Agony of Defeat (Take 4)

Sept. 3, 2019 - 4th time, different proctor, but alas same result. Fail. I missed on a few left turns of turning my head far enough back to be considered as eliminating my blind spot.  So I am improving on my accentuating the look back.  I went through the S-curve and the crank without incidents this time.  It was my best drive yet but the drive was marred by other vehicles on the road.  Not sure if I got dinked on how I reacted.  First when I was about get onto the course itself, the lane I was going to merge into had a vehicle coming, so I had to stop.  My turn signal automatically stopped so I had to signal right again.  I waited until that vehicle went past and then I merged onto the course after looking right and left and right.  Then I proceeded to the first intersection.  Prior times I always get the red light, which I would stop on the left most lane (it is a 4 lane road, 2 each direction).  When the light turns green, I would signal right and then switch to right lane as I am going through the intersection to prepare to turn right just 50 meters ahead.  This is the way it was demonstrated on the video I watched going through that exact intersection.  In America, I think it is frowned upon to switch lanes within the intersection, perhaps even illegal.  Anyway, this time the light is already green and stayed green as I pulled into the intersection.  Then I did what I had done in the scenario where I had stopped at the intersection, signalled right, and changed to the right lane.  I have no idea if that was OK or not.  The proctor didn't say anything about that maneuver so maybe it was OK. 

Then a little bit later, I had to go through a blind corner where they have 8 ft. tall walls constructed on purpose so you can't see oncoming traffic, so you have crawl out to the intersection and you have to look at least 3 times right & left.  I did my 3 times right & left just like my prior attempts but this time, after my last right & left, as I creeped out to the intersection, I saw a vehicle coming on the far lane perpendicular to me.  You can't see the car until you clear those walls.  Once I saw the car, I stopped because the other car has the right of way (it being on the priority road 4 lanes vs. my 2 lane road), but now I am stuck, a little bit jutted out in the intersection.  Of course there really is no other cars coming, being on a test course.  I probably could have stayed in the intersection but I was told to imagine that are other traffic on the course, along with imagining pedestrians and bicyclers.  So I backed out of the intersection.  Again I don't know if that maneuver was OK with the proctor.  He never said anything about it at the end.

All he said was I missed some left turn blindspots, that I need to be closer to the left edge on left turns so that the car effectively blocks potential bikers from trying to squeeze by me on the left.  I am already within 50 cm from the edge.  It seems to me why should I care bikers sneak up on my left anyway.  I am told to look left backwards already to check my blindspot to look for bikers.  If I see them on my left, I am supposed to let them have the right of way.  If I creep closer to the edge, to me that's overkill (and when I practiced that in real live driving, one intersection scared the living daylight out of Sister Lee as I had to pass by this post, which she thought I was going to hit.)  Well, the test is a test to see if I will obey Japanese traffic rules.  It is not a test of your driving abilities, so I'll have to get closer to the edge on the next test if I want to pass.  Also apparently I didn't go the proper speed through the turns.  He didn't divulge what speed I should be going, so I don't know if I went too fast or too slow.  I followed my instinct to drive the speed that I was comfortable with and yet remain in control of the car and curve.  I suspect I need to go slower because from the literature I read, it says on left turns, go at a crawl.  I guess that's because of potential pedestrians / bikers getting in the way of the turn, so you need to be slow to be able to stop on a dime if need be.

Well, next attempt will be some time next week.