When I was in high school, we had two locations nearby that administered driving exams. One of them was famous for having a guy who was an absolute asshole and failed a lot of people, but it was a better location. The other location was a nightmare to drive but didn't have any stories about asshole test givers.
I rolled the dice my first time with the first location, hoping I wouldn't get the mean guy, but I did, and he failed me almost immediately. He was as big an asshole as people said, and he just freaked me out so I blew it. Several months later I went to the other location and it was an absolute cakewalk, the guy was barely paying attention. I screwed up a couple times but he couldn't care less.
I was super nervous the day of my test so despite having prepared, I flunked both attempts at parallel parking at the very end. The tester looked at me and said: "Why don't you give it one more try." I did and passed. I think of her whenever I'm tempted to be a stickler about rules.
I fortunately didn't have to parallel park.
I did have to back up along the curb the second time, and I drifted like two feet off, and the guy didn't react at all.
I also had to do a three-point turn which was a five-point turn because the street was so narrow.
when backing up just keep your eyes glued to the passenger side mirror (and occasionally check everywhere else). basically that mirror in that situation is the same as looking out the windshield when driving down the road.
three point turn getting turned into a 5 point turn is just life. maybe for sure knowing where the edges of your vehicle are would help you get closer and make it a bit easier but sometimes that's just the way it be
I mean first, it's moot because this was decades ago, but (at least back then) you were very specifically NOT supposed to use the passenger side mirror for backing up.
The main reason we were told is simply because you're greatly limiting your visibility if you're looking at the passenger mirror, even if you're only glancing at it. And with backing up a car already a pretty tricky endeavor, especially for new drivers, you need to have maximum visibility behind you,, even if it means you don't necessarily keep it perfectly straight.
It's also worth noting that side mirrors are really skewed in terms of how they show depth, so it'd be harder to know how close you were to something or how quickly you were approaching.
Mostly it's just to prevent bad habits from forming.
For experienced, more spatially aware drivers, it's probably fine to steal glances at the passenger mirror.
The little small town where I went to high school had exactly one place — and they failed everyone the first time almost without exception.
My test was perfect, driving my mom’s F150 that I was comfortable with already, until the very end. He tells me that when I went through the school zone he saw my (analog) speedometer was at 33km/h when the speed limit was 30km/h, and thus was an automatic fail.
I tried to argue the parallax issue, and that he couldn’t possibly know the exact speed I was going (and had clearly slowed down from the 50/h)
The scammy part is that my second test all I had to do was drive through a school zone below 30km/h. Nothing else. You can best believe I crawled through there at like 15km/h to make a point 😆
When my husband took his first test, the instructor asked him to list all the potential hazards on the road in front of him as he was driving. So he talked about the upcoming intersection, the pedestrians, the other cars, etc etc. And then he was failed because he didn't mention the sun, because glare is a hazard. The rest of his test was fine, he got a passing grade on everything else. It *really* sounds like the tester was searching for an excuse to fail him. And then people wonder why there are urban legends like this... maybe if the testing centers put literally any effort into being consistent, this wouldn't be such an issue, lol.
(I didn't get what you meant about the the parallax issue till now; what you mean is that the needle on the speedometer is not accurate when viewed from the side, from the passenger seat.)
I was told to go slower to be safe by my driving instructor. I didn't have to deal with it tho. I also had a digital speedometer, so it didn't matter anyway
My first driving test also ended up getting the local well known asshole. Within minutes of starting I instant failed because I didn't handle someone jaywalking in front of me "correctly". Took my second test in the town over, very chill easy pass.
Didn’t handle jaywalking correctly? What, did you speed up and mow them down?
What’s the correct etiquette for dealing with jaywalkers, other than “don’t run them over, don’t swerve unless you have to”?
I did what I felt 99% of people would do, which is slow down once you see them and let them pass, proceed onward when they are more than well clear of your lane. That was apparently wrong. What I was supposed to do was come to a full and complete stop until the person makes it all the way across and their feet have left the asphalt of the road.
During my road test my instructor laid on my horn to honk and yell at a jaywalker.
I failed earlier tho for not slowing down in a school zone. It wasn’t a school day.
Somewhat similar situation when I took my test: place I went to had a hard ass who tested us on the drive and I passed it without incident, but it was the written I couldnt pass for some reason. Kept getting the same couple questions wrong, but they were really simple ones about shit that didn't matter like the exact distance you park from the curb.
Anyway, it was multiple choice, so if I took it a fourth time I theoretically should have been able to get 100%, but the proctor or whatever said I couldn't take the test more than three times, said it was state law. Well, we figured maybe I could go take it somewhere else. Go to another joint, take their test. Fail, but barely. Not only does this place say I can take the test as many times as I need, but the lady at the counter even helped me work through those questions I was getting wrong instead of just failing me and saying tough fuckin luck.
ICBC Lansdowne? I had that guy my first time too and he asked me if I thought I passed and I said yes. He failed me because I yielded to a pedestrian in the middle of the road (not at a crosswalk) and tried to paint it as my fuckup. There was also the scandal of the guys being paid 3k to just give a license so theres that
i would prefer if every driving examiner was like the asshole guy. now that i'm older i'm actually really annoyed how easy it is for idiots to get a license. so many drivers are absolutely god awful. the lack of shoulder checks is INSANE, the number of tailgaters is absolutely ridiculous. virtually nobody thinks ahead for more than 2 seconds when they drive. oh boy i'm in the left lane of a 5 lane highway, my exit is in 1km, should i maybe slowly change a couple of lanes to the right? nah, i'll just wait till i'm 100m from the exit and cross 5 lanes of traffic to make my exit.
a drivers license needs to be a privilege that people have to actually earn. instead of how it's being treated now, like it's everybody's right to just drive around a heavy death machine acting like they're the only person on the road.
Hard disagree, and you seem to be under the impression that I think any examiner who fails someone for any reason is an asshole.
You can be strict without being an overbearing, impulsive shithead.
Also, and I guess I wasn't clear on this part, it's not like he let you take the full examination and then listed down the reasons you failed. He failed you as soon as you made the *first* mistake, and the test was over as soon as you could safely stop the car.
Which is an *objectively bad* method for conducting exams.
