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Zipper's Driving School - News Views & Trivia
NEWS & VIEWS archives page 3 |
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| CHANGES TO DRIVING TEST | GIVE WAY TO BUSES | NO MORE TURN LEFT ON RED? |
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The Vehicle On Road Test (VORT) conducted by the MVR has been made more challenging in response to concerns that the test is not as demanding as the assessments carried out with the DTAL log book system. Dept Planning & Infrastructure (DPI) call it "VORT tightening" Three of the four manoeuvres (90° angle park, reverse parallel park, hill start, "Dry steering"* (steering while car is stationary) is no longer accepted and if done during a manoeuvre will fail that manoeuvre. "Coasting" (driving with the clutch in, or with the gears in neutral) is not acceptable on approach to intersections or other hazards. This has always been a significant car-control fault and licensing examiners will be especially alert for this undesirable technique. Each test route includes driving through a "tight" situation - for example: turn right from Woolworths City carpark into Smith St St, drive through Casuarina Square or Palmerston underground carparks, or the Hibiscus shopping centre carparks, and emerging from Darwin city laneways. Scores (percentages of 100 points) will no longer be given at the end of the test. Instead the result will be recorded simply as pass or fail. This reflects competency-based assessment systems where a standard is either reached or not reached. *What's wrong with dry steering? Dry steering is undesirable because it puts considerable strain on a car's power-steering mechanism, damages the road surface and scrubs the tyres. And, of course, dry steering could fail your NT driving test! |
The original black-on-yellow (i.e. non-regulatory) sticker on the back of NT buses have said PLEASE Give Way. Unfortunately many NT motorists don't bother - an extra workload for the bus driver and also contributing to the difficulty in providing the efficient public transport system which Darwin sorely needs.  
It is now MANDATORY that drivers must (if safe) give way to a bus signalling or pulling out from a bus stop into the traffic flow, or changing into your lane, on roads where the speed limit is 70 km/h or less.This will bring us into line with most other states. This remains to be seen. Territorians are renowned for friendliness, hospitality, and consideration Unfortunately these wonderful traits are considerably dampened when behind the wheel. Just ask any nervous NT learner driver looking for cooperation from other drivers when trying to change lanes! We hope that NT drivers will be quick to get the idea to cooperate with bus drivers - i.e. when approaching behind a bus which is signalling to pull back out onto the road, assess the situation and prepare to give way. Failure to give way is a $100 fine! |
Three of the much-loved "LEFT TURN ON RED..." signs were taken down yesterday at these locations:
The NT News reports that the restrictions are part of a rolling review of road safety by the NT Transport Department. So, why remove the signs? And this has been the problem - motorists assume that the sign gives them permission to turn left through a red light without stopping first. It doesn't help that the last three words are in much smaller lettering, but that is no excuse for not reading them - and obeying them. The sign does NOT give permission to go through a red light without stopping first!. Unfortunately the majority of NT motorists either don't read the sign properly or wilfully disobey it, causing dangerous situations especially for pedestrians. The message to these motorists obviously is: "If you won't follow the rules we'll take our signs and go home!". And I totally agree. As a driving instructor I'm sick of having my students stop correctly at one of these signs, and have some impatient driver behind beep their horn at us. Worse though, we are in danger of being rear-ended by fools who don't slow down approaching these situations because they thoughtlessly expect all vehicles turning left in front of them to turn in at high speed, just like they themselves do. In my view another location where the sign should be removed is turning off Stuart Highway into Hook Road at Winnellie. The problem here is the 80km/h limit and drivers who race up to the lights. Probably the only reason we haven't had a serious rear-ender here is that almost all drivers turn left without stopping. When taking a student past this intersection I advise them to NOT turn left there, use Bombing Rd or similar to get into Winnellie - much safer! |
| | Go to Top of Page | Last updated 19th June 2009 Copyright © 2003-2009 John Ziersch | ||