Having had kids go through driver training just a few years ago, I found that the education and testing was more rules based than skills based, and almost seems geared to “we will fail you a few times to collect fees” rather than “we will teach you how to drive well”.
My daughter did 4 tests, got three automatic fails for technical violations, including two situations where she got different instructions for the same maneuver, and was told she was wrong both times for doing what they told her. Last test she was on Chief Peguis and told to take the exit lane. She paused and the instructor (who had failed her once before) said “if you don’t get over as soon as the lane opens up, I will automatically fail you”. She said “I have to wait” and the instructor was going to fail her when a car roared by them on the shoulder, passing illegally on the right. My daughter had checked her mirrors and seen it coming. so she waited to avoid getting rear-ended. She passed (barely, said the instructor to me). Mentioned the incident and I snapped back “if the driver’s actions prevent the instructor from causing an accident with an improper instruction and no shoulder check from the passenger’s seat, maybe that should qualify as an automatic pass. Now, if it was an MPI training vehicle rather than her personal car, I would gladly have told her to follow your dangerous instructions and wreck your car”. No more critiques from the instructor after that.
When my son tested later, he had a similar experience of automatic fails for minor flaws, so we hired a private instructor to train him for his final test and they drove him around the area where the test was going to happen, near Bison Drive. Took him to a weird school zone stop sign where there was a crosswalk beyond the stop sign and you had to stop twice before proceeding through the intersection. The instructor said “The instructors love to take students here and then fail them because no one really knows what to do in this zone, it’s badly designed”. He passed the test and when he did the right maneuver at that tricky spot the instructor later said “I was waiting to see if you were going to fail in that place”.
I would much prefer a training system that teaches you to be a good driver rather than an obedient driver - the former is more valuable in promoting safety.