With more and more cars hitting our roads every year, there’s no doubt that making all learners take a thorough and comprehensive practical test is in everyone’s interests.
To ensure that the national driving test remains relevant and suitable for today’s young drivers, the Driving Standards Agency are planning to introduce a new, simplified test report that will better reflect the national standards.
Though the changes won’t transform the traditional test beyond recognition, they will affect the feedback that pupils receive. So if you’re a student planning on taking their test or an instructor preparing your pupils for the road, here’s what you need to know about the new form of the L test.
Is the test becoming easier?
Unfortunately for learner drivers (though perhaps fortunately for everyone else), the driving test is not becoming any easier.
In fact, as the changes mostly affect the way that feedback is given, whether you take your test now or after the changes have come into force, your result should be exactly the same.
What exactly is changing?
The aim of the coming changes is to simplify the test report to better reflect the national standard.
This is intended to help drivers who fail their tests to improve their all round proficiency rather than just correcting the offending mistakes, hopefully leading to more confident, capable and safer drivers in the long run.
In reality, it’s just the way that faults are recorded that will change. For example, all control markings will now be grouped together in one box.
This means that you’ll probably see more driving faults recorded in one box where they are currently divided over a few boxes, and a fe w other observations and faults will be shifted around too.
However, candidates will still receive a full debrief at the end of every test and results should remain the same.
How will this affect learner drivers?
The hope of the Driving Standards Agency is that these changes will make candidates into better drivers, helping them to improve their skills and become more capable on the road.
As the driving test itself won’t be changing, any candidates about to take their test should be confident that the goal posts haven’t been shifted.
By keeping the driving test report relevant and changing it to stay in line with contemporary standards, the country’s roads should continue to become safer for all of us.
