Half of motorists 'would fail their driving test if they took it today'

Most of us are guilty of picking up a few bad driving habits as we get older.
But what we perhaps don’t realise is quite how far some of our standards have slipped.
Research suggests that half of motorists would fail their driving test if they had to retake it today.
An experiment which challenged experienced drivers to sit one saw only 50 per cent pass.


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Half of those that failed did so because of a ‘dangerous driving’ offence, which results in instant disqualification from the test.
One narrowly avoided hitting a pedestrian who stepped into the street between parked cars.

The rest failed due to poor observation and a series of ‘minor’ faults.

A driver is allowed up to 15 such faults during the test, if they make 16 or more then they fail.
Examiner Damien Burke, of the Blue School of Motoring, said the most frequent faults were drivers failing to check mirrors and not looking over their shoulder to check blind spots.
Two-thirds even forgot to look before moving off.
‘All of the candidates demonstrated faults in their driving that could compromise their own safety and that of other road users’, Mr Burke said.

‘The general trend among first time drivers shows that boys are overconfident and frequently pulled up for speeding, whereas girls are more intelligent drivers on the whole, but do collect fault marks for hesitation.
‘Despite many years behind the wheel, our experienced drivers demonstrated the same gender-specific flaws.’
The majority of drivers in the experiment, which was carried out by Kia Motors, had held a licence for more than ten years, with some having more than 30 years’ experience.
Mr Burke said: ‘These bad habits should be ironed out if the driver is to be a truly safe and competent road user.’

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