An annexe to The Highway Code contains important guidance for new drivers about staying safe after they’ve passed the learner driving test.

The TIP (ADI performance) average is being taken over 10 tests in stead of 5 per year.

DVSA have 450 examiners in training, but expect an attrition rate of at least 130.  18 new ADI examiners are expected by October 2024.  41,355 ADIs on register as of 1st Sept.  5,155 are not accounted for (apparently not attending test centres).

At each test when the iPad has the vehicle reg it will alert the examiner if the car has current MoT.  If not, then no test unless you can prove otherwise.

Sat nav "520" is no longer available, so DVSA are using on replacement Tom Tom GO Classic with 5-inch screen.  Still a female voice.  To buy about £120.

I’ve looked carefully at THC.  At 109 it only says “Make sure you … act on … road markings”.  At 127-132 is mentioned “should not” and “MUST NOT” once each, but “Do not” also once.  For roundabouts specifically, at 186, for intermediate exits it says “select the most appropriate lane on approach [and] stay in that lane until you need to alter course to exit”; “should” is used only regarding cyclists and horses.  In short, I remain unclear what we're REQUIRED to do (and've been since 1981).

I believe that a road roundel with a red outline counts as mandatory, but I’ve only seen those on the private roads of Cranfield University.  (I know some local authorities use red on road-marked warnings, such as "Children in the Road").

Some non-circular signs can refer to speed limits, which is confusing.  And circular ones may appear with a grey or a green outline (at the start of 20 mph zones), presumably just advising behaviour.

TSRGD2016 seems to imply that the size of the traffic speed roundel is only for visibility, and not to mark start of a new zone (though that often coincides).  Certainly, “speed zone gates” are no longer mandatory following a recent Minister for Transport legislating to reduce urban clutter: only a roundel at EITHER side of the road has been necessary since 2016.  That said, as 20min zones expand, certainly in Birmingham there has become a confusion of zone boundaries due to older roundel pairs being left in situ (as well as repeater signs sometimes being over-spaced).

Also confusing, deflection arrows on lane 1 as you come up from the A38 Queensway underpass in Birmingham, do not mean you MUST merge with lane 2 of the new road on your left.  And some roundabouts strangely have a single broken line across the WHOLE mouth of each exit/approach road, rather than just each approach half (this also occurs at some 2-way minor road junctions).

Related to that, how do we recognise WHICH solid white longitudinal lines can be crossed if it's not an emergency?  The thickest are for Bus Lanes.  The thinnest are for parking spaces.  Is it therefore just the MEDIUM thickness ones (along centre of carriageway or its edges) which we shouldn't?

All in all, these inconsistencies make general rules harder for novice drivers.

Chair David introduced Lee as “quite intelligent” and “articulated” :)

Lee told us he didn’t know his slides; said “it could be clunky, as I’ve only done it twice”; didn’t “know how long it would take” to present, worried us with “could be here til midnight”.  (But do schools really not encourage teenagers to self-reflect, these days?)

Allegory of icebergs. (Good pace and language [apart from overuse of ‘impact’], dynamism, precision in responding; poor eye-contact and self-presentation).

Psychomotor, Affective, Cognitive “learning domains” each affect human behaviour. 94% of collisions are due to human errors. The iceberg bummock contains the gap between intention and behaviour.

David concludes “That was very good, actually”.

As waiting times for driving tests remain very long, stories in Time Out and on the BBC illustrate how businesses and apps are offering to find a driving test for you ... but with unwanted consequences.

Since 2011 at least I have never known it so difficult to find an available practical test slot.

The table on this page comes from a FoI request made by MSAgb to the DVSA. It shows how many weeks you can expect to wait in the West Midlands.

It's the same in neighbouring Oxfordshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire: all the centres I've used before. (My Business Booking Service can search 5 test centres at once, but only very rarely finds any slots: it's “fishing from the same pond” as everyone else, of course).

The DVSA are "stuck at a three-way junction", between  [1]  obligations to staff contracts (fixed-term, capped pay, max. working hours);  [2]  statutory restrictions to change (test fee, content, rebooking interval); and  [3]  automated 'bots' sweeping up any cancellations to sell on for profit (not illegal, but a drain on DVSA resources to keep tests available to all at a fair price).

Just as when there's rumour of a fuel strike, people panic-buy ... which creates a crisis faster. But here, it's even worse: examiners have been allocated to test centres BEFORE candidates have to finalise where they want to sit their tests. So the 'cat' is often in the wrong place to catch the 'mouse'! Perhaps that's why many people still do not turn up for their driving test.