RSA Driving Test - Their Own Rules Of The Road

louie

A very good friend of mine failed the driving test recently due to the following reasons:

1. Failure to STOP at an YIELD sign
2. Failure to know that the filter traffic light has a sensor fitted which will detect the cars stopped in the middle of the junction…

I found this ridiculous, therefore a complaint has been made to the RSA Office....

The full story can be found here:
http://www.funkymotors.ie/blog/2008/10/02/rsa-driving-test-their-own-rules-of-the-road/

Alanstrainor

Well here's the thing, i find it interesting that when ever stories like this come up it's always a friend, and never the OP. Also, rather than failing to "stop at yield sign" perhaps it was failure to give way to traffic at a yield sign?
And as for your second point, when making a right hand turn, you are required to move sufficiently forward into the junction when you have the right of way, ie a green light. Failure to move forward, at all, or sufficiently would result in a fault against you.
And, you would not "fail" for these things, merely receive faults against you, most likely grade 2 faults at that, although differing circumstances could warrant different faults.

Edit: Reading the link provided, the failure to move forward into the junction was without any doubt correct, and deserved a grade 2 fault. there should have been no hesitation to move forward sufficiently, which was shown by only initially moving slightly forward.

Mr.David

1. The instructor probably judged that there was oncoming traffic and it necessitated stopping at the yield sign.

2. She should indeed have moved out into the centre of the junction, people who dont do this are seriously annoying!!

louie

1. The test took place in Tallaght, mostly behind Power City and there was no traffic whatsoever on the road

2. As mentioned in the blog, the vehicle was moved passed the traffic light but not exactly in the centre of the road.

@ Allanstrainor - It was a friend of mine as myself have a full B,C, E driving license for the last 20 years...

@ Mr. David - yes it might be annoying but it's more annoying when you get the green light and can not go through because there are cars stuck in the middle of the road.
How many times did that happen to you? Only recently it happen to me and only managed to get trhough after 4 green lights.

Mr.David

louie wrote: »

12. As mentioned in the blog, the vehicle was moved passed the traffic light but not exactly in the centre of the road.


@ Mr. David - yes it might be annoying but it's more annoying when you get the green light and can not go through because there are cars stuck in the middle of the road.
How many times did that happen to you? Only recently it happen to me and only managed to get trhough after 4 green lights.

Its not really a grey area, its simple. You have to move out into the RH lane in the centre of the road. I think it is perfectly fair that this was deemed to be a X. If you understand how the magnetic coils work there really is no excuse. I dont understand your point about getting the green light and not being able to get through due to cars stuck in the middle of the road?

Do you mean you cannot go straight with cars blocking you turning right? If people use filter lanes correctly there should be no problem.

louie

To clarify few thing I'll give you the result of the test itself:

1 X (grade 2) for traffic lights

6 X's (grade 2) for Yield sign

As mentioned in the blog, failling the TEST it doesn't bother me, but the reasons she failed for (THE RSA WAY).

Alanstrainor

louie wrote: »

1. The test took place in Tallaght, mostly behind Power City and there was no traffic whatsoever on the road

2. As mentioned in the blog, the vehicle was moved passed the traffic light but not exactly in the centre of the road.

@ Allanstrainor - It was a friend of mine as myself have a full B,C, E driving license for the last 20 years...

We would need to knw the exact junction where the yield sign was, there could have been a need to stop if there was poor visibility around a corner etc. This happens quite frequently, where by, down to poor signage, stopping at a yeild sign is almost a necessity.
Again, the car should have been positioned in the middle of the junction, if there had been no filter, and the light went red while you were waiting to turn right, you are required to complete your manoeuvre, as not doing so would block the junction.
Also RE:

it might be annoying but it's more annoying when you get the green light and can not go through because there are cars stuck in the middle of the road.
How many times did that happen to you? Only recently it happen to me and only managed to get trhough after 4 green lights.

At a junction, turning right, as in the example above, the only car permitted into the junction is the one at the top of the cue, the second car must stay behind the thick white line/traffic lights at the junction.

EDIT: Sorry, we both posted at a similar time. Where exactly was the yield sign fault marked. As it must have been marked under various headings, since there are only 4 grade two "boxes" for each row.

