MEN wrote:
Learner fails test after splash
Exclusive: Mike Keegan
8/ 9/2008
A MUM failed her driving test - for splashing a pedestrian when she drove through a puddle.
Michelle Kelly said the examiner's decision was `ludicrous'.
And she says she couldn't believe it when she was told the incident was classed as having a crash and she should have exchanged details with the soggy bystander.
Michelle, 31, was more than half way through her test when she went through a puddle on Hazelbottom Road, Blackley.
Water showered a pedestrian who was standing at a nearby bus stop.
But Michelle, from Blackley, continued on her way back to the test centre in Cheetham Hill.
She said: "I pulled in at the centre and the examiner said he'd failed me. He then spoke at length about the splashing. I didn't do it on purpose and didn't really think that much of it at the time but he said it was a fault.
"Apparently it constituted a traffic offence and he was treating it as a road accident.
"He said I should have pulled over and exchanged details with the pedestrian."
The Highway Code does not specifically mention splashing pedestrians but rule 144 states you must not `drive without reasonable consideration for other road users' while rule 147 says `Be careful of and considerate towards all types of road users'.
Michelle, who works for a funeral director and has two boys, said: "It was my third test and I was really confident.To fail for something like that really annoyed me.
"It's ridiculous. Why should you hand over your details? What good would that do? It wasn't as though I'd deluged this pedestrian. And if I'd swerved to avoid the puddle I might have caused an accident."
Michelle said she was now faced with a bill of around £200 bill to take the test again.
"It's a right pain," she said. "I'll have to wait until I get paid again. Then it's nearly £60 for the test, £40 to use the car for the test and I'll have to have more lessons in the meantime."
She also said more needed to be done to make learners aware of the splash laws.
"I spoke to a firm of driving instructor's with over 60 years experience and they had never heard of it."
A spokesman for the Driving Standards Agency said they were investigating what had happened.
Ah.. but a driving instructor was prosecuted for splashing a policeman in Lancs a couple of years ago.
But so easy when it's dark - raining more heavily than normal - and you can hit the puddle without really seeing it as it has been so darned dark of late. More like mid-winter than last week of August to now first fortnight of September
But then I came across the follow up ..
I'll pop them in the same post box
MEN wrote:
Pass for 'splash' examiner
9/ 9/2008
OFFICIALS have backed a driving examiner who failed a Manchester woman on her test after she splashed a pedestrian by driving through a puddle.
As revealed in yesterday's M.E.N, mother-of-two Michelle Kelly, from Blackley, had to keep her L-plates after the examiner failed her.
He told her she should have stopped to exchange details with the man she splashed, who was waiting at a bus stop.
Ms Kelly will now have to pay £200 for more lessons and a new test, which will be her fourth.
Ms Kelly, 31, who was halfway through her test in Manchester, protested that if she had swerved to avoid the puddle she might have caused an accident.
But after pulling in at the Driving Standards Agency test centre in the city, the examiner told her off for splashing the pedestrian and failed her. She was told her actions constituted a traffic offence.
The DSA said it could not comment on specific details due to data protection laws.
But it pointed out that motorists should have consideration for others, including pedestrians, who can possibly be drenched by passing vehicles.
Its advice is that, where possible, a driver should avoid drenching pedestrians and a failure to do this would be sufficient grounds for failing a driving test.
The Road Traffic Act contains an offence of 'careless, and inconsiderate, driving' and Crown Prosecution Service policy states that bad or inconsiderate driving includes driving through a puddle causing pedestrians to be splashed. Courts may impose fines of up to £2,500 for such an offence
Oh how I wish such applied to
illegal pavement cyclists who push pedestrians (ME
) down gas works.
I tell you .. it's still a sore point.. it
hurt!
But in defence of the learner.. I've been splashed by cyclists.. drivers .. whatever. Sometimes a puddle - or lake in a pothole
does catch folk out and perhaps sometimes when confronted with a head on smash or driving gingerly through the flash flood puddle - the puddle might be the safer option all the same..
Note.. I say
"gingerly" as I would not wish to drown the brakes
or drench anyone (assuming they are not already drenched in this weather.
)
I would hope that the authorities look at drainage systems and potholes which create these huge puddles all the same.
This lack of a duty of care on their part endangers cyclists mostly .. and does harm cars too.
Of course the woman should have slowed to make the puddle splash less.. but one has to wonder why the equivalent of "Windermere" was there in the first place
Not "global warming" - but flash flooding caused by poor drainage engineering, pot holes ...
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
Members
)