Today's episode is taken from our new podcast, Driving Test Tips, which is based around the top 10 reasons that people fail their driving test. However, the content of the episodes, isn't just for learner drivers as we hope that it will help drivers who want to build their confidence, fill any gaps in their knowledge, or maybe have a light bulb moment while they're listening. So the topic for this episode. Is not making effective observations at junctions. I suppose if, if we start off with, DVSA have released figures about the pass rates, and then everyone's hooked on the pass rates. But, it's actually 47.1%. So, rounding that up in my brain, is one in two people fail their driving test and hopefully through these series of little podcasts that we're gonna do, we can just, highlight some of the areas where people are failing the most. And then give little tips of how, when you're driving, what you should be doing, and what's expected of you, and making you a safer driver, which in turn makes you more confident driver. So let's look at, not making effective observations at junction. So the first thing is, failing to judge the speed of an approaching vehicle. Now, this means where you are emerging from a, a side road onto a main road. Or emerging onto another road. And what you've done is you've looked. But your observations haven't been good enough, in respect of the speed of the other vehicles on that road. And what happens is as you emerge onto the new road, you've slowed the other car down and he's had to put the brakes on, or he's had to make of evasive action to go round you. So that's one of the things of effective observations at junctions another one could be where your are entering a roundabout and there's a vehicle approaching from the right. And you need to give way. And basically you haven't seen him and there's various different reasons why that might be. It might be in one of your blind spots. And we know the pillar of a car, is quite big so, make sure when you are approaching a roundabout yes, you're looking. But make sure you are effectively look and you might need to move in your chair to see round that blind spot keep looking, look once, look twice, three times four times, however many times you need to look to the right. Also look back though, to make sure you know where you're going. So you're keeping your road position. But yeah, just keep looking when you are approaching a roundabout. I know we've talked about this when we've been running training courses with other driving instructors, there's something here about, sometimes people are looking, but they're not seeing? Yes. Sometimes what happens is they. They go through a process. So what happens is you know, you have to look to the right? Yes. I looked to the right, but then I'm going into the other processes of what I do. But observations are ongoing. And I think the key word for this topic here is effective. And effective could be 2, 3, 4, however many times you need to look to judge what's happening on that roundabout, whether or not cars are coming on to the roundabout, the speed of the cars, the position of the cars, whether or not they're signaling. The way the wheels are facing on the cars can all be clues. And this is what you are doing when you're having effective observations, you are looking for clues as to what's happening. Yeah. And to help you make your decision. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not just going through the motions of, I need to look this number of times. I need to do things in this order. It's actually making sure, like you said, yeah. It comes back to that word effective that when you are looking. You are actually looking for information to help you make your decision. Which leads lovely onto another reason people fail on this is making no effective observations at all. So basically you're emerging from a junction, turning left, for example. And basically what happens is you just don't look . Yes. For whatever reason that is, you just don't look and the driving examiners had to stop you because you basically, you haven't looked. You don't know whether it's safe or not. You might be thinking the other car in front of you's gone so it's safe for me, but that's not good enough. Yeah and that's what it all comes down to the whole thing is, safety. How do you know it's safe? Yeah, you have to look to know whether it's safe. Yeah. And another situation is joining a dual carriageway from a slip road. And again, what people might be doing, they might well look in their mirrors. But what they haven't done is they haven't looked in their blind spots. Because of where the slip road and the dual carriage are. There's a massive area that people don't look in and, that could hold again, many different vehicles. so yeah, make sure that it is safe to join that dual carriageway. And make sure that you have checked your blind spots and you are signaling, you know, no, that's a different topic, but yeah. Make sure you are doing everything to make sure it's safe to join. Another one is using road markings. Part of it is going straight ahead at crossroads people, for whatever reason, think of the road ahead is a straight road. But what they fail to do is to recognize road markings, there might be signs, there might be signs that have now had an accident and gone, I know there's one near us that happened recently. So the signs are gone, but road markings are still there. But people don't look at them. They're looking far ahead and all they notice is the road directly in front of them. And they just think they can just carry on when in actual fact they've got to give away. Yeah. Okay. So again, looking for clues, looking for clues. But also making sure you don't look too late as well, so, effective