Theoretical Abuse

Ok so you may remember a while ago when I wrote about how I was reading through the big book of fun driving theory questions in a bid to not horribly fail. Yeah that one that I really enjoyed! Well I failed, twice.

So how you ask, did I fail when I’ve read through the large book of every question that I could possibly be asked? Simple, some bastard thought it would be a good plan to add in the “Hazard Perception” section to the end of the test, and as a result, this guy is very rich, and I’m just that bit poorer.

I can imagine what he was thinking was somewhere along the lines of…”Too many people are passing the theory test”…”I don’t like this one bit”…”Lets make a few more fail”…”I know, lets add a section onto the end that people can’t revise for, or properly check their marks for. Oh yeah, and if they fail that, they have to do it all again”.

So I’m not at all bitter.

But why did the wanker have to do that!

Now if you’ve never heard of the Hazard Perception before, let me give you the run down. After the “main” part of the theory test (where its all very nice, 35 multiple choice questions, pass mark is 30, all questions are available to view in a big book) comes the Hazard Perception test. This test has apparently been designed to test a new drivers abilities to spot and react to a “Developing” hazard. It comes in the form of 14 video clips that contain 1 or more of these fairly obvious hazards, that, when you see “developing” you must click on. Points are scored from 5 down to 0 depending on how quick you click at this hazard that’s developed (5 is good, 1 is bad). These points are scored within a set time period in the clip, click to early or too late and you will not score at all.

Ok so now you may have noticed that I used a few strange words there. One of them being “Obvious”. So you say, if these hazards are obvious, why the f**k have you failed the test, twice! The problem is that the DSA have taken what could have been a fairly reasonable add on to the test, and created a piece of computer software that’s been so botched that it often takes, good, aware drivers 4 attempts to pass it.

So why is it as crap as I say?

*Here’s a few reasons:*

- The scoring system was created in a coffee break by someone that only drives to Sainsburys and back - Its useless, you score nothing if you spot the hazard too early (which nearly everyone does), you score nothing if you click too many times, you score very little if you click only one or two times per hazard to try and avoid being penalized.
- The videos are badly made and poor quality - When you sit down and have a look at one of these videos you can see what a poor job the DSA have done with this test. Videos are small and terribly pixelated which can make spotting hazards fairly tricky.
- This bodged system will make you fail your entire test - Even if you get 35/35 in the first section (I did) it counts for nothing when you get screwed over, that’s another few hours and £21.50 down the drain.
- They are in control - For me the worst thing about this test is the fact that you can do nothing about failing it, and that’s that. Unlike the multiple choice part of the test, you can’t tell what you got right or wrong, its totally out of your hands, and this makes it impossible to tell what you are doing wrong, and totally opens up the possibility of being failed simply to keep a centre’s quota up.

So what can we do?

Of course I haven’t passed this test yet after two attempts so I’m not in the position for giving advice. A quick search on Google brought the following tips that some claim to work:

- “Click more! Click almost continually throughout the hazard (7 to 9 clicks) and you are almost guaranteed to get at least 3 points per hazard.”
- “After your first click, force yourself to click again about a second afterwards to ensure you haven’t missed the all important start of the time period. Using this method you should be able to hit at least 4 or 5 every time.”

My opinion

The test is rigged. From what I have seen and heard very few people pass the test first time (most pass the multiple choice easily) and the 2 or 3 retakes is almost guaranteed. There are many theories as to why this happens and they may or may not be true, and you can believe these or not. No doubt some people do pass first time and I would love to hear from them if they did, and likewise to people that are finding themselves failing again and again.

If you would like to add anything to this article please feel free to use the comments below, it would be great if people could learn from this (me too!) and be able to use the information to pass this test and get onto the real part. Tips, suggestions, comments, abusive spam etc are always welcomed by myself and Woolie.

Thanks for reading.

Ben