State of the nation (2)

It's not often I read a newspaper. This week though I've had a couple of free copies of The Times and a particular story in Thursday's edition, about proposed changes to the driving test, caught my eye.

The on-line version of the story has been re-worded for some reason - maybe to give a work experience kid something to do - but the gist is the same. The sentence that caught my eye in the print version says 'The DfT consultation paper, entitled Learning to Drive, also proposes to stop publishing the questions for the theory test, meaning that candidates would no longer be able to memorise the answers without understanding the principles.'

For anyone who is unaware, the driving theory test for cars and bikes consists of a set of multiple choice questions, of which 43 from a selection of 50 must be answered correctly, followed by a hazard perception test in which only about 60% of potential hazards need to be spotted. The multiple choice questions can be downloaded, bought or practised on-line, while mock tests for the second part are also available in numerous places, such as here.

The proposal sounds reasonable then doesn't it? After all, the questions are derived from the Highway Code and multiple choice quizzes are never the hardest in the world, often relying more on common sense than knowledge. Almost everyone who pays their £28.50 (!) must pass easily with minutes to spare right?

Wrong. The actual pass rate for the driving theory test in the UK is less than two thirds.

<sigh>

Burning Trains

My train journey home last night took two and a half hours for what is normally a forty minute high-speed dash up the country.

It all started well, but the train came to a halt at Wembley Central and some of the lights went out. About ten minutes later the Train Manager announced that there was a burning freight train just ahead of us and, as the fire brigade were busy spraying water around, the power to overhead lines in the immediate area on both sets of north/south lines had been cut.

A while later the train's backup power supply depleted and the remaining lights went out. All passengers were forced to vacate and wait on the platform for a while, before squeezing into an already overcrowded London Overground train to Watford where another fast train was waiting.

Stopping the trains sounds very sensible - everyone knows that water and electricity don't mix very well (or do, that being the problem).

But ... hang on ... what happens when it rains?