Preparing for your Driving Test. The Thinking Persons Guide!

Any of you who have read previous posts or articles will by now know that we don’t pull punches. Its flavour of the week to blame your ills on anyone but yourself, and this is no less true when you fail the Driving Test.
There are some basic, commonsense, actions that you can take to give yourself a better than average chance of passing first time. Makes Sense? Read On!

(1) Make sure your Car is up to the task by reading (you can do this?) the two pages of notes that come with your Driving Test Appointment. We have written articles and posts on this in great detail, yet Drivers seem to think that this is just Baloney. Try arriving for your Driving Test with worn tyres or a missing brake light or a malfunctioning Electric Window and see what transpires!

(2) Don’t wait till a week or two before your Driving Test before you ring for Lessons. It’s much too late at this stage. If you haven’t done the Test before you will need not only an update on recent developments but a good deal of practise on the routes that the Drive will encompass. Once you have been round the area with a Professional Instructor a few times, you can then go away in your own time and get a feel for the area yourself.

(3) Driving Lessons with a Professional Driving School will be worth the investment (note the absence of the word Expense!).You will not only get the latest Driving Test requirements which continue to evolve( i.e. changes and increases) but you will have all the “Hotspots” pointed out to you so that once again you can practise in your own time. What’s a Hotspot? My take on a hotspot is any place that requires an extra degree of understanding, awareness, and skill. This could be anything from a spot notorious for bad or double parking; a double-blind junction; or a right turn that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy!

(4) Reversing Manoeuvres require a great deal of practise in all sorts of different places, not just favourite Test Route spots, in order to perfect them. If you allocate sufficient time to perfecting these two manoeuvres, you will be giving yourself two extra marks to play around with .You need every available mark in order to cope with the many difficult situations on the Driving Test. Going into the Test with the confident knowledge that whatever else happens, you wont lose marks in your Reversing will give you a head start. Reversing is the one area that you, the Candidate, has complete control of the outcome and usually takes place in a quiet area with not too much traffic to deal with. It’s quite common to complete either of the two reversing manoeuvres moderately well technically and yet lose marks for poor technique or poor observation. Little or no observation will lead to a disqualification. So be warned!

That’s it for today …Get cracking and practise.


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