General Discussion

Oooh, good luck!! My first road test is this upcoming Monday.

@Raskies

Ah, that makes sense.

If you're prepared I'm sure you'll be fine. Instructors want to pass you, not fail you and generally they're usually nice people, more or less. I actually failed twice and got it on my third try but I didn't get my license until my late twenties, 27 to be exact.

The first time in college(undergrad) during summer vacation, I had to go on the highway and turned left at the end of the highway exit instead of right like the instructor requested which was an automatic fail. The second time I didn't back up in a straight enough line along a curb in a residential area which was also an automatic fail.

Some instructors are pretty lenient, and others will mark you down for every little thing. If you know the tester, it's easier to know just how strict you have to be.

Make checking your side and rear view mirrors VERY obvious. Clearly twist your head to look at your mirrors. Strict testers can mark you down for not checking even if you did, because they didn't notice. Make sure the motion is obvious and clear. You can even mutter "checking mirrors" to yourself.

When I took my test, I was showed all the routes and all the traps set up by my instructors who were very nice, so I could prepare myself. Try familiarise yourself with the route if there is a fixed one.

Use your signal, and don't forget to turn it off when you don't need it on. This is something I forgot very often and I got marked down for it in my practice runs so I didn't forget on my test date. Yes, you can get marked down for not turning off your signal.

If you adjust the mirrors to do parking, don't forget to readjust them back up. It's easy to forget these.

If you're tested on emergency braking, know what the signal is for you to emergency brake. My signal was the tester tapping on the dashboard. And if you drive a manual, don't forget to shift to first gear when you stop. You won't be penalized if you shift to neutral in an emergency brake, but first gear makes it easier for you to move off again.

If you're driving out in public, you might get honked at by other drivers. Try not to think about it too much, you'll just upset yourself and trip up. Remember that a lot of experienced drivers HATE learners and get frustrated easily. They also can and will bully you by tailgating. Ignore it. I've experienced both ends of this, I've been honked at and shown the middle finger while I was learning and I have gotten annoyed at learners who move too damn slow.

Don't think about the tester next to you. If you think about them you will worry too much. Just drive normally - you're already a driver, you already have your license, and this is just you driving out normally.

Good luck! All this is coming from someone who practiced and tested in a manual but drives automatic now.

Edit: Ooh, forgot automatic fails. You will be automatically failed (here at least) for:

- Mounting the curb
- Not checking blind spots
- High speed/Really abrupt lane changing. You will get marked down for a small but sudden lane change, but if it's really sudden and the car jerks you can get failed automatically.
- Going off course
- Not stopping at a stop sign. (Yes, I know, most experienced drivers kinda ignore this. I'm guilty, I just slow down and check then go unless there's traffic, but you MUST stop, even if there's no one.)
- Running red lights. It's hard to judge when a light is gonna go from green to amber but if there's a pedestrian crossing next to it, usually the light has a number on it. Use that to judge if you can clear the light or if you should stop.

If you have an indoor circuit test followed by going out onto public roads, a lot of people consider circuit harder because the lanes are super tight.

Familiarise yourself with the size of your car. If you're testing in a different car than the one you learned with, figure out the model of the car you're gonna test in and compare the size to the one you practiced in. Figuring out the size will help you adjust your perception of space. I even used this trick to figure out how to judge where I am in the lane with my current car (Honda City to Hyundai i30). This trick really does apply beyond your test.

The driving/road part was really easy, at least for me. I got a bit nervous because of the instructor in the car with me, so my advice would be to try to relax as much as you can and not overthink things.
As far as the parallel parking part... I failed that a few times before I got my license XD For mine, they had a series of cones set up and I had to drive through and back up without knocking them over or even touching them. I was driving in my mom's SUV, and it was impossible to maneuver that thing through the cones without touching them :P So I guess my advice would be to drive a smaller car for the parallel parking part, it'll make a huge difference, I promise. Good luck with your test!!

I did my final (only) test in a hailstorm lol, i didn’t want to cancel since I’d already paid and the instructor only came to town every couple of months.
I might have been a bit too relaxed admittedly which led to a few slip ups, and him dropping a few hints in conversation that we WERE still in a driving test. Luckily he was a bit lenient as I maybe would not have passed otherwise, having sped in a place and also ran a stop sign oh dear. He did say he wiped a few strikes off thanks to the hail and that my car has no power steering .. (maybe my good looks as well?)
Best of luck, though, even if a bit late hehe

We did driving tests in pairs. The boy that was with me failed his test and I felt really bad for him. I only lost a couple points "speeding"(part of the test was driving down one of the biggest hills in town and you couldn't go even 1mph over the speed limit so everyone loses points there) and I didn't make one of my left turns square enough. I passed and thought it was pretty easy.

Edit: my test did not require parallel parking, but it did include an emergency stop on a busy highway

Thank you guys for all the advice! It's in an hour so I guess I'll report back later.

Also @Spottedleaf125 Good luck! Hope you do well!

So I forgot to watch a required educational video beforehand, so I have to do that and reschedule.

I literally almost ran a red light (would have run it if the instructor hadn't slammed their breaks) and I still passed. And I live in a city, so that kind of thing is really dangerous. Lmao you'll be fine

I failed lmao. I backed into one of the parallel parking cones when I was getting out of the spot (after a perfect parallel park """:)

Gonna retake it on monday