BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Salty, I'd like to see them too. I'm wondering if some of the fail rate for seasoned drivers is because the "correct" answer for purposes of the test has nothing to do with how you drive or deal with driving situation in real life.

A few years ago, the son of my best firend took his driver's test. I remember looking through a sample test and thinking that experience wasn't as much help as I would have expected it to be. Drawing upon driving experience, some of the questions had no obvious answer, or even an intuitive one from the multiple choice ones given.

Well, the written driving test is a joke, no doubt... but actual behavior is certainly worse. Most people can tell you what a stop sign or a speed limit sign means if you ask them, but actual compliance with either of them is pretty low.

This article mentions that each driver was only asked 10 questions. We know something about two from the article, but it would be interesting to know the other eight.

It's surprising that nobody managed to get all ten questions right just by chance. If everybody had to guess between two possible answers on every question, you'd expect 1 out of 1024 drivers to get a perfect score anyway. If some knew a few of the questions, they should have done even better.

(Or if all drivers knew only six of the questions, and had to guess at one of the four (let's say) choices for the remaining questions, completely at random, you'd expect four drivers to get a perfect score just by chance.)

Today's PG reports on a different test, but with similarly disheartening results.

There's a link to try their test yourself. It asks for an email address, but a fake one seems to work fine.

I took the test to get a learner's permit when I was 17. In ohio, it ends the test automatically when you've gotten enough right to pass. Does it do that in PA as well?

well, this helps to explain all those bad drivers.

i used to think that drivers were more or less intentionally jerks to bicyclists. of course one or two actually are. but after driving a car again i discovered that drivers are jerks to other drivers pretty much all the time. the fact is that americans are just terrible drivers.

hm... 2 similar articles in one week.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11150/1150210-84-0.stm

Apparently I may pass a vehicle on the right when traveling on a multi-lane highway carrying two or more lanes of traffic in the same direction. I thought it was pass-left, travel-right?

Yes, it is, except on a multi-lane highway carrying two or more lanes of traffic in the same direction.

PA Driver's Manual, chapter 3, page 46:

PASSING ON THE RIGHT

Under certain conditions, you may pass another vehicle on the right:

• When the driver you are passing is making or signaling a left turn, the driver of the passing vehicle must

stay on the berm or shoulder.

• When driving on a roadway with two (2) or more marked traffic lanes in each direction.

Among the mistakes drivers most frequently made, Mr. Eckman said, were what to do at a yellow light (proceed with caution through the light), as 85 percent of respondents believed they should hit the brakes

Hahahahahahaha.

This is clear proof that that test doesn't have enough options for answer (and doesn't reflect what all experienced drivers know), because obviously the correct answer is "speed up and be sure you get into the intersection before the cross light goes green"

The first article mentioned the school bus on the opposite side of a divided highway. The way I read the article it said if the lights are flashing you must stop on the opposite side of a divided highway. This is untrue in PA, you may pass with caution.

Lyle, that can't be right. Speeding up and getting into the intersection as quickly as possible is what a red light means.

More seriously, the article should have read "Among the mistakes drivers most frequently made, Mr. Eckman said, were what to do at a flashing yellow light", since that's what matches the provided answer, proceed with caution through the light. A steady yellow light means to stop if safe.

Which I guess means the PG's reporter doesn't know the law either.

Burgoofj, good catch! That might be because the first article's testing was national. They would have had to come up with 10 questions that had the same answer in every state; I bet they messed it up.

The second test, on the other hand, is state-specific, and uses actual test questions from the exams, so it should be more accurate.

On the other hand, it's also possible the question or answer got garbled in the article on the quiz.