Half of All UK Drivers Potentially Unfit for the Road, Warns Kia Motors
WEYBRIDGE, UNITED KINGDOM – July 31, 2009: Have you ever wondered how you would fare if you re-sat your driving test after years behind the wheel? In a new experiment, Kia Motors UK challenged experienced drivers to retake their test, resulting in a shocking 50% failure rate.
This compares bleakly to the national average pass rate of 42% for new drivers. Some of the candidates that Kia challenged had held a full licence for more than 30 years and regularly drove more than 150 miles a week.
Worryingly, half of failing candidates committed a ‘major’ during the examination: a dangerous driving offence for which they’re instantly disqualified. One candidate narrowly missed a pedestrian who stepped into the street between parked cars.
‘Kia Motors’ Driving Test Challenge’ was designed to raise awareness of driving standards and highlight the potentially dangerous traits embedded in long term road users’ driving habits.
Sue Mulcaster, a Kia Motors spokesperson said: “As a car manufacturer Kia strives constantly to improve our vehicles’ safety features. Realistically we hope that drivers won’t have cause to test these safety functions, and by campaigning for higher driving standards, aim to cut down the number of UK road accidents.”
The most frequent fault, committed by all of the driving test candidates, was poor observation. Drivers were lax when checking mirrors and looking over their shoulders to check blind spots; with two-thirds (66%) forgetting to look before moving off. Poor observation, combined with a selection of other minor faults, clocked up penalty points and caused the remaining 50% of candidates to fail.
The candidates were put through their paces by examiner Damien Burke from Blue School of Motoring. He identified the top ten most common sins committed by the drivers –
Damien Burke comments:
“All of the candidates demonstrated
faults in their driving that could compromise their own safety and that of
other road users at some point during their test. The general trend among
first time drivers shows that boys are overconfident and frequently pulled
up for speeding, whereas girls are more intelligent drivers on the whole,
but do collect fault marks for hesitation. Despite many years behind the
wheel, our experienced drivers demonstrated the same gender-specific
flaws.”
In addition to the candidates’ driving test sins, a selection of bad habits also featured across the board. The most widespread of these bad habits were – Hand / arm crossing on the steering wheel Coasting Approaching a junction at speed Riding the clutch on an incline Poor anticipation
Damien Burke said:
“Seeing that the majority of candidates had
held a license for over 10 years, it is expected that some aspects of their
driving will have deteriorated – most drivers pick up bad habits and
cut corners along the way, however these should be ironed out if the driver
is to be a truly safe and competent road user.”