The test!

[morsing]

Hi, I know I've been quiet for quite a while (have still read discussions occassionally) but I just wanted to say that my drive check last week went well and I have been put forward for the IAM test. Should hopefully be within the next month

[gannet]

well done and good luck for your test

[jcochrane]

Good news, well done and good luck.

[ROG]

On the day of your test every horse rider, first time pedal cyclist, first time learner driver, tractor, boy racer and drunken pedestrians from the night before will be on the roads you are using - the examiner will arrange this for you

[morsing]

On the day of your test every horse rider, first time pedal cyclist, first time learner driver, tractor, boy racer and drunken pedestrians from the night before will be on the roads you are using - the examiner will arrange this for you

Great

[DugS]

good luck . drive how you have been doing with you observer and you will be fine.

always worth giving the car a clean , make sure you are early and remember all your documents .

oh yeah and remember all your documents .

[kfae8959]

Excellent news - our drive together seems a very long time ago now! Will you do the test in the American car, or the Swedish one?

David

[morsing]

Excellent news - our drive together seems a very long time ago now! Will you do the test in the American car, or the Swedish one?

David

Yes, it does, doesn't it

The Swedish car it is! Don't want to make it anymore difficult than it has to be

[morsing]

I passed! Got 19 2s, 4 1s and 4 3s

Gear changing and use of gearbox I got 3 in both. It's an automatic but he said dropping into 2nd when in a 30 would have got me better than 3 for those two.

I ended up behind two cars doing 40 in a 60 during the drive. They were too close to each other to overtake, but then the second car passed the first one. A bit later a stretch of road opened up but the car was approaching 50mph then and up ahead on the right side of the road I could see a sign indicating a road entering from the left so I decided not to overtake. He said later that I should have gone for it and it would have got me a number of more 1s on the sheet.

[fungus]

Well done morsing.

The situation where the overtake was on but you noticed a sign indicating a road to the left, is a difficult one to call. If you had space to complete the overtake within half the distance to the junction, then yes, the overtake was on as there's little chance of a vehicle emerging and reaching your return point, before you get there. But if you can't return to your side of the road by half the distance to the junction then the overtake is a risky one.

[martine]

Well done morsing! Onwards and upwards...what's next?

There's a forum thread here where you post about your recent success as well...Darren (forum owner) was quite keen to celebrate member's success in one place.

[zadocbrown]

Well done morsing.

The situation where the overtake was on but you noticed a sign indicating a road to the left, is a difficult one to call. If you had space to complete the overtake within half the distance to the junction, then yes, the overtake was on as there's little chance of a vehicle emerging and reaching your return point, before you get there. But if you can't return to your side of the road by half the distance to the junction then the overtake is a risky one.

Roads on the right are the killer ones. Roads on the left I wouldn't necessarily be quite so pessimistic about - though it becomes more of an issue with large vehicles.

[fungus]

Well done morsing.

The situation where the overtake was on but you noticed a sign indicating a road to the left, is a difficult one to call. If you had space to complete the overtake within half the distance to the junction, then yes, the overtake was on as there's little chance of a vehicle emerging and reaching your return point, before you get there. But if you can't return to your side of the road by half the distance to the junction then the overtake is a risky one.

Roads on the right are the killer ones. Roads on the left I wouldn't necessarily be quite so pessimistic about - though it becomes more of an issue with large vehicles.

I agree. I had a driver get a bit impatient with me on th A49 near Craven Arms when I wouldn't overtake with clear road ahead but a blind junction to the right.

[morsing]

I think you're right. The stretch of road would probably have been fine to overtake on, and as soon as I'd moved out I would have been able to see the left junction quite clearly. I think it's just my in-experience doing IAM over-taking that stopped me from going ahead. I never had to do an over-take during my sessions with my IAM observer.

Unfortunately I've been un-able to find the stretch of road on Google maps.

What's next? IAM F1rst, probably. Nearest RoSPA is un-fortunately not very close to me, not sure if it matters really but... I'll see.

[Zebedee]

Very well done! It's a great achievement.

I agree with Nigel about your overtake being difficult to call. I'm very cautious about overtaking near junctions, i.e. I must be 100% certain that an overtake can't put me into conflict with other traffic (seen or as yet unseen). You did the safe thing by not overtaking, which is a good decision in my book.

I never had to do an over-take during my sessions with my IAM Observer

So how are you supposed to know about overtaking (e.g. 3-stage overtaking, forward planning, etc)? I put this down to your Observer. Even if no overtaking opportunities presented themselves during your observed drives, I would have hoped a decent Observer would have covered how to plan overtakes ... Or am I overly optimistic?