Don't Cram - Pass Easily       

Driving is one of the riskiest things we do – especially if you’re a new driver. According to parliament’s transport select committee, over 38,000 people are killed or injured each year in collisions involving at least one driver with less than two-years experience on the roads.

One of the issues this committee recently looked at was how people learn to drive and whether this could be changed to help reduce road accidents. The committee suggested introducing a minimum learning period, which would mean taking at least 12 months to learn to drive. This sounds like a good idea as it means learner drivers get more experience on the roads before getting their full licence and they would have practised driving in more varied conditions, like icy weather or in the dark.

However, one of the impacts of this minimum learning period would be to effectively raise the age people are allowed to drive unaccompanied from 17 to 18. What would this mean for young people who rely on driving for getting to work or college? In Sweden, when the period of driving training was increased they also lowered the age at which you could get a provisional licence. This may be a way of introducing this change without disadvantaging 17 year olds.

The transport select committee also said they think the whole process of driver training needs to be seriously improved. In addition to the minimum learning period, they want the Department for Transport to look at how to make testing more effective and maybe introducing ongoing driver assessment. The debate on how we learn to drive is going to go on for some time and it’ll be interesting to see what the government actually decides to do and how this affects both learner and qualified drivers.

It seems there is no easy place on the internet to find the facts on the driving theory test so we have decided to make a simple blog entry that explains about the new driving theory test that starts in September.

Start Date : 1st September 2007

Number of Questions : 50

Pass Mark : 43 questions (86%)

Time allowed : 57 minutes

Format : Computer based with touch screen.

Changes from previous test :  Previous test was 35 questions and pass mark was 30 questions (86%), the time limit was 40 minutes.

New Topic: The new driving theory test has a new topic on the Environment with questions that get students to think about how their driving behaviour and subsequent emissions affect the environment  (Example Questions here).

Note: Also on the first of September we hope to launch our new service for the driving theory test on a mobile phone you can help us reach this target by registering as a beta tester.