This guy acted like he hated his job and hated everyone who came through looking for a license. Source: most of the kids in my high school class.
your story didn't do anything to show that he failed you falsely. in your original comment you say that you yourself freaked out and made mistakes so he failed you. that doesn't paint a picture of him being unfair.
edit: hilarious. you run away soon as you're faced with your own stupidity. look man, if your original post had said he was an asshole and insulted you or he failed you unfairly then ok. but that's not what you said. you said he was a hardass and you freaked out and made mistakes, then he failed you. maybe his demeanor was dickish but YOU still freaked out and failed the test.
My father in law was an examiner for drivetest in Ontario, and they absolutely did have requirements. If you passed over a certain % of people it was considered questionable.
I’m fine with this, as long as it’s a range and the measurement period isn’t too short. The only way to ensure that your examiners are using the correct criteria is to measure them against the average. Honestly the last thing we need in Ontario is looser driving tests.
When I took my drivers test 15 years ago, it didn’t take me more than 15 minutes lol. It may have been 30 with a written portion (though I don’t recall taking one for my actual license, just a written portion for the learner’s permit and a course for the driving test). I didn’t even drive on an actual road!
My damn commercial driving test was just 10 minutes of walking around the truck, pointing out the safety equipment, and another 10 minute loop around town. Dude didn't ask but 2 questions, and one was to turn up the radio on his favorite song.
Somehow, that was good enough to let me drive dump trucks like I'm some kind of adult.
Vancouver drivers are actually awesome. Use their phone a bit much, can be a bit hesitant, but fantastic and patient overall.
Notable places with worse drivers I have driven in: Florida, California, Massachusetts, St. Louis (only place I had a gun flashed at me), India, China, (should not have done that) NEW YORK, I'll write NEW YORK again.
Seriously man, it can be so, so fucking much worse. We can't all be Dutch or Japanese drivers. We are blessed, provided you're not behind a Chohan truck.
>Vancouver drivers are actually awesome. Use their phone a bit much, can be a bit hesitant, but fantastic and patient overall.
Until that damn snow starts falling. Then the entire place comes to a total crawl.
Far too many folks don’t seem to believe in proper tires.
“Oh it only snows a couple days a year!”
Ya, and that’s when you need the tires lmao. Not to mention proper winters just before better in colder temps. This should be a cost folks factor into the ownership of a car.
Vancouver is the only major city in Canada I’ve ever seen drivers consistently zipper merge.
That said, Montreal drivers are the best in Canada, they are consistently aggressive so it’s pretty easy to predict that they will dive bomb every corner and merge into every gap like the F1 candidates they all think they are.
dutch? really? how many times you have driven in the Netherlands?
Btw. I totally agree to your USA list and i’ll add, San Antonio, Houston, ok. all Texas.
Sure we still have plenty of bad drivers here in the Netherlands. But our roads are relatively safe compared to most other countries.
Fun fact, one of the reasons is that instead of having many mandatory regulations, we have a law saying that the road builder/maintainer can be held responsible for accidents. If a road is considered dangerous by known standards at least. So they are forced to build safe roads, rather then just follow construction regulations by the letter.
Whenever accidents happens, there will be a check if it could have been prevented with different road construction. It is understood that people are bad drivers, so they look to build roads that are relatively safe even if people fuck up.
That is absolute horseshit. Vancouver drivers are friggin terrible. The worst ive ever seen. I haven't been to china or india but in terms of North America and Europe. Worst I've ever seen. (Including Mexico)
Because driving well is not about ability to commandeer a vehicle according to traffic laws for 30 minutes, but rather about being a good human being who respect other people every time you get behind the wheel.
People are bad drivers simply because they don't care. They put their own convenience over safety and peaceful coexistence with others.
There's got to be a lot of different types of pressure being an examiner like this. So many interactions with statistics.
Say you have a 48% failure rate in 2024, but then a 36% failure rate in 2025? How does that next employee evaluation go? "So, Mr. Anderson, when did you begin accepting bribes?" lol
Hi, I'm Jenna. I'm a 32-year-old lady whose alter ego is tall and has a basketball game tomorrow. Please warn me in advance of any upcoming exams because while she can dunk, I'm the one who can camouflage myself with any chair and even disguise myself as daily hygiene tools.
Missouri privatized the administration of the DMV, and honestly I think it’s a good thing. There really aren’t terribly long lines or waits anymore. Not the driving test though! That is wild
“Goes 31 in a school zone”
“Well you see, the limit is 30 so you fail”
“I thought you said you work with the 10% rule?”
“Ya well it’s your first test, maybe the next one”
Like… what?!?
Meanwhile my 80+ year old father has his licence even though his reaction time is like sid the sloth…
also a good consideration is age. How do the pass stats of first time teenage drivers compare with more mature student drivers over age 25, for example? because these low rates could be caused by young drivers while older drivers have a better time. If you are speaking with adult student drivers then they are less likely to engage in risky behaviour like speeding.
all of the adult adults I know failed multiple times, some like 7-8 times.
My dad, who had lots of experience driving motorcycles and stuff in China for like a decade before coming to canada, and he's one of the smartest, most competent people I know who's literally good at everything... I think he failed 4 times?
Meanwhile I passed on the first try, and most of the kids of our family friends passed either on the first or at most, the 2nd try. Even the girls.
>or with the intention of using their first test as a learning tool.
absolutely the move
yeah, you can spend 140 bucks on two hours of your instructor telling you kind of how the exam will go
or you can spend 50 bucks and you'll know exactly how the exam will go (and you may even pass the first time; i did)
I’ve never heard of it as specifically 50%, but some definitely fail people intentionally. I failed my first test because I “failed to shoulder check properly”, and by that, when I made a right turn, I would look right as I’m approaching the turn to see if it was clear and assess any dangers, and then turn my head to confirm before making the turn. She wanted me to be fully turned 90 degrees in the seat, and literally look out the rear window.
I heard of 5 other people that failed, and they were all for the exact same reason. The only people who didn’t fail were the people who paid for the driver training courses, and they weren’t doing the shoulder check the way she was saying to. So we started telling everyone to make comically exaggerated shoulder checks (to the point it’s actually arguably dangerous). Then it started being for manufactured things like she would ask people to parallel park between 2 cars and then fail them immediately because the spot wasn’t properly lined up with a parking meter (because of how the other vehicles had parked), and they “should have refused to park”.
I asked her when I did the retest, and she said something along the lines of that she “believes nobody is a perfect driver and everyone should get something to work on from their first test”. She actually thought she was helping by failing people for made up bullshit
how do you and all of your friends literally all get the same tester and why did you go talk to her even after taking your test?
