SHE SAYS...

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32031, 4 July 1969, Page 9

SHE SAYS...

Now that I have taken the Association for Improved Driving test—successfully—l can confirm that the advantages of the test are quite considerable, and that the standard of driving required is high, but by no means so high as to worry a competent driver.

The main advantage of the test is that criticism given of any bad habits which may have developed in one’s driving technique, or even have been inherited from earlier tuition.

This criticism is given by the examiner at the end of the one hour and a half test, and there is no doubt that the test is an excellent means of assessing one’s driving ability in all the important aspects. In a family, if both the husband and wife take the test the results could be very interesting—they might even settle some of the old arguments about who is the better driver!

I would like to see some additions made to the test, however. I think reverse parking could well be included —this is one thing at which many women motorists, and some men, too, seem rather inept There could also be more driving

in the 55 miles an hour speed limit area. . , The system of examining seems a good one, and if a driver had any faults they would certainly show up somewhere in the test route. The route, incidentally, does not appear to be the same for every test, although the same general areas are traversed.

At the end of the test the examiner discusses your performance and any faults, but takes your own viewpoints into account, and also the slightly different driving techniques needed in different types of car. I think the test is so valuable that it should be compulsory. If all new drivers had to pass this test at the end of their probationary period and before they could take the L-plates off their car, the standard of driving on New Zealand roads would improve dramatically in a few years. Other drivers should be encouraged to take the test, and even more incentives would help here. This would seem to be a field in which insurance companies, which have every reason to wish for a lower accident rate, could give great assistance. Perhaps a 10 per cent discount on premiums for those who pass the test?