Pass Vs Grade

I read a strange idea today, grading the driving test. Would that be in a pass plus way, or a what mood is the examiner in kind of way or would that be strict rules because the insurance premium depends on it.  It is a fact that those who score the least driver faults on their marking sheet are the ones who are most likely to take a Pass Plus course and the ones who are least likely to have an accident.

Matthew Hancock obviously isn't au fait with the discussions that have gone before, otherwise he would know this has been mentioned, many times in the UK amongst insurance companies and driving associations. In theory it's a good idea, but in practice surely it would be considered to be discriminatory, we have just seen female drivers, the safest group, have their premiums hiked up to the male equivalent because of unfair discrimination, so surely this would be the same.  An insurance broker never asks an ADI their grade yet the ADI with the higher grade is less likely to have an accident during a lesson or on their own.

Of course the insurance companies want to offer better premiums to the group considered to be more able as drivers, protecting their huge profit margins along the way, when did you last meet a poor insurance broker? However this would be so difficult to introduce into our already changing system, each examiner marks a test in a different way, there is no consistency, one examiner can mark two tests with different standards, after all they are only human.

Because each examiner has their own style they become known by the instructors just as well as instructors become known to the examiner, in particular the box tickers, some just have an over eager pen, where others only commit pen to paper when deemed completely necessary.  In the industry we know this, but would we be so tolerant of this if the system changed, would the pupil be so tolerant of it?

It is of course quite amusing that a minister, for skills, which must be the all encompassing role that covers road safety since that position was removed, is looking at grading a driving test when the DVSA are looking to remove grading and replacing with the simple pass or fail, which the majority seemed to favour.

Could your pupils be more prepared on test day, will this make any difference to the nerves some suffer under test conditions, or are we going to slip into the other proposal of testing in simulated conditions.