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.