starts from that first, minute, you know, when that first second, when you, you know, you're gonna be turning ,start the observations from there, you'd be doing everything in the car, like slowing it down, changing gears, whatever it means you need to do. But making sure that you, don't leave those observations too late. And, I know some of the questions that I get asked is. Why do I need to look in a left mirror when I'm turning left? There's nothing, there's there's no one there. It might be where you're in the town center, turning left. The type of vehicles or road users that would be in that position where you can see in your left mirrors. People running people on bicycles. There could be, anything they, you know, now we got scooters to contend with. So it's important to use. Those left door mirror, as well as your interior mirror before you make that left turn. Just to make sure there is nothing there. But that one chance when you don't check it. There is gonna be potentially someone there and you are turning left into their path, and you don't wanna be involved in those situations. One of the things that strike in me is that listening to this, it sounds like a lot. It sounds like there's a lot to do. In a short space of time, but also at the same time, I'm recognizing that, when you first start your driving lessons as a learner, you're not being asked to do all of this all at once in the early lessons, this is why you're starting areas that are quieter so that you can get used to making observations in a more controlled environment in a way where there's less pressure and you're gradually building up to this during your lessons. So not forgetting what we are really talking about this is the reason why people fail their driving test. Well, at the point, that you are taking a driving test, you should have plenty of experience. So the, the actual driving of a car ,changing gear and doing different things should be becoming more natural and more comfortable at this point. Which allows you more time and space to do more observations. But it also is ongoing. You know, I know we keep saying this is for the test, but it's post test as well. And I said, we're gonna give you some interesting driving facts. And one of them, they say on the website is that 37% of all reported accidents are a result of, not looking properly. So when you look at that 37, that's a third of all accidents reported accidents. People just haven't looked properly. What does that tell us? Have we been trained properly or haven't we been trained properly and it's like we said, it's not about passing a test. It's about keeping you safe. And making sure that you know, that you are safe and this is what, we. Driving instructors keep probably banging on about this, but. Observations, keep looking, not just in front, but also behind those rear observations as well. We've mentioned before being a detective and you are ongoing. Detective work. It is ongoing all the time. To just make sure that you just keep looking, noticing what you're notice. Making sure that you know, what the others around you are doing. What speeds they're going, what positions they're in. And that will make you, able to make better decisions. As to whether it's safe to emerge. Or whether it's safe to turn. Yeah. And these things get easier. With experience don't they? So. And judging the speed of another car. That takes experience. That's something you might not be able to Initially when you first start driving, but as you gain more experience, you're gonna become better at judging the speed of another car. Exactly. And again, one thing you can do is you don't have to drive for this. You can just practice this out when you're out walking or whatever. But notice a car look away, look back again and see how far he's traveled in that time that you didn't look. That will give you a big idea of how fast is going. He's going and again, do it again to do it three times. So you look, once you've looked twice. Look three times and see again, how it's changing. What sort of speed is he going? Could I have pulled out of that junction in that time? So again, it's, you know, bringing in other aspects of what you've done. We've everyone's crossed the road, hopefully safely. But this is what you are bringing into your driving. You look, once you look twice. Notice what you notice the speeds. But it gives you those clues to make effective decisions. Yeah. And that's a really good point. If, if anybody has ever had to cross a road, then they have had to judge the speed of a vehicle. And I'm guessing that people. Pay more attention to that when they're a pedestrian and feel more vulnerable. But this is definitely something you can practice as a passenger in a car as well. Yeah. So while you are a passenger, the look at the environment, look at the situation. Use those as opportunities. To practice your decision making, even though you are not the one in control of the car. So in summary, what we are looking at is. And again, this is what the DVSA have said. You must make effective observations before moving into a new road. And you must make sure it's safe before proceeding to make sure you've got enough time. Without slowing people down or. That they have to make an emergency stop or go round you. We hope you found that useful. If you did, don't forget to share it with others or leave us a review. You can find the other reasons that people fail their driving test in our spinoff podcast series Driving Test Tips, if you'd like to listen to them all in one place. Search driving test tips, wherever you listen to your podcasts or find the links in our show notes or on our website, www .confidentdrivers.co.uk/freetools And so until next time, Have a great day, whatever you are doing.