Theory passed, now on to DAS

January 2011

I have taken my DVLA motorcycle theory exam and passed. A stroke of luck for sure, I was completely knackered from Oscar not sleeping well for multiple nights in a row, Rachel’s mum had stayed with us for the previous week up to the morning of my exam and to top it off I didn’t have anytime to make a tea or coffee before I set off. I wasn’t completely sure about where I was going that morning either which added to my stress.

The stress comes from commuting during the morning rush hour, the only thing I am able to relate travelling in London during rush hour on the trains to is Marine Corps boot camp where they move you around in cattle cars if the distance is to far to walk. The cattle cars were a metal trailer attached to a lorry, if you have ever seen how they move livestock from farm to slaughter you know what I am talking about, they could probably carry 35-40 people comfortably, so of course they stuck 60 plus of us in them. I can’t remember which WWII movie this image is from but I remember watching a movie where the Germans are taking Jews and other people the Nazi’s thought were undesirable and packing them into train cars where there is no room to sit and everyone has to wee and defecate where they are standing. That’s how I feel when I ride the trains in London, like an animal less than human. Once I figured out which platform to stand on I was sorted, the rest of the train trip was uneventful.when I got to Southgate, in zone 4 on the Piccadilly line I thought I was in a different city. The people of Southgate do not look like the people live around, what comes to mind is very down market. One thing to remember is that I am among a very small percentage of Londoner’s who walks to work, I rarely leave my post code let alone commute.

I revised pretty thoroughly and it paid off, during the multiple choice part of the exam most of the question were word for word straight out of the “official” study material I had used to prepare for the exam. I decided not to buy the hazard analysis study material and predictably I was shit scared when I got to that part of the exam because I didn’t know what to expect and having no one to ask about it I started to regret rather heavily about the frugal choice I made. When I finished the multiple choice part I knew I had gotten enough right to pass, then it was all up to a process I knew nothing about. I did the hazard analysis tutorial, unusual for me being male I usually don’t read/follow instructions, but this once I was not going to chance it. The tutorial did nothing but freak me out. The way that the hazard analysis part of the exam works is a movie clip is played on your computer screen and when you see a hazard such as a bicyclist in the road, you click the mouse button, every time that the hazard changes such as that bicyclist swerves into your lane you have to click again. The movie perspective is as if its you behind the wheel or handle bars of a vehicle and your driving down a road. The thing is, the first part of the exam, the multiple choice part, is touch screen so there is grease and  finger print smears on the screen and the movies they show are not Hollywood quality more like the Blair Witch project. There are 14 clips to watch and the stress level for me was through the roof, it took about twice as long to complete the hazard analysis as it did to answer the multiple choice questions.

So there is my experience the DVLA, more to come. I will be taking the DAS very soon so if nothing happens until then that will be the next post. If you’ve got a comment god or bad please feel free to leave one. I welcome any criticismobviously the more the constructive the better.

As always, thank you for taking the time to read my post.

All the best,

Eric