Monday, October 4, 2010

GOING OUT WITH A BANG!

Ok, so I’m doing a vehicle check on the next driver to test. I’m also watching another vehicle going through the course. (doing their parallel parking and backing in) There is another examiner in that vehicle, a Ford truck. I’m thinking to myself……..the truck is not doing well. He has probably eaten up all his points for the parallel parking and for the backing in. He has knocked over cones in the parallel parking and I didn’t recall blinkers from where I stood. Same thing with the backing in. Then I saw the vehicle move to the other side where the “Quick Stop or Emergency Stop” as well as the “straight line backing” is to take place. When I heard tires skidding, I knew the person could not have passed the maneuvering to get out onto the road.
WOW! To my amazement the examiner was taking them out on the road. They left the parking lot.

I took my person to test up to the course.
This person did not pass the maneuvering section so we parked the vehicle.

I moved on to the next. While I was doing vehicle checks on the next person in line, I saw the truck come back into the parking lot. I thought “well, ok, from where I stood maybe I was wrong, I wasn’t in the vehicle.” The last maneuver of the test is to park the vehicle. The Ford truck at this time was to pull into a parking space and ~*BAMM*~… he hit the back end of the vehicle that was already parked in the space.
(did he not see the SUV parked there? Did he miss judge the turn? ) Strange……What a way to end your road test! Going out with a Bang!
I walked over to see if everyone was ok and as I did I was calling the police department on my cell phone. The examiner said “she and the young man were ok”. I handed her my cell phone to advise the police what happened. I went to find the owner of the SUV.

When I walked back into the building, I loudly announced “Anyone own a Blue SUV parked in the road test area?” A young girl in line raised her hand and started to walk toward me. I immediately put my hand up to stop her so she would not loose her place in line and said “no no, stay there.” I walked up to her and said “I’m sorry to inform you, that you have been in an accident.” She said “but I haven’t even taken the test yet.” I informed her about what had happened outside and asked where the owner of the car was. She waived her mother over. I told the girl to stay in line to be processed for testing. I put my arm around the mother’s shoulder and advised her that “her vehicle had been in an accident”. The mother and I went outside. By this time the police were there and giving information to the examiner, the father and the son of the ford truck. The father kept asking “when can he test again? How soon can he come back?” I said I think you have bigger problems here to deal with right now.

After the police left, the son got back in the truck to move it to the next space over. When he got out of the truck, he had not put the vehicle in park. The truck rolled forward and proceeded to go up the curb. The father jumped in, hit the brake and put it in park. When he came out of the vehicle, he again asked “when can he come back to retest?” I just stood there and shook my head.

4 comments:

John Beauregard said...

Doesn't Georgia have a teen age driver education course requirement? Maybe you should have recommended a driving school to that father.

cheryl said...

Yes they do. The driver has to complete 40 hours of driving practice and 6 hours at night. They must also complete a class called Alcohol Drug Prevention Program. When they are over 18 they do not have to have any of this. They can come in and take the written test (if they pass) they can also take the driving test in the same day. (called full testing) I don't like it. I think they should still have to have some sort of practice.

Marcel said...

And you have to get in the car with these people.

cheryl said...

Scary...........huh?

I should get something like hazardous duty pay.