any attempt to edge through the throng would have been dangerous but I began to wonder if the human flow would ever stop. It did stop, of course, as suddenly as it had started and I passed. In those days, driving examiners were civil servants and there was IIRC a "no-conversation" rule which meant that at the end of the test there was no debrief; candidates got their pass or fail form and that was it. Anyway, he must have been satisfied with my obvious reason for briefly making no progress at all.

[Alex L]

I remember last year on my test. Halfway through we came to a large roadworks project which I was actively encouraged by the examiner to get through. The last 5 minutes of the test were spent following a cyclist at snails pace. Good thing I didn't overtake eh