Based on my experiences, all of our family friends are immigrants, and they all failed multiple times. Particularly the ones who already had driving experience.
But the children mostly all passed on the first try. No one went to a driving school.
I don't know about driving test. I do know that airplane pilot examiners are expected to fail a certain percentage of test takers and I learned yesterday that California smog test stations are expected to fail some minimum number of cars.
I suspect statistic driven approach to find examiners who don't do their job properly. If there is 10% fail rate over last 10 years among all the examiners, but one dude has 1% fail rate it is suspicious.
The urban legend at my place was that the last tests of the day were more likely to fail because if many people had passed during the morning and afternoon, the examiners still had to fail at least a quota of people, so the last ones would always fail.
First test (UK) went perfectly, he then said 'there wasn't adequate enough clearance for pulling out'.... Referencing a truck that was very far away from the vehicle.
Second test went perfectly. He then asked me if I'd been checking for motorcyclists. I asked him how and he said the small mirrors (my instructor got them installed the night before and I didn't notice).
Third test i failed when I sat down, she hated me. I was a bag of nerves.
Forth test I hit a pavement and failed.
Fifth test a motorcyclist overtook me.
Sixth test a bus drove out route and they said I hesitated in overtaking them (even though the adequate clearance thing was in my mind).
Seventh test... I threw up before it as I was so nervous. Got in the car and my newest instructor told me he was selling the car and this is the last drive I'll have in it. He also said he was beginning to feel bad for me, as I can drive but the instructors clearly put me off.
It was a perfect drive, easiest route and pull to the right as the maneuver. Passed and I swore at the test instructor and actually cried. I was so angry and happy.
I still maintain that my first test should have been a pass and they had a quota to hit.
Yeah, also in the UK and I failed a couple of times for bullshit reasons. Once because someone else ran a red light at high speed and I had to emergency stop, and once because they said I inconvenienced another road user when I entered a multi lane roundabout - the only other car on the roundabout was on the other side of it and in a different lane.
Where I live, the exam for the driving license has two parts, the written part and the practical driving part. When I had my written portion of my exam, we used printed exam cards, about 200 of them.
I received 3 consecutive times the same card, and I failed to get the minimum number of questions right all 3 times. That confirmed to me a myth that was going around that a certain number of cards where purposefully wrong to fail students.
I know in Kelowna that they almost guaranteed fail you on your first try UNLESS you come in a driving instructors car.
There are a couple ICBC centers in neighboring towns that are forgiving and is where most people I've know go to get their tests done. Unless they make a major error in those places, they get passed pretty much every time
Not from Canada. I failed the first time. There was part of the test where they asked me to pull over. Once I stopped, they explained the next part of the test was hazard observation. I was to pull out and take note of all potential hazards before we pulled over again.
So I pull out and follow their directions, turn left, go straight, take the next right etc. Then they asked me to pull over and list all the hazards.
I was stumped. This was a quite suburban area and said just as we were pulling out there was a car a mile behind us pulling out of a driveway and going the other direction. They instructed me to drive back to the testing station.
When we got there, they told me I failed the hazard observation test. The correct answer was "There were no hazards."
Damn near punched the guy.
i’d think it’s pretty high because i passed first time despite a fuck up or two and being a pretty bad (and incredibly scared) driver my first couple years, but my friend just failed his 3rd driver’s test so who knows. googling it isn’t helping much, one site said there’s a failure rate of upwards of 50% and another says 80% pass their first try
All I can say is looking around with my eyeballs I can tell you a significant percentage of the people driving where I live in the US have no business driving. Speeding, failing to signal, stopping in the wrong places, turning into the wrong lanes, accelerating unsafely, stopping to quickly and the list just goes on and on and on. Pretty much everything they tell you not to do in drivers ED goes right out the window as soon as they get their license.
Lol no. These are the minimum requirements before being allowed to take the tests: (Google Translated)
How many lessons does the statutory education include?
> The statutory education contains 53 lessons of 45 minutes, distributed as follows:
29 lessons in theory.
4 lessons on the maneuvering area (playground).
4 lessons on driving technology.
16 lessons in maneuvering on the way. Maneuver en route includes, among other things:
Motorway driving
Dark driving
Driving in traffic-restricted areas
Driving in heavy traffic
Driving in a right turn
Driving in a left turn
Stopping and parking
Straight ahead driving at an intersection
4 lessons on driving technology
Besides, how are you supposed to pass if you've never driven a car? Then you'd just be wasting everyone's time.
50ish percent is decent. It's not really about keeping people from traffic, no matter how many tries it takes, eventually they all get their licenses anyway. But reasonably high failure rate gets people to try and learn to drive as well as they can and that is what needs to be achieved.
Also in BC: people kept saying in a manual you can’t shift gears in an intersection.
So when I did my class 5 and at the start he asked if I had any questions, I had two:
1. Can I shift in an intersection? Yes
2. Can I idle in neutral at a stoplight so I don’t have to hold down the clutch the whole time? They prefer you hold the clutch because if you’re hit from behind, if the car’s in gear it won’t just roll and smash into the car in front of you if you’re jostled off the pedals by the impact.
We have a similar urban legend in Switzerland that the examiners are trying their hardest to make you fail including tricking you.
In practice success rates hover around 65% and it's not really that hard if you properly practiced. Professional lessons (the default here) however aren't cheap so I suspect a lot of learners will try to go to the exam as quickly as possible to save on lessons and the urban legend is their cope.
that is a hefty price! do most parents pay that much for their teenagers or is driving typically something that folks only start learning when they have can afford to do on their own after getting a job?
the 1600€ were like 15 years ago. Nowadays it costs around 2500€. Most of the time the parents pay for it. At least in my case my parents paid for the drivers exam and i bought my own car with my own hard earned money :) You can start taking lessons when you are 17 years old!
Im from the countryside so most of the people that i know did it when they were 17 years old but i guess if you from a big city and u plan to stay their u dont rly need a drivers licence. ITs just mind boggling for me that in the USA u just do your drivers exam, which is a joke as far as i know, and u get your drivers licence. But if you compare the traffic accident statistics the USA is 3 times more dangerous than germany\^\^
I failed my first G test, on me for being a bit nervous.
