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Thursday 12 November 2015

Tear down dotted line.....to reveal D-cups

OK so as you know I have been working my way towards doing my bike test.  Today another hurdle cleared. I passed the theory test.
I passed by a reasonable margin, 49/50 on the multi-guess and 53/75 ( pass mark 44) on the Hazard Perception part.  So yes, I passed. But I am deeply pissed off.
I am, as they say, on the Spectrum.  An Aspie. This affects the way I deal with language.  In my case it means hyperprecise definitions most of the time.  But I am also aphantasic (do not see pictures in my head).  Couple those together....
5 of the 50 questions are a case study, a description of a series of events.  Now say to me that someone pulls away, turns right at a roundabout, drives over a donkey etc. and I cannot picture it.  I could do it, but not see it.  My normal recourse from 46 years of dealing with this is to draw it.  I asked if the test people could provide me with a blank piece of paper and a pencil. No. Because something.
I explained the issue, and they said (nicely I have to say) that I could have it described to me, but that was it. Description doesn't help.  So no adjustment at all.
But OK I passed.
Next the use of language. A clearway sign was one of the questions.  what does it mean you cannot do.  Two options were Stop or Wait.  Now those to an Aspie are linked subsets.  That was the one I got wrong. But putting those two answers was not taking into account language issues at all.

Now the Hazard Perception. I had 15 marks disallowed for unacceptable clicking.  This was simply incorrect. I clicked when I saw a hazard. I pointed out to the test operative, before the mark came in, that those decisions needed to be appealed as they were wrong, I had not broken the rules.  A person looking at the data would see that.  There is no appeal.  This is simply unacceptable and a very unsafe practice. I suggest that the DVSA uses it as a money raiser. So given I had 15 marks disallowed by SkyNet 53/60 is not too bad.  The issue, as I know from the practice software, is experience plus Aspie focus/awareness means I spot the hazards too early. Before the machine thinks it is possible. So I click multiple times as it develops.  A better system would be to hold down the button until the hazard stops, surely?

And while we are at it, whoever is driving in those clips is a loony.  Accelerates like Stirling Moss, drives down the centre of the road....I mean OK they live in a town where every pedestrian hurls themselves suicidally under your wheels after having thrown their children and dog there first, but still.

And the inhabitants are stereotypes.  Those who know me know I tend to go for stereotypes. Give me a big butch guy or a woman with norks the size of barrage balloons and I am happy.  Well unless the programmers tailored that specifically for me as a distractor I think the DVSA should go through and add in a few more realistic people.  It is particularly noticeable in the women.  It makes it easier to spot hazards because their breasts appear out from between parked cars long before they do.  But surely we aren't training people just to avoid Lara Croft?

So yay pass, Boo DVSA. do better.

1 comment:

  1. I've yet to encounter a computerised training/assessment thingy which isn't flawed (the NHS has loads and loads of them).

    My favourite was the basic child protection one, which we in CAMHS, despite being up to our elbows in CP issues, devising and delivering higher level CP training and the like, still had to do, because teh gubbmint sez...Muggins here got 100% 'cos he realised that it was grossly over-simplified; Social-worker-I-shared-an-office-with nearly failed as she was shouting at the pooter that it shouldn't work that way and Was Rong!

    The trick, as with any test/exam/assessment, is to know what is wanted and tell the buggers that and only that. Right, wrong, doesn't matter: pass the test first.

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