Anyone feel they've been tricked on their road test?

I kind of agree. When you're responsible for moving 80K lbs of vehicle around the country safely, there is little room for a minor mistake, much less being able to be intimidated by someone that's simply evaluating you for MINIMUM competency.

 

heh, they do it in Europe all the time, and guess what? Their drivers are much safer than ours! Nothing wrong w/ weeding out stupidity! Makes the roads much safer.

 

Xactly, the proper response should have been, "sorry, we're not allowed", that's what the tester was looking for...

 

Understandable, but IF the tester is not to ask the student to do anything illegal or unsafe, the tester is in the wrong. Also some streets are called parkways (utopia parkway is a regular surface street) and there is a section of the grand central parkway where trucks and busses under 12'6" and no more than 3 axles or ten tires (no combos) can legally run. He was testing in a bus right? Should he have went down it, no. Did the tester instruct him to do it and failure to follow instruction is a fail, yes. Its a good lesson learned but its not quite kosher on the testers part.

 

What if it was the leader of the tour group that chartered the bus who demanded that the driver take that route?

 

The tester is in the wrong. Should he have taken the parkway, no, thats reserved for swift and werner to do but the tester is not to order a student to do such things and failure to comply is a auto-fail.

 

Isn't it the tester's job to determine your knowledge and decision making ability while driving?...I mean, it may sound like a prickish thing to do but I can see it as a good test of someone's knowledge and ability to be the pilot in command as it's ok to tell a tester, "NO, that is not allowed"...I'd rather see a tester "try" to fail me for that than to comply with something I knew was wrong...Plus, you'd have a much better leg to stand on if he fails you for not doing something illegal...