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Driving Practical Test
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So I'm going for my driving test pretty soon, and I'm crazy old to be learning to drive, so I'm a little nervous. Any interesting experiences? What did you guys fail on, or what general tips can you give? I'm driving a manual transmission.
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What kind of test is it? Maneuverability and going around the block, or something else?
Well, the guy administering it was a bit of a cock, too. That didn't help.
Try to pretend that it's your buddy giving you directions.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I don't know what the rules are in the US or England for manual (in the US if you pass with an automatic you can drive either an automatic or a standard transmission), but when I took my manual driver's test in Japan they insisted that when making turns I take my foot off the clutch, and I couldn't be in anything other than 2nd gear. But, you know, Japan is insane so you probably don't need to worry about that (they also insist you walk around the car and check under it to make sure there aren't any kids hanging out waiting to be killed).
Blinkers are optional.
I am now an excellent driver.
Nervousness can be an issue because you might not hear something from the examiner. I failed my first attempt because I didn't hear the time limit on an exercise and went over. Make sure you're clear on stuff like that.
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I hella should have appealed it, though.
The facility does make a differnce, and busy city ones are gennerally going to have crabbier people working there. I took mine in a far northern suburb, and the worse manuvier I had to do was a 3-point turn in an empty side street.
Just practice as much as you can, review all the signs, especcialy where you have to stop - white line -> before curb, and what to do at uncontrolled intersections - right driver goes first (like boats).
Mirror checks every couple of seconds, speed checks at obvious intervals and most importantly blind