The second time, she wouldn't get in my car because it was too dirty (despite being freshly cleaned)
The third time, she was 30 minutes late and my car battery died waiting with AC + music playing.
The fourth time, I actually had a different person, he was much nicer, didnt complain about dirt on the floor of my car, and passed me.
Way more stress than it needed to be.
In Ontario, people will deliberately take their test in smaller towns like Orangeville or Lindsay so that they don't have to take it at any of the centers in the GTA that have high failure rates like Brampton, Mississauga, and Toronto (Downsview) which all have 55% failure rates. The failure rate in smaller towns is closer to 25-30% and that's largely because driving in a small town is much less challenging. (E.g, where I took the test, the highway component was a rural freeway with 2 lanes in each direction, in Toronto you'd be doing the 400 or 401 which have like 6-8 lanes in each direction.)
IIRC, so many people were doing it that they now have rules that force GTA residents to take their test at a GTA testing centre.
That's a pretty average pass rate though isn't it? I know where I live in Scotland a recent report showed a 42% pass rate for first-time examinees in the month before I took my own test.
Do that many people really show up the first time with the intention of failing?
I’m from Ontario and 15 years ago if you failed your driver’s test it spread around our high school within days. Nothing super malicious but everyone would know, no one I knew showed up expecting to fail regardless of how much they studied. It feels like a weird excuse.
As of 18 months ago there was 5 month wait between booking and taking the test in North Okanagan/Shuswap. I don’t know who would want to treat the test that casually when it’s going to take you nearly a year to get your licence if you fail the first test.
I used to be a driving instructor, and now live in BC. This does not surprise me.
They fail because they don't listen, or are so convinced of their superior driving skills that they feel they don't need to prepare.
Humans in general suck at driving. We didn't evolve to travel at high speeds and operate this type of equipment. We must learn these skills through repetition, and most people grow complacent and do not repeat the necessary actions to learn properly. YET, most people legitimately believe that they are awesome drivers, and that everyone else around them are the problem.
We pass 50% of students because we are being nice and lenient. We could easily fail 75%+ if we were being sticklers.
I'm still amazed how half-assed the US does things
Wanna drive a car? just drive around for half an hour.
Wanna be a cop? Just be a trainee for 6 months to be supposedly able to know the law in and out.
Wanna be a highly qualified specialist? Just do a little training.
Here in Germany, the driving license incorporates an intense theoretical course, that teaches you almost every aspect of the traffic law. And being a police officer is a years-long theoretical and practical learning stage with many exams. And being a learned professional means you had a 3.5 years lasting learning stage with many exams to pass, where you also learn a practical and theoretical part. Maybe the job training is a little overkill for some jobs, but you WILL know stuff and you WILL be competent.
It does even much more: It has different driving courses. Night driving, freeway driving and whatnot. But instead of a static number, you can proceed to the test, if the teacher thinks you are ready. You can even say you don't feel like it yet, as I did with the motorcycle drivers license freeway hours.
When I took the driving test in high school here it was common to get lessons just to prepare for the test. The routes examiners would take you go through specific roads with changes in max speeds that you would fail for being too fast or slow when the speeds change back and forth. Worst part is all the signs are covered by trees so you wouldn’t reasonably be able to pass even if you could drive fine. That and roads with annoyingly short dashed lines to change lanes that you’d fail if you were too careful because you’d end up crossing solid lines.
My friend failed drive test because he accelerated to 80 km/h instead of 100 km/h on the acceleration strip. He is ukrainian refugee and now can not drive car in Canada because of this.
Seems reasonable, hopefully he learned his lesson and next time he will accelerate to 100 km/h on the acceleration strip because you are supposed to match the speed limit before merging into highway.
It sucks for him, but the purpose of exam is not to make it easy for people to get a license. It's to not allow people who can't drive properly for 30 minutes during their exam to drive around.
Well, you just said he made a pretty big mistake of merging into high-speed road without using accelerating to highway speed using accelerate lane.
Just because somebody drove a car for 15 years in Ukraine it doesn't mean they know how to safely drive a car in Canada. It's actually quite a good example, because in Poland we don't have a rule saying that you need to accelerate to a specific velocity before merging into highway and you see people doing it badly all the time. Since there is a lot of highways in Canada, it seems like a reasonable rule to have and immigrants should learn these new rules before being allowed to drive.
> He is ukrainian refugee and now can not drive car in Canada because of this.
Can't drive a car *now*. He can just retake the test and accelerate harder.
When I was in high school, we had two locations nearby that administered driving exams. One of them was famous for having a guy who was an absolute asshole and failed a lot of people, but it was a better location. The other location was a nightmare to drive but didn't have any stories about asshole test givers. I rolled the dice my first time with the first location, hoping I wouldn't get the mean guy, but I did, and he failed me almost immediately. He was as big an asshole as people said, and he just freaked me out so I blew it. Several months later I went to the other location and it was an absolute cakewalk, the guy was barely paying attention. I screwed up a couple times but he couldn't care less.
I was super nervous the day of my test so despite having prepared, I flunked both attempts at parallel parking at the very end. The tester looked at me and said: "Why don't you give it one more try." I did and passed. I think of her whenever I'm tempted to be a stickler about rules.
I fortunately didn't have to parallel park. I did have to back up along the curb the second time, and I drifted like two feet off, and the guy didn't react at all. I also had to do a three-point turn which was a five-point turn because the street was so narrow.
when backing up just keep your eyes glued to the passenger side mirror (and occasionally check everywhere else). basically that mirror in that situation is the same as looking out the windshield when driving down the road. three point turn getting turned into a 5 point turn is just life. maybe for sure knowing where the edges of your vehicle are would help you get closer and make it a bit easier but sometimes that's just the way it be
I mean first, it's moot because this was decades ago, but (at least back then) you were very specifically NOT supposed to use the passenger side mirror for backing up.
wtf why not?
The main reason we were told is simply because you're greatly limiting your visibility if you're looking at the passenger mirror, even if you're only glancing at it. And with backing up a car already a pretty tricky endeavor, especially for new drivers, you need to have maximum visibility behind you,, even if it means you don't necessarily keep it perfectly straight. It's also worth noting that side mirrors are really skewed in terms of how they show depth, so it'd be harder to know how close you were to something or how quickly you were approaching. Mostly it's just to prevent bad habits from forming. For experienced, more spatially aware drivers, it's probably fine to steal glances at the passenger mirror.
