Not in all places. It’s highly dependent on who’s proctoring the exam. Some tests are administered by police officers and those can be extremely strict. Other times you get seriously generous people, and that needs to be fixed. Someone I know was the last test of the day for a proctor and they drove over a curb on a turn and still passed. There were quite a few of us baffled by this.
Location also depends on what gets tested. Here in MA pretty much everything gets tested (turn types, merging, all forms of parking, etc) whereas some neighboring states don’t test parallel parking.
In the training program I was at, turning your head was repeatedly drilled-in in every driving/observation session. Making sure you mirrors were set up for optimal maximum coverage was also tested. There was no shortage of not-ending-well stories related to blind spots and not checking all sides repeatedly.
Driving tests vary state to state, though. And I agree with you that overall, driver education in the U.S. is woeful. I didn’t even have to parallel park for mine! Meanwhile Scandinavians have to prove they can recover from a slide to even get a license.
I never had to parallel park, either, for my test, but I also will never parallel park unless I travel 4+ hours away from my home.
I did have to prove I could control/stop a skid on gravel, and make a decision on whether to pull onto the soft shoulder or pass or stop or whatever on a narrow lane. Because there is much gravel and huge machinery moving around here on back roads.
A lot of the US has snow and ice too.
Many areas of the south have considerable issues with poor traction. Heavy rainfall after a long dry spell typically disturbs the accumulated contamination on the road surface, creating a sudden and drastic reduction in friction. Dust deposited by desert winds can be almost as slippery as ice. The infrequency of these conditions mean they pose a particular hazard, because drivers lack experience in dealing with them.
Not entirely accurate, at least not when I did it. You do have to go take the slide test, otherwise you're not actually eligible for even taking the driving test. The slide test isn't so much a test though, but more of a forced (albeit very fun) experience to get you to experience first hand what it's like to hit a patch of ice or pool of water and all of a sudden lose all traction. It used to be a way to teach people to simulate ABS brakes as well, but I think nowadays that might be less relevant since pretty any car has them.
If you took the test in the summer time the sliding was simulated by some pretty interesting contraption that had wheels that would just point in whatever direction you where going, and at the instructors command would lift the car of the ground to remove traction. Somewhat like suddenly putting the car in a shopping cart at full speed. It's a lot of fun, when done in a controlled environment!
I wonder if it's possible to retake this test every year or so. As it stands you have to renew the license every ten years, but you never have to take another test once you have it. You just send in a new photo basically. I can tell that I'm most likely a worse driver now than I used to be, at least in some situations, and I don't really keep up with changes in traffic regulations. (Signaling requirements in roundabouts have changed apparently, I had no idea.) Sometimes I think maybe we should have a mandated refresher course every few years, with another slide test refresher as well, just to keep up with things. Modern cars are basically sci-fi space ships now I feel, half the time I wonder if I'd even be able to drive with all the assistive technology that's in there..
Here the ADAC offers a Fahrsicherheitstraining (safe driving training) which includes similar exercises (e.g. evading an obstacle while experiencing aquaplaning).
It's not the recommended practice in Romania, you're supposed to only rely on your side-mirrors and partly on your rear-view mirror without completely turning your head from the direction you're going (i.e. forward).
I'd say that this is the better solution for Bucharest's streets, where there's a much bigger chance of a pedestrian suddenly hopping in front of your car from between two parked cars on the side of the road, and as such it's better for the driver to almost always be attentive at what's in front of the car compared to what's on his/her sides.
I myself failed to do it once, on the test for turning right after crossing through a bicycle lane on my right. Every other maneuver, I checked over my shoulder. Felt bad because I used to commute via bicycle and it was...well, a little ironic that I messed up there of all places.
Agreed, though. The US driving test is pathetic.
However, in California, cars are not supposed to "turn right across another straight-ahead lane to the right", they are supposed to merge safely into the bike lane and turn right from the bike lane, letting any bikes behind pass the car on the left.
Just have the cyclist ride in the right-most lane available for traffic. Then there are no crossing movements to deal with. Cars making a right turn will either be directly ahead of the cyclist or directly behind the cyclist.
In San Francisco, we only did a few turns and that was it. Not even any form of parking or three point turns.
Granted, I should have known better how to work the defrost function in the car.
The problem is that your attention isn't riveted on the mirrors at all times.
If you have been sternly monitoring the mirrors in the previous fraction of a minute, then such a hypothesis does hold.
In road tests, you have to do everything by the book, though.
They want to see that you've developed the habit of checking. The habit will save you that time when your don't-have-to-do-it hypothesis happens to have a flaw.
Well, sure, no one is going to be perfect, but similarly, no one is going to always check over their shoulder.
> In road tests, you have to do everything by the book, though.
Of course. I expect proctors to do things by the book. That's easier and more consistent than trusting each proctor's judgment. My complaints about the test methodology were in jest, but I do think what I did was not in any way unsafe.
Plenty of people do. I do. You make it a habit so it's not something you even think about. Or put another way, it's like brushing your teeth--it's something you do because not doing it makes you uncomfortable. (And as someone who had to develop the habit of brushing as an adult rather than being trained as a young child by attentive parents, I know it's possible to develop such habits belatedly.)
I've found that in modern cars the B pillars are so far forward and wide that the value of the blind spot check is diminished. In my 2018 mid-sized SUV I have to stretch so far to see the blind spot that in heavy freeway traffic I feel like I'm taking my eyes off the road ahead for too far long. So I'm on the fence on the turning the head thing and suspect some day soon pervasive collision avoidance systems will definitively settle the matter, though I'm not sure I'll ever be able to break the habit myself.
But it's definitely a mistake to think that it's not practical to consistently do something as simple as checking your blind spot. It's perhaps one of the few driving tasks that one can reasonably expect to perform with near perfect consistency, even during emergency situations like when you're tempted to veer to avoid a rapidly approaching road hazard.
What I mean is that "check your mirrors" and "look over your shoulder" are equally easy to follow. I didn't look over my shoulder because I had checked my mirrors and was extremely confident there was no car in my blind spot. I still have a rule that I follow all the time.
This is mitigated by what pilots call their "scan" or "flow" (I've heard both terms).
Pilots follow a visual path around the instruments to ensure they refresh their awareness of critical values and system states (airspeed, ascent rate, engine parameters, etc.) at appropriate intervals¹.
I argue that drivers should have a similar flow to maintain constant situational awareness, and side mirrors are a key element in such a pattern.
I also have a pre-drive checklist that I call the "Six Ls" —
Lights (obvi), Locks (obvi) , Levels (fuel, oil press, electrical supply, etc.), Laps (seat belts), Load (cargo secured?), Loud (radio down/pax calm).
/Acey
¹—With automatic alerting in modern planes this arguably is not strictly needed, but pilots start in small, simple planes before moving up the tech stack and it's a good practice at any level.
Pilots don't have the problem of a child jumping into their path from between parked cars.
They can fly blind in a complete fog, by instruments.
In a car, your attention should be mostly toward the front. The rear action deserves attention, but not a lot; just a glance every few seconds.
There are times in driving when what is happening rearward is very important and deserves a lot of attention; it's generally good to keep those to a minimum.
But if you don't check every single time, you will eventually make a mistake and hit another car.
It is the same rationale about never pointing a gun at another person. Even if you are 100% sure that it is not loaded.
I don't really follow that logic. If I check every single that it's necessary to check, by definition that is adequate. Of course I'm not genuinely bothered that the driver test proctor scored me by-the-book, I'm sure that's much easier and more consistent for them and it probably rarely makes a difference between pass or fail. But I also don't think I was driving in any way unsafely in that instance.
Checking is far more reliable.