I booked my Class 5 Advanced road test by calling in Registry at Marda Loop and it was smooth and quick. 'Muhammad' (#03749) was the examiner. About half way through the test, we were in a residential area. I saw 2 kids chasing each other right at the verge of the curb which obviously was a hazard so I stopped at the T intersection. After it's safe to proceed, he asked me 'why did you stop, did you see the Stop sign on the side road?' I said I did. Before I could say anything more about the 2 kids, he cut me off saying it wasn't my stop sign and I shouldn't have stopped. I tried to explain what happened but he insisted I misread the stop sign. When the full test hour was up, he told me I failed because I 'obstructed traffic'. Then he said 'you can do the test again tomorrow. You wanna do it tomorrow?'.
On the test score sheet, he deducted 30 point for the situation above and 5 points for signalling late; the failing threshold is 75.
Among questions I don't have answers for are:
1. 'Proceeding' is more important than kids' safety?
2. How would it constitute 'obstructing traffic' if there was no car behind?
3. If I had 'failed' as he claimed, why didn't he stop the test on the spot? There would have been no point of continuing;
4. Does a day make the whole difference between pass and fail (he asked me to re-take the test the next day)? The only difference I can see is I will pay him another $141 fee.
I went to this registry because of its 'good' online reviews and naively thought that would imply decent service standards. So I even shrugged off the fact my friend had another bad experience there last year because 'he had a different examiner'. Who would have thought this registry is consistently plagued by rude, low/no class, money grabbing examiners (the clerk who made the reservation for me said 'he's the nicer one (of the 2)'.
Also a tip for other road test takers - book through http://www.albertadriverexaminer.ca; you get to choose a specific registry and schedule a time convenient to you, even cheaper $114 vs. $141 at Marda Loop.