It's a standard test conducted in non-standard places.
I had a girl ring me up last week who'd failed her test a few times in London. She was looking for places she could get to on the train to come out of London and take her test...she wanted to know whether taking her test in Slough would be easier for her to pass...
The answer should be "No"...but it isn't.
The Driving Standards Agency don't release these figures very often but from the last published figures they gave out (April 2003 to March 2004), the national pass rate is 42.8% (that's a figure based on the total number of tests taken at every test centre in the UK)...BUT, when you look at the figures for individual test centres, it's massively variable e.g;
Slough 46%
Salen (Isle of Mull) 55.6%
Glasgow (Shettleston) 32.2%
Inveraray 80.0 %
Aberfedy 64.8%
Leeds 27.9%
Norwood South 29.5%
Pwllheli 60.8%
Reading 39.4%
Wood Green Lords 25.6%
Hayes 40.1%
(source: http://www.2pass.co.uk/passrates.htm)
Does that mean that learner drivers in Inveraray and Aberfedy are miles better than those in Wood Green or Glasgow?
If you look at the stats, yes...but of course it's the fact that traffic conditions in Inveraray and Aberfedy are markedly different than the roads of Wood Green or Glasgow...
The system allows a person who passes their test in a rural area where the most taxing situation they meet is Farmer McGiles blocking the road with his sheep to then be fully licenced to head off to Glasgow or London or anywhere else, even though they've probably never driven round a one-way system or complex roundabout etc...
Barmy...
I told the young lady that...she's probably on her way to Inveraray as I type this...
