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It definitely is as part of the UK driving test, though they normally tell you it's coming up and intentionally take you to a quiet back road and make sure it's

by kimixa 3y ago

It definitely is as part of the UK driving test, though they normally tell you it's coming up and intentionally take you to a quiet back road and make sure it's completely empty first. In my test the instructor told me to keep driving until they wacked their clipboard on the dash, then I had to STOP as quickly as possible, and you'd fail if you didn't apply heavy brakes quick enough. And as this is common in the test it was gone over a few times by my instructor to prepare. Though they also checked the car I was using had ABS first, they might have had a slightly different process otherwise? Though in the UK it's common to have a professional driving instructor with their own car you'd use for learning and borrow for the test, so there was likely an expected minimum age and spec of car people were doing their tests in.

lmm 3y ago
It used to be a mandatory part of the UK driving test. Now it's one test out of three, so you can skip preparing it and just retake your test if you get unlucky.
- kimixa 3y ago
  ~10 years ago they said they "may" do one, but every one of my friends was required to. I guess it might have changed since then? Or location dependent - I know different areas have different roads, in a reasonably-sized UK city (top 20 by population) the local instructors generally knew the 4-5 routes the local DVLA normally tested around, and intentionally practiced in those areas with the specifics they entailed. And speaking to people who tool their test in different cities the things that tended to be difficult and likely to catch them out were often different. And having done the California driving test a few years back as well, comparatively the US one was pretty trivial in comparison. And I've heard the CA test is one of the harder ones in the states.
  - lmm 3y ago
    > ~10 years ago they said they "may" do one, but every one of my friends was required to. I guess it might have changed since then? Or location dependent - I know different areas have different roads, in a reasonably-sized UK city (top 20 by population) the local instructors generally knew the 4-5 routes the local DVLA normally tested around, and intentionally practiced in those areas with the specifics they entailed. Test instructors are told they should carry out the emergency stop on one third of tests at random, and that was the guidance at least as far back as 13 years ago ( https://www.adicpd.co.uk/dsa-dt1-standard-operating-procedure.pdf https://www.adicpd.co.uk/dsa-dt1-standard-operating-procedur... has a copy from 10 years ago, see page 40). A FOIA response I saw showed numbers that align with that, so unless some instructors are doing the emergency stop and then falsely reporting they didn't...

by kimixa 3y ago

lmm 3y ago

It used to be a mandatory part of the UK driving test. Now it's one test out of three, so you can skip preparing it and just retake your test if you get unlucky.

kimixa 3y ago
~10 years ago they said they "may" do one, but every one of my friends was required to. I guess it might have changed since then? Or location dependent - I know different areas have different roads, in a reasonably-sized UK city (top 20 by population) the local instructors generally knew the 4-5 routes the local DVLA normally tested around, and intentionally practiced in those areas with the specifics they entailed. And speaking to people who tool their test in different cities the things that tended to be difficult and likely to catch them out were often different. And having done the California driving test a few years back as well, comparatively the US one was pretty trivial in comparison. And I've heard the CA test is one of the harder ones in the states.
- lmm 3y ago
  > ~10 years ago they said they "may" do one, but every one of my friends was required to. I guess it might have changed since then? Or location dependent - I know different areas have different roads, in a reasonably-sized UK city (top 20 by population) the local instructors generally knew the 4-5 routes the local DVLA normally tested around, and intentionally practiced in those areas with the specifics they entailed. Test instructors are told they should carry out the emergency stop on one third of tests at random, and that was the guidance at least as far back as 13 years ago ( https://www.adicpd.co.uk/dsa-dt1-standard-operating-procedure.pdf https://www.adicpd.co.uk/dsa-dt1-standard-operating-procedur... has a copy from 10 years ago, see page 40). A FOIA response I saw showed numbers that align with that, so unless some instructors are doing the emergency stop and then falsely reporting they didn't...