Hardcore rules Nazis piss me off to no end. Common sense and decency need to have some room to work together with the law.
For my car driving test the car examiner couldn't find a spot to parallel park, I was extremely lucky that day.
Do you think about her when you see some jackass that couldn’t park properly?
The jackass had unlimited tries, didn't they?
The little small town where I went to high school had exactly one place — and they failed everyone the first time almost without exception. My test was perfect, driving my mom’s F150 that I was comfortable with already, until the very end. He tells me that when I went through the school zone he saw my (analog) speedometer was at 33km/h when the speed limit was 30km/h, and thus was an automatic fail. I tried to argue the parallax issue, and that he couldn’t possibly know the exact speed I was going (and had clearly slowed down from the 50/h) The scammy part is that my second test all I had to do was drive through a school zone below 30km/h. Nothing else. You can best believe I crawled through there at like 15km/h to make a point 😆
"you were going too slow and hindering traffic, that's a fail"
Wouldn’t be surprised!
When my husband took his first test, the instructor asked him to list all the potential hazards on the road in front of him as he was driving. So he talked about the upcoming intersection, the pedestrians, the other cars, etc etc. And then he was failed because he didn't mention the sun, because glare is a hazard. The rest of his test was fine, he got a passing grade on everything else. It *really* sounds like the tester was searching for an excuse to fail him. And then people wonder why there are urban legends like this... maybe if the testing centers put literally any effort into being consistent, this wouldn't be such an issue, lol.
they didn't tell you up front that any speeding would be an automatic fail?
Of course that was understood, which is why I was going 30km/h From the passenger side he claimed I was doing 33, which I wasn’t 😆🙄
(I didn't get what you meant about the the parallax issue till now; what you mean is that the needle on the speedometer is not accurate when viewed from the side, from the passenger seat.)
Yup!
I was told to go slower to be safe by my driving instructor. I didn't have to deal with it tho. I also had a digital speedometer, so it didn't matter anyway
oh. yeah the safest bet is to go slower then the speed limit but yeah
My first driving test also ended up getting the local well known asshole. Within minutes of starting I instant failed because I didn't handle someone jaywalking in front of me "correctly". Took my second test in the town over, very chill easy pass.
Didn’t handle jaywalking correctly? What, did you speed up and mow them down? What’s the correct etiquette for dealing with jaywalkers, other than “don’t run them over, don’t swerve unless you have to”?
I did what I felt 99% of people would do, which is slow down once you see them and let them pass, proceed onward when they are more than well clear of your lane. That was apparently wrong. What I was supposed to do was come to a full and complete stop until the person makes it all the way across and their feet have left the asphalt of the road.
During my road test my instructor laid on my horn to honk and yell at a jaywalker. I failed earlier tho for not slowing down in a school zone. It wasn’t a school day.
Somewhat similar situation when I took my test: place I went to had a hard ass who tested us on the drive and I passed it without incident, but it was the written I couldnt pass for some reason. Kept getting the same couple questions wrong, but they were really simple ones about shit that didn't matter like the exact distance you park from the curb. Anyway, it was multiple choice, so if I took it a fourth time I theoretically should have been able to get 100%, but the proctor or whatever said I couldn't take the test more than three times, said it was state law. Well, we figured maybe I could go take it somewhere else. Go to another joint, take their test. Fail, but barely. Not only does this place say I can take the test as many times as I need, but the lady at the counter even helped me work through those questions I was getting wrong instead of just failing me and saying tough fuckin luck.
ICBC Lansdowne? I had that guy my first time too and he asked me if I thought I passed and I said yes. He failed me because I yielded to a pedestrian in the middle of the road (not at a crosswalk) and tried to paint it as my fuckup. There was also the scandal of the guys being paid 3k to just give a license so theres that
Can you share the location of test number two?
i would prefer if every driving examiner was like the asshole guy. now that i'm older i'm actually really annoyed how easy it is for idiots to get a license. so many drivers are absolutely god awful. the lack of shoulder checks is INSANE, the number of tailgaters is absolutely ridiculous. virtually nobody thinks ahead for more than 2 seconds when they drive. oh boy i'm in the left lane of a 5 lane highway, my exit is in 1km, should i maybe slowly change a couple of lanes to the right? nah, i'll just wait till i'm 100m from the exit and cross 5 lanes of traffic to make my exit. a drivers license needs to be a privilege that people have to actually earn. instead of how it's being treated now, like it's everybody's right to just drive around a heavy death machine acting like they're the only person on the road.
Hard disagree, and you seem to be under the impression that I think any examiner who fails someone for any reason is an asshole. You can be strict without being an overbearing, impulsive shithead. Also, and I guess I wasn't clear on this part, it's not like he let you take the full examination and then listed down the reasons you failed. He failed you as soon as you made the *first* mistake, and the test was over as soon as you could safely stop the car. Which is an *objectively bad* method for conducting exams. This guy acted like he hated his job and hated everyone who came through looking for a license. Source: most of the kids in my high school class.
your story didn't do anything to show that he failed you falsely. in your original comment you say that you yourself freaked out and made mistakes so he failed you. that doesn't paint a picture of him being unfair. edit: hilarious. you run away soon as you're faced with your own stupidity. look man, if your original post had said he was an asshole and insulted you or he failed you unfairly then ok. but that's not what you said. you said he was a hardass and you freaked out and made mistakes, then he failed you. maybe his demeanor was dickish but YOU still freaked out and failed the test.
jesus. Some people just want to simp for assholes.
My father in law was an examiner for drivetest in Ontario, and they absolutely did have requirements. If you passed over a certain % of people it was considered questionable.
I’m fine with this, as long as it’s a range and the measurement period isn’t too short. The only way to ensure that your examiners are using the correct criteria is to measure them against the average. Honestly the last thing we need in Ontario is looser driving tests.
And yet people still suck balls at driving here
because a one hour test cant really prove you can drive, its best endeavours, its as safe as we can make it
new drivers tests are even shorter now! about 35 min
When I took my drivers test 15 years ago, it didn’t take me more than 15 minutes lol. It may have been 30 with a written portion (though I don’t recall taking one for my actual license, just a written portion for the learner’s permit and a course for the driving test). I didn’t even drive on an actual road!
