Test day

Bruce confirmed the test date and time back on 13th November.

Tuesday 11th December. 8.20am. Norris Green test centre.

The test lasts an hour and he liked an hour before hand for his student to warm up, hence if all went to plan the final lesson would start at 7:20am and by 9:20am Dave would legally be able to drive. Bruce also pointed out that a test at this time would very likely be much easier, since half of it would be waiting around in traffic. General driving was going well and with 7 more lessons before the finale Dave was confident. Focus could now go on the fine tuning work, aka reversing.

Dave had been secretly driving since september. He had planned to give Jean his license as a big christmas present. Along the way, she eventually found out about it, but Dave reasoned that a present doesn't have to be a surprise to be appreciated.

December 11th 2007: Test day: Dave had gone to bed around 10pm and woke up nice and early 7am, with enough time to eat breakfast and be nice and ready for the test. Bruce arrived 7:20, Dave jumped in the drivers seat and they were away. The drive to the test centre went ok, though for some reason Dave had suddenly developed the habit of flashing his lights every time he signalled left. Thankfully, after 5 or 6 flashes, the habit disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.
The test centre was small and cold. Bruce and Dave waited quietly in the seating area. After a couple of minutes the examiners appeared.
“David Natsios,” said one lady.
The meeting was a little awkward. The lady introduced her self as Leslie. Dave went in for a handshake while she was just interested in getting Dave’s documents out of his other hand, she switched and went for the shake and Dave placed the documents in her handshake. It was a clumsy start.

The eye test was fine and the show me, tell me section was a walk over. No problems.
“Drive off when you’re ready.”
Dave checked all round and he was away. The drive was picture perfect. Signals, mirrors, speed, position, all perfect. Meeting situation occurred, Dave slowed, ready to stop, but there was enough room to take it slowly so forward he went.

The car suddenly stopped.

“There is a no entry sign there.”

The actually road had turned off to the left. Straight on had a no entry. In such a situation the examiner does not need to tell you to go left. There is no other choice.

The paint on the road had not been clear and Dave’s focus had been on the approaching car. But no entry meant no entry and when the examiner takes action that means only one thing.

Failed.

Dave continued left. A few seconds later, on a left emerge, Dave did all his observations correctly, had just enough time to get round and at that point in time wasn’t in the mood to wait. The car stopped again, but it made little difference. You can only fail each test once.

Leslie stayed quiet, so Dave asked the obvious, “Do we just drive back now or…?”

“Well, you have failed. You can chose to complete the test or we can stop here and get someone to come and collect you. I am only allowed to accompany you in exam conditions.”

The test went on. The drive in the second half was much less smooth. Dave was gutted. Still, the reverse round the corner was perfect and the reverse bay park was pretty good, although Leslie felt the need to say “You’re a little close to the red car”, which Dave had been aware of and was already fixing for, but techniquely meant he failed the test a third time. And just to kick sand in his eyes, she failed him a fourth time for forgetting to signal when stopping.

On a driving test you are allowed 16 minor faults, but no serious ones. Over the entire test, Dave finished with only 4 minor faults. Unfortuanately, he also had 4 that were marked as serious.

He had failed. Failed Bruce. Failed himself. Failed Jean. He would never be able to honestly say he passed first time.

Dave was not used to failing. It did not feel good.

But live and learn.

Now what on Earth could he get Jean for Christmas?

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics.

Stare. Think. Scratch head. Stare. Idea! Research (Wikipedia). R program. Program fails. Scratch head. Rewrite. Fails. Rewrite. Graph!

And repeat.


Dave was going well. His pile of graphs got bigger by the day. Such pretty things, even his supervisor had fallen for them. So, so pretty.

However, after the days turned into weeks, the weeks turned into months and the months turned into years, Dave finally decided perhaps he should actually do some statstics for his statistics PhD, to add to his pretty pretty graphs. Therein lied his mistake.

"What? That can't be right." Nope, when Dave spoke to himself it was almost always a bad sign.

The statistics suggested his results were wrong. He checked again. And again. And again. How could it be? The graphs were so very very pretty.

Defeated, with only five minutes before his meeting with both supervisor and sponsor, why, oh why, had he checked the stats?

Dave now had several options, most of which involved faking his own death, faking his results or coming clean. The fool chose to come clean.

"Hmm.." said his supervisor.

There were several possible explanations as to what happened next. Perhaps the supervisor felt sorry for the student. Perhaps he thought stupid student makes him look bad. Perhaps he was still thinking about the pretty pretty graphs. Or perhaps he wasn't really paying attention.

In any case, the facts were brushed to one side, some other tests were suggested and the conversation continued as if it had never happened.

Ah the beauty of statistics. If at first you don't succeed, just keep changing the test until you find one that agrees with you. And if THAT fails, create a whole new test.

Phew.