I was chatting to a friend at work this morning and he said that his girlfriend was taking her driving test at 9.30am.

At 10.00am he had a text from his girlfriend saying that the test center had cancelled her test due to, get this...........ICEY CONDITIONS.

I hope this escalades.

If it's icey conditions, knowbody drives because we don't have any experience to drive in the conditions.

My mate had that the other day...

It does seem bad that they are saying that there's no driving examiners available who know how to drive in icy conditions. Aren't they meant to take all sorts of special training to make sure that they are expert drivers, which surely would mean that they should be able to drive in all kinds of conditions? In reality, I'm sure that they're more than capable to drive in icy conditions but it will be elf n safety striking again.

It does say on the DSA website that they won't conduct tests in bad light or bad weather, and the examiners will know therefore that if they don't follow the procedures then they could be held personally liable if someone were to crash on black ice during a test. Knowing how much litigation there is these days, someone probably has sued the DSA having crashed during a test on ice and this is possibly why the guidelines say this.

How annoying! Especially when your psyched up ready to pass!

Yes I know what you mean Kev. It's far better that someone gets the chance to experience driving in hazardous conditions while they've got someone there to correct them if they were to make a mistake, than see them for the first time when they're by themselves and not sure how to handle it. It just shows how much of a risk averse country we've become though.

Lol... got to laugh at that... so what happens if someone passes in the most perefect of winter mornings and then the next day its icey and they go flying off the road... hmm... this is acceptable?

Its a bit like wales rally gb at the weekend. Stages got shortened becuase of ice on the road They are rally drivers after all.

On a side note i had my first driving lesson in the snow.

I personally say forget this whats under the bonnet part of the test. They should have an advanced driving part like a skid pan or similar.


Or even better an observation test. Sit at the side of the road and spot the idiots. At the end of the day thats one of the biggest challenges.

Actually I disagree with you all on this. The driving test is not intended to make everybody expert drivers in dangerous/tricky conditions but is designed to asses the ability of somebody to safely control a car to a required standard. With this in mind, is it a valid test to compare someones ability on a dry summer's day to that in slippy conditions when visability is low? No - the measurement system no longer becomes valid as your baseline has changed. When designing any measurement system it is important to look at reproducability and repeatability errors and if these are effected by weather conditions then this has to be taken into account

As we all know, the real learning begins when you're on the road, not in your lessons so as long as people can throw away their L plates after a safe, fair test I'll remain happy with the system....... but would like to see restrictions for new drivers like they have in N.Ireland

I have my driving test next week. Hopefully they wont cancel mine due to icey conditions

Think positive, I'm sure it will be fine. Good luck Sarah!

Good Luck Babe, i'm sure you'll be fine. I told you... i'll drive infront and make sure everyone moves out the way

haha. Well my test is at 11am