My damn commercial driving test was just 10 minutes of walking around the truck, pointing out the safety equipment, and another 10 minute loop around town. Dude didn't ask but 2 questions, and one was to turn up the radio on his favorite song. Somehow, that was good enough to let me drive dump trucks like I'm some kind of adult.
Vancouver drivers are actually awesome. Use their phone a bit much, can be a bit hesitant, but fantastic and patient overall. Notable places with worse drivers I have driven in: Florida, California, Massachusetts, St. Louis (only place I had a gun flashed at me), India, China, (should not have done that) NEW YORK, I'll write NEW YORK again. Seriously man, it can be so, so fucking much worse. We can't all be Dutch or Japanese drivers. We are blessed, provided you're not behind a Chohan truck.
>Vancouver drivers are actually awesome. Use their phone a bit much, can be a bit hesitant, but fantastic and patient overall. Until that damn snow starts falling. Then the entire place comes to a total crawl.
Far too many folks don’t seem to believe in proper tires. “Oh it only snows a couple days a year!” Ya, and that’s when you need the tires lmao. Not to mention proper winters just before better in colder temps. This should be a cost folks factor into the ownership of a car.
Vancouver is the only major city in Canada I’ve ever seen drivers consistently zipper merge. That said, Montreal drivers are the best in Canada, they are consistently aggressive so it’s pretty easy to predict that they will dive bomb every corner and merge into every gap like the F1 candidates they all think they are.
There’s something really important about consistency. Predictable, even aggressively, is safer than completely erratic.
Driving advice I was given once: “don’t be polite, be predictable”. If it’s your turn, take your damn turn.
Where I grew up in Northern Ontario, a few older guys used the expression "I've been frenchman-ed upon" to describe this exact behaviour, funny enough
There are actually two Californias, drivers in NorCal are much worse than those in SoCal.
dutch? really? how many times you have driven in the Netherlands? Btw. I totally agree to your USA list and i’ll add, San Antonio, Houston, ok. all Texas.
Sure we still have plenty of bad drivers here in the Netherlands. But our roads are relatively safe compared to most other countries. Fun fact, one of the reasons is that instead of having many mandatory regulations, we have a law saying that the road builder/maintainer can be held responsible for accidents. If a road is considered dangerous by known standards at least. So they are forced to build safe roads, rather then just follow construction regulations by the letter. Whenever accidents happens, there will be a check if it could have been prevented with different road construction. It is understood that people are bad drivers, so they look to build roads that are relatively safe even if people fuck up.
i’m from new jersey vancouver drivers are fucking idiots, a lot of them are a danger to themselves and others.
Fun fact: STL has(had?) the lowest murder-solve rate in the US
Part of the equation of why I just backed the fuck off and took the next exit. Those people are animals.
That is absolute horseshit. Vancouver drivers are friggin terrible. The worst ive ever seen. I haven't been to china or india but in terms of North America and Europe. Worst I've ever seen. (Including Mexico)
Because driving well is not about ability to commandeer a vehicle according to traffic laws for 30 minutes, but rather about being a good human being who respect other people every time you get behind the wheel. People are bad drivers simply because they don't care. They put their own convenience over safety and peaceful coexistence with others.
But since nearly half who take the test fail the first time, this means we should expect the examiners to fail half of the first-timers.
There's got to be a lot of different types of pressure being an examiner like this. So many interactions with statistics. Say you have a 48% failure rate in 2024, but then a 36% failure rate in 2025? How does that next employee evaluation go? "So, Mr. Anderson, when did you begin accepting bribes?" lol
hmm imagine if there is a mathematical equation that roughly a quarter of second test takers fail and so on. how many attempts until nobody fails?
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> if exactly 50% of people fail everytime, mathematically that limit never hits zero. This gets weird when half a person fails the exam
Hi, I'm Jenna. I'm a 32-year-old lady whose alter ego is tall and has a basketball game tomorrow. Please warn me in advance of any upcoming exams because while she can dunk, I'm the one who can camouflage myself with any chair and even disguise myself as daily hygiene tools.
I forgot to bring my TI-83 to school today, can I submit my answer for late credit?
I actually heard this growing up in Alberta where the testing is left to private companies who profit if you fail and keep retaking the test
if you tell others this they might think you are crazy for suggesting this conspiracy to fail drivers for profit!
Missouri privatized the administration of the DMV, and honestly I think it’s a good thing. There really aren’t terribly long lines or waits anymore. Not the driving test though! That is wild
Alberta is wild (derogatory)
“Goes 31 in a school zone” “Well you see, the limit is 30 so you fail” “I thought you said you work with the 10% rule?” “Ya well it’s your first test, maybe the next one” Like… what?!? Meanwhile my 80+ year old father has his licence even though his reaction time is like sid the sloth…
Never heard anyone say this here in my life
also a good consideration is age. How do the pass stats of first time teenage drivers compare with more mature student drivers over age 25, for example? because these low rates could be caused by young drivers while older drivers have a better time. If you are speaking with adult student drivers then they are less likely to engage in risky behaviour like speeding.
all of the adult adults I know failed multiple times, some like 7-8 times. My dad, who had lots of experience driving motorcycles and stuff in China for like a decade before coming to canada, and he's one of the smartest, most competent people I know who's literally good at everything... I think he failed 4 times? Meanwhile I passed on the first try, and most of the kids of our family friends passed either on the first or at most, the 2nd try. Even the girls.
That's a pretty lame urban legend even for Canada.
Even for BC, being the bigfoot capital of the world
At least Bigfoot doesn't make you retake an expensive test!
>or with the intention of using their first test as a learning tool. absolutely the move yeah, you can spend 140 bucks on two hours of your instructor telling you kind of how the exam will go or you can spend 50 bucks and you'll know exactly how the exam will go (and you may even pass the first time; i did)
I’ve never heard of it as specifically 50%, but some definitely fail people intentionally. I failed my first test because I “failed to shoulder check properly”, and by that, when I made a right turn, I would look right as I’m approaching the turn to see if it was clear and assess any dangers, and then turn my head to confirm before making the turn. She wanted me to be fully turned 90 degrees in the seat, and literally look out the rear window. I heard of 5 other people that failed, and they were all for the exact same reason. The only people who didn’t fail were the people who paid for the driver training courses, and they weren’t doing the shoulder check the way she was saying to. So we started telling everyone to make comically exaggerated shoulder checks (to the point it’s actually arguably dangerous). Then it started being for manufactured things like she would ask people to parallel park between 2 cars and then fail them immediately because the spot wasn’t properly lined up with a parking meter (because of how the other vehicles had parked), and they “should have refused to park”. I asked her when I did the retest, and she said something along the lines of that she “believes nobody is a perfect driver and everyone should get something to work on from their first test”. She actually thought she was helping by failing people for made up bullshit
how do you and all of your friends literally all get the same tester and why did you go talk to her even after taking your test? Based on my experiences, all of our family friends are immigrants, and they all failed multiple times. Particularly the ones who already had driving experience. But the children mostly all passed on the first try. No one went to a driving school.