Mr.David

louie wrote: »

1 X (grade 2) for traffic lights

6 X's (grade 2) for Yield sign

quote]


so doesnt that mean she faulted 6 times at yield signs? I may be wrong cannot remember exactly how it is marked....

Gone Drinking

Tell your friend to spend less time writing blogs and complaints for a failure she probably deserved and more time reapplying and practicing.

Cookie_Monster

louie wrote: »

To clarify few thing I'll give you the result of the test itself:

1 X (grade 2) for traffic lights

6 X's (grade 2) for Yield sign

As mentioned in the blog, failling the TEST it doesn't bother me, but the reasons she failed for (THE RSA WAY).

Clearly she has some issue dealing with Yield signs, otherwise she would not have gotten 6 marks for them.

Could it be that the instructor felt she was not slowing enough / not looking enough etc

Cookie_Monster

Mr.David wrote: »

so doesnt that mean she faulted 6 times at yield signs? I may be wrong cannot remember exactly how it is marked....

More than 4 grade 2 for the same thing is a fail is it not?

Alanstrainor

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

More than 4 grade 2 for the same thing is a fail is it not?

It is indeed, but, it's impossible to receive 6 in one row, as there are only 4 boxes, so i'm wondering what headings they were under.

Wossack

They're going to ignore any complaint not made by the person who actually took the test I'd say

louie

@Wossack - The complaint wasn't made by me, but by the person that who took the test.

@Cookie_Monster - There are no issues with the Yield sign.

When she asked the tester why so many marks in the (please note this) OBSERVATION panel she got the following answer:

Failure to come to a complete stop at the Yield sign....

than he added...

That's the RSA way...

so the RSA way is the completely stop the car, look around, go into the 1st gear and move slowly if safe to do so...

Alanstrainor

You see the thing is, there is no heading "Yield Signs" on the report sheet under observation. Unless the circumstances were exceptional, or there were 6 different yield signs encountered on the test, each fault is only marked once, even if it would be applicable under various headings. The examiner is not permitted to discuss the results with those being tested, so perhaps that's what he meant by "that's the RSA way", there is no way to know.
Now i'm not calling your friend a liar, but it happens all the time when people fail, they tend to exaggerate things to perhaps take the oneness off themselves. Please dont take that in the wrong way, but i hear it all the time. If you chose to take this through the district court, all that you can hope to achieve is a free retest, and the test marked as abandoned rather than failed.
EDIT, here's a link to the test marking sheet
marking sheet

louie

To be honest I am not actually doing this to get anything out of it at all, I am not planning in taking this to court either, but just principles.

I did take in consideration many factors before blogging about it, including exaggerations, etc., but as this friend is more than just a friend & myself having more than 20 years driving experience without any accidents of my fault (3 in total - and all going back 10 years the least), I considered the reasons to be totally out of place and unacceptable.

There are many good L drivers out there that keeps failing the test due to many reason and the above could be some of them.
How is this fair on the public?

Have a look at the failing rate & waiting time - very high indeed.
It's all a money train scheme that we pay for it.

As someone else said

Unfortunately a driving test is a subjective opinion, it does come down to the one persons opinion of another actions, very hard to get right

tyrellio69

louie wrote: »

To be honest I am not actually doing this to get anything out of it at all, I am not planning in taking this to court either, but just principles.

I did take in consideration many factors before blogging about it, including exaggerations, etc., but as this friend is more than just a friend & myself having more than 20 years driving experience without any accidents of my fault (3 in total - and all going back 10 years the least), I considered the reasons to be totally out of place and unacceptable.

There are many good L drivers out there that keeps failing the test due to many reason and the above could be some of them.
How is this fair on the public?

Have a look at the failing rate & waiting time - very high indeed.
It's all a money train scheme that we pay for it.

As someone else said

I totally agree.They're the biggest pack of bastards to ever take control of a public service.Its down-right disgraceful the way they fail people and you have to go back and pay the ****ers another 75 euros for a re-test and then pay these so-called driving instructors up to 45 euros an hour to show you how to ****ing drive.anybody arguing against this man (louie) should get a life.theres seriously no need to defend the ****ing RSA.they're a disgraceful bunch.failing innocent civilians who are never going to endanger the general public but may make very very techinical errors in their test.

Alanstrainor

Please don't drag up old threads.

If you want to create a thread you can do so in the Learning to Drive forum.