Strange Module 2 Failure (not me)
Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2011 11:08 am
I was reading an article online and it reminded me of something that happened on my test day.
The guy testing before me failed his test for something which I consider strange. Well, almost everyone present believed it to be strange, instructors et al.
He left a roundabout onto a dual carriageway, slow moving car in left lane so he performed an overtaking maneuver (correctly). He moved to the right lane and accelerated to 50mph, which was the speed limit. The car driver in the left lane increased his speed at the same time, to 50mph. A line of cars were following close behind the lead car in the left lane. The biker is now sitting in the right hand lane, with traffic (and examiner) behind, doing 50mph.
He failed his test because he stayed out in the right lane.
But what could he do. If he completed the overtake, he'd fail for speeding and pulling in behind the car on the left was not an option due to the proximity of following traffic in both lanes, he'd have moved into their braking zone and failed for that and caused all following traffic to slow down, again, a fail (for traffic following in left lane).
So basically, he was as bad burned as scalded. I do not see that he had done anything wrong at all, particularly considering that the lane was usable for continuing straight on at the next roundabout.
Everyone was bemused when told the reason. Of course I kept my mouth shut at the time.
Oddly, on my test I found myself in exactly the same situation but in a 40mph zone. Luckily for me, there was space to reduce speed and move in behind the car in the left lane. I actually asked the examiner at the end of the test if I had acted correctly. He said that was what he would have done, so yes, I had.
My question to you guys is, what would you do in the situation described above?
Consider you are on test. Under normal circumstances obviously we'd speed up and pull back to the left, but on test you just cant. I cant find anything in the highway code to suggest that the rider acted inappropriately and I don't understand why he failed. I was genuinely gutted for him, particularly since he only had 1 minor otherwise.
The guy testing before me failed his test for something which I consider strange. Well, almost everyone present believed it to be strange, instructors et al.
He left a roundabout onto a dual carriageway, slow moving car in left lane so he performed an overtaking maneuver (correctly). He moved to the right lane and accelerated to 50mph, which was the speed limit. The car driver in the left lane increased his speed at the same time, to 50mph. A line of cars were following close behind the lead car in the left lane. The biker is now sitting in the right hand lane, with traffic (and examiner) behind, doing 50mph.
He failed his test because he stayed out in the right lane.
But what could he do. If he completed the overtake, he'd fail for speeding and pulling in behind the car on the left was not an option due to the proximity of following traffic in both lanes, he'd have moved into their braking zone and failed for that and caused all following traffic to slow down, again, a fail (for traffic following in left lane).
So basically, he was as bad burned as scalded. I do not see that he had done anything wrong at all, particularly considering that the lane was usable for continuing straight on at the next roundabout.
Everyone was bemused when told the reason. Of course I kept my mouth shut at the time.
Oddly, on my test I found myself in exactly the same situation but in a 40mph zone. Luckily for me, there was space to reduce speed and move in behind the car in the left lane. I actually asked the examiner at the end of the test if I had acted correctly. He said that was what he would have done, so yes, I had.
My question to you guys is, what would you do in the situation described above?
Consider you are on test. Under normal circumstances obviously we'd speed up and pull back to the left, but on test you just cant. I cant find anything in the highway code to suggest that the rider acted inappropriately and I don't understand why he failed. I was genuinely gutted for him, particularly since he only had 1 minor otherwise.