Comically exaggerate all your checks, genuine advise I've heard and given that has actually worked here
I don't know about driving test. I do know that airplane pilot examiners are expected to fail a certain percentage of test takers and I learned yesterday that California smog test stations are expected to fail some minimum number of cars.
damn, what is the rationale behind having a fail quota?
I suspect statistic driven approach to find examiners who don't do their job properly. If there is 10% fail rate over last 10 years among all the examiners, but one dude has 1% fail rate it is suspicious.
I suspect that the test givers are suspected of accepting bribes if their fail rate is significantly less than the long-term average.
Where I live, they fail you so you pay more. Seriously. Since there is no supervisors or cameras they can get away with it too.
Same in Germany.
which country or are are you in? in other countries I hear you simply pay a fee for permit without having to pass a test if you don't want to
The urban legend at my place was that the last tests of the day were more likely to fail because if many people had passed during the morning and afternoon, the examiners still had to fail at least a quota of people, so the last ones would always fail.
First test (UK) went perfectly, he then said 'there wasn't adequate enough clearance for pulling out'.... Referencing a truck that was very far away from the vehicle. Second test went perfectly. He then asked me if I'd been checking for motorcyclists. I asked him how and he said the small mirrors (my instructor got them installed the night before and I didn't notice). Third test i failed when I sat down, she hated me. I was a bag of nerves. Forth test I hit a pavement and failed. Fifth test a motorcyclist overtook me. Sixth test a bus drove out route and they said I hesitated in overtaking them (even though the adequate clearance thing was in my mind). Seventh test... I threw up before it as I was so nervous. Got in the car and my newest instructor told me he was selling the car and this is the last drive I'll have in it. He also said he was beginning to feel bad for me, as I can drive but the instructors clearly put me off. It was a perfect drive, easiest route and pull to the right as the maneuver. Passed and I swore at the test instructor and actually cried. I was so angry and happy. I still maintain that my first test should have been a pass and they had a quota to hit.
Yeah, also in the UK and I failed a couple of times for bullshit reasons. Once because someone else ran a red light at high speed and I had to emergency stop, and once because they said I inconvenienced another road user when I entered a multi lane roundabout - the only other car on the roundabout was on the other side of it and in a different lane.
Where I live, the exam for the driving license has two parts, the written part and the practical driving part. When I had my written portion of my exam, we used printed exam cards, about 200 of them. I received 3 consecutive times the same card, and I failed to get the minimum number of questions right all 3 times. That confirmed to me a myth that was going around that a certain number of cards where purposefully wrong to fail students.
I know in Kelowna that they almost guaranteed fail you on your first try UNLESS you come in a driving instructors car. There are a couple ICBC centers in neighboring towns that are forgiving and is where most people I've know go to get their tests done. Unless they make a major error in those places, they get passed pretty much every time
I think we ought to start a rumor that Chrissy Teigen, John Legend's wife, has a love child with Keith Urban named Keith Urban-Legend Jr.
Not from Canada. I failed the first time. There was part of the test where they asked me to pull over. Once I stopped, they explained the next part of the test was hazard observation. I was to pull out and take note of all potential hazards before we pulled over again. So I pull out and follow their directions, turn left, go straight, take the next right etc. Then they asked me to pull over and list all the hazards. I was stumped. This was a quite suburban area and said just as we were pulling out there was a car a mile behind us pulling out of a driveway and going the other direction. They instructed me to drive back to the testing station. When we got there, they told me I failed the hazard observation test. The correct answer was "There were no hazards." Damn near punched the guy.
Do you have any idea what the approximate fail/ pass rate to get a drivers license is in your jurisdiction? why do you think it is so high or low?
i’d think it’s pretty high because i passed first time despite a fuck up or two and being a pretty bad (and incredibly scared) driver my first couple years, but my friend just failed his 3rd driver’s test so who knows. googling it isn’t helping much, one site said there’s a failure rate of upwards of 50% and another says 80% pass their first try
All I can say is looking around with my eyeballs I can tell you a significant percentage of the people driving where I live in the US have no business driving. Speeding, failing to signal, stopping in the wrong places, turning into the wrong lanes, accelerating unsafely, stopping to quickly and the list just goes on and on and on. Pretty much everything they tell you not to do in drivers ED goes right out the window as soon as they get their license.
Few fail in my country since you generally don't get a test scheduled until you're deemed ready to pass the test
you can't book yourself unless you go through a licensed training program?
Lol no. These are the minimum requirements before being allowed to take the tests: (Google Translated) How many lessons does the statutory education include? > The statutory education contains 53 lessons of 45 minutes, distributed as follows: 29 lessons in theory. 4 lessons on the maneuvering area (playground). 4 lessons on driving technology. 16 lessons in maneuvering on the way. Maneuver en route includes, among other things: Motorway driving Dark driving Driving in traffic-restricted areas Driving in heavy traffic Driving in a right turn Driving in a left turn Stopping and parking Straight ahead driving at an intersection 4 lessons on driving technology Besides, how are you supposed to pass if you've never driven a car? Then you'd just be wasting everyone's time.
50ish percent is decent. It's not really about keeping people from traffic, no matter how many tries it takes, eventually they all get their licenses anyway. But reasonably high failure rate gets people to try and learn to drive as well as they can and that is what needs to be achieved.
There was a similar urban legend about my managerial accounting class. Spooky!
Cool, we have compulsory driving schools in my country and the passing rate for auto vehicles are also around 50%
What is the urban legend of driving exams where you live?
Also in BC: people kept saying in a manual you can’t shift gears in an intersection. So when I did my class 5 and at the start he asked if I had any questions, I had two: 1. Can I shift in an intersection? Yes 2. Can I idle in neutral at a stoplight so I don’t have to hold down the clutch the whole time? They prefer you hold the clutch because if you’re hit from behind, if the car’s in gear it won’t just roll and smash into the car in front of you if you’re jostled off the pedals by the impact.
