Once again bad weather has hit England, Great for the kids, but if you have a practical test booked, the question your asking yourself is what happens next?

Well the Driving Standards Agency (D.S.A) has to use Health and Safety rules. Practical driving tests are not conducted in bad weather conditions, for example when the roads are icy. This is for the safety of all concerned.

If you are due to take your practical test, follow the advice given on your appointment email or letter. Only call your test centre if there is bad weather in your local area (snow, ice, fog or high winds) on the day of your test.

When to Call

If your test is early in the morning, call as soon as you can on the day of your test.

If your test is in the afternoon, call the test centre later in the morning or early in the afternoon. Just because the early morning tests have been cancelled doesn’t guarantee that road conditions wont improve later in the day.

Its been cancelled

Should your test be cancelled you will automatically be booked a new test date at no cost to yourself. However no out of pocket expenses will be paid due to bad weather. Normally you should here something within 3 to 7 days.

Your Instructor

When in doubt contact your instructor for advice and information perhaps they know something you don’t.

Designated drivers will be rewarded in more than 8,000 pubs and student union bars across the country as part of the THINK! Christmas drink drive campaign, which was recently lanunched my the Road Safty Minister Mike Penning.

This years THINK! Christmas drink drive campaign includes radio adverts, posters in pubs & clubs and online social media advertising via Facebook, to remind people of the consequences of a drink drive conviction. For more information, and the consenqueses of drink drivers actions visit visit THINK!

THINK! have also teamed up with the Coca-Cola Designated Driver campain offering free soft drinks at venues this Christmas click here to find out when and where.

This years campaign actively targets young men aged 17 – 29, who are consistently over represented in the drink drive casualty figures. The number of drink drive deaths has fallen by more than 75% since 1979, but still around 250 people are killed every year in collisions where the driver was over the limit.

The THINK! campaign runs from the December 1st till January 1st 2012.

Designated drivers should ask at the bar about how to take advantage of the offer, buy one get one free on Coke-Cola or diet Coke from the 9th December 2011.

Learn The Art now offers free online theory test training including hazard perception clips. No more need to buy those expensive CD/DVD’s & books. Learn online at your own pace via PC, Mac or even on your mobile in your own time. Currently supporting 40 Languages.

Next year 2012 the Driving Standards Agency is going to stop publishing the actual questions used within the theory test. So students can longer memorise the questions from books. However we can still help you develop a great understanding of driver theory by using great tools. This we hope will reduce your stress levels, and accelerate your learning curve.

We are offering this free service to all our students, both new and those who are currently under tuition with us, including Intensive and Residential course’s. Talk to your instructor today to get signed up or contact us directly on 0800 002 9163.

We are pleased to announce that ‘Learn the Art’ now has several instructors registered with the Pass Plus Extra Scheme funded by Staffordshire County Council’s Road Safety Unit. The course offers students an opportunity to cover additional topics not covered by the driving test or within the Pass Plus scheme.

To qualify you need to meet the following: -
· Be a resident of Staffordshire.
· Use a driving instructor registered with Staffordshire Road Safety Unit
· Have passed your driving test in the last 12 months.
· Willing to attend the ‘new driver course’.
· Have applied and registered before commencement of the scheme.

How much discount can you expect:
The Council as set the fee for registered instructors at £130.00. With a discount of £60.00 paid by the Road Safety Unit. You only pay the instructor £60.00 for your course. The discount is subject to budget availability and will be confirmed by the Road Safety Unit.

New Driver Course
The New Driver Course is compulsory to receive the discount. The courses are held on weekdays between 5pm and 7pm at seven venues within the county.

All courses are presented by a qualified driving instructor or one of Staffordshire County Council’s Road Safety Officers. The course itself is informal and designed for new drivers to increase their awareness for example: – speed awareness, peer pressure, fatigue, drink driving, and even how a driver’s personality or mood can affect their driving.

Download a Pass Plus Extra application form
Visit the offical DSA Pass Plus website

Learn the Art has launched a weekend special deal with Groupon. Until Sunday 21-11-2010 you can purchase 3 hours of driving tuition for a fantastic price of 23.50 that’s a huge saving of 42.50. Buy this offer today it’s valid for 4 months. A fantastic Christmas present for any learner. This offer covers all of Birmingham and Staffordshire.

Interested in booking then visit for further details.

Road Safety Minister Mike Penning has announced today that the Driving Standards Agency is to stop publishing the multiple choice questions and answers used in theory tests. This follows the introduction of independent driving into the driving test and the decision to no longer publish practical test routes.

Mike said:

“The driving theory test should help to prepare drivers for real life on the road – good driving is not just about vehicle handling skills, but also about the knowledge and understanding of safe driving theory.”

In September 2011 the DSA will change the format of books and other learning aids for theory tests.  This takes place as more challenging case studies are introduced for car & motorcycle theory tests.

Then from January 2012 the DSA will use theory test questions which will not be published.  Other companies which publish training aids will no longer have access to the questions used in the tests.

Great news for all students,

Hallfords and the insurance firm Provisional Marmalade have joined forces to allow learner drivers to buy fully comprehensive insurance cover from £3.00 a day that’s approx £91.00 per month. This should allow students the opportunity to have more private practice. As it’s a separate policy it doesn’t affect any existing insurance on the car.

On a traditional policy premiums for a learner driver could be extremely high often out of the reach for most. The owner of the car then had to put their No Claims Discount at risk. Should this not be bad enough some insurers have raised the minimum age of named drivers to 21 or higher this prevents most provisional drivers from being added to a parent’s policy.

Currently the DSA recommends over 20 hours of private practice alongside professional tuition. This policy removes one of the biggest concerns facing parents as it removes the risk to their No Claims Discount whilst keeping the car fully insured.

The high price of insurance has put off many learners. In the 17 – 21 age range it’s fallen (from 42 per cent to 32 per cent) over the last 15 years however an estimated 300,000 or 1 in 4 provisional licence holders currently drive uninsured.

It has come to our attention that some of our students are being over charged by third party booking services. This is totally avoidable, if you book through the official direct.gov website this guarantees a service that you can trust and it will always be cheaper than using another booking service.

Current D.S.A prices for theory tests £31.00

Current D.S.A prices for car practical tests are
Weekends £62.00
Weekday evening / weekends £75.00

We at Learn the Art always book all tests for our students via the official direct.gov website.

From October 2010 independent driving will be part of the driving test in Great Britain.

This tasks the student to drive for approximately 10 minutes, following a series of directions, including traffic signs.

To help the student understand their instructions a diagram may be used.

It doesn’t matter if a student can’t remember every direction that was given, or if they go the wrong way even experienced drivers get lost at times.

Some newspapers think that independent driving will reduce the pass rate.  However in trials reflecting a larger number of students, no significant fall in the pass rate was shown.

There are  short film’s on YouTube published by the D.S.A explaining more about independent driving.

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