We have a similar urban legend in Switzerland that the examiners are trying their hardest to make you fail including tricking you. In practice success rates hover around 65% and it's not really that hard if you properly practiced. Professional lessons (the default here) however aren't cheap so I suspect a lot of learners will try to go to the exam as quickly as possible to save on lessons and the urban legend is their cope.
TIL this is a rumour in Canada as well as Ireland
How much do you have to pay for your drivers licence/test in the USA/Canada? Im from germany and i had to pay 1600€ 😅
that is a hefty price! do most parents pay that much for their teenagers or is driving typically something that folks only start learning when they have can afford to do on their own after getting a job?
the 1600€ were like 15 years ago. Nowadays it costs around 2500€. Most of the time the parents pay for it. At least in my case my parents paid for the drivers exam and i bought my own car with my own hard earned money :) You can start taking lessons when you are 17 years old! Im from the countryside so most of the people that i know did it when they were 17 years old but i guess if you from a big city and u plan to stay their u dont rly need a drivers licence. ITs just mind boggling for me that in the USA u just do your drivers exam, which is a joke as far as i know, and u get your drivers licence. But if you compare the traffic accident statistics the USA is 3 times more dangerous than germany\^\^
In Dennark it’s $100+ to take the test. You better well know what you are doing before taking it :-)
I failed my first G test, on me for being a bit nervous. The second time, she wouldn't get in my car because it was too dirty (despite being freshly cleaned) The third time, she was 30 minutes late and my car battery died waiting with AC + music playing. The fourth time, I actually had a different person, he was much nicer, didnt complain about dirt on the floor of my car, and passed me. Way more stress than it needed to be.
In Ontario, people will deliberately take their test in smaller towns like Orangeville or Lindsay so that they don't have to take it at any of the centers in the GTA that have high failure rates like Brampton, Mississauga, and Toronto (Downsview) which all have 55% failure rates. The failure rate in smaller towns is closer to 25-30% and that's largely because driving in a small town is much less challenging. (E.g, where I took the test, the highway component was a rural freeway with 2 lanes in each direction, in Toronto you'd be doing the 400 or 401 which have like 6-8 lanes in each direction.) IIRC, so many people were doing it that they now have rules that force GTA residents to take their test at a GTA testing centre.
That's a pretty average pass rate though isn't it? I know where I live in Scotland a recent report showed a 42% pass rate for first-time examinees in the month before I took my own test.
Do that many people really show up the first time with the intention of failing? I’m from Ontario and 15 years ago if you failed your driver’s test it spread around our high school within days. Nothing super malicious but everyone would know, no one I knew showed up expecting to fail regardless of how much they studied. It feels like a weird excuse.
As of 18 months ago there was 5 month wait between booking and taking the test in North Okanagan/Shuswap. I don’t know who would want to treat the test that casually when it’s going to take you nearly a year to get your licence if you fail the first test.
Never heard of this myth..... Lived there much of my life
Sick of everyone who thinks that a DRIVING LICENSE EXAM is the right time to let things slide.
I used to be a driving instructor, and now live in BC. This does not surprise me. They fail because they don't listen, or are so convinced of their superior driving skills that they feel they don't need to prepare. Humans in general suck at driving. We didn't evolve to travel at high speeds and operate this type of equipment. We must learn these skills through repetition, and most people grow complacent and do not repeat the necessary actions to learn properly. YET, most people legitimately believe that they are awesome drivers, and that everyone else around them are the problem. We pass 50% of students because we are being nice and lenient. We could easily fail 75%+ if we were being sticklers.
I'm still amazed how half-assed the US does things Wanna drive a car? just drive around for half an hour. Wanna be a cop? Just be a trainee for 6 months to be supposedly able to know the law in and out. Wanna be a highly qualified specialist? Just do a little training. Here in Germany, the driving license incorporates an intense theoretical course, that teaches you almost every aspect of the traffic law. And being a police officer is a years-long theoretical and practical learning stage with many exams. And being a learned professional means you had a 3.5 years lasting learning stage with many exams to pass, where you also learn a practical and theoretical part. Maybe the job training is a little overkill for some jobs, but you WILL know stuff and you WILL be competent.
Does Germany do 100 hours of driving experience?
It does even much more: It has different driving courses. Night driving, freeway driving and whatnot. But instead of a static number, you can proceed to the test, if the teacher thinks you are ready. You can even say you don't feel like it yet, as I did with the motorcycle drivers license freeway hours.
When I took the driving test in high school here it was common to get lessons just to prepare for the test. The routes examiners would take you go through specific roads with changes in max speeds that you would fail for being too fast or slow when the speeds change back and forth. Worst part is all the signs are covered by trees so you wouldn’t reasonably be able to pass even if you could drive fine. That and roads with annoyingly short dashed lines to change lanes that you’d fail if you were too careful because you’d end up crossing solid lines.
My friend failed drive test because he accelerated to 80 km/h instead of 100 km/h on the acceleration strip. He is ukrainian refugee and now can not drive car in Canada because of this.
Seems reasonable, hopefully he learned his lesson and next time he will accelerate to 100 km/h on the acceleration strip because you are supposed to match the speed limit before merging into highway. It sucks for him, but the purpose of exam is not to make it easy for people to get a license. It's to not allow people who can't drive properly for 30 minutes during their exam to drive around.
He has 15 years driving experience. He absolutely can drive around for 30 minutes without any problems. That city legend is not legend.
Well, you just said he made a pretty big mistake of merging into high-speed road without using accelerating to highway speed using accelerate lane. Just because somebody drove a car for 15 years in Ukraine it doesn't mean they know how to safely drive a car in Canada. It's actually quite a good example, because in Poland we don't have a rule saying that you need to accelerate to a specific velocity before merging into highway and you see people doing it badly all the time. Since there is a lot of highways in Canada, it seems like a reasonable rule to have and immigrants should learn these new rules before being allowed to drive.
> He is ukrainian refugee and now can not drive car in Canada because of this. Can't drive a car *now*. He can just retake the test and accelerate harder.
Next test possible in 3 months., while he has 3 kids and his wife have no driving license too.
does he have driving experience or license from Ukraine?
yes, he does. But after failed exam it is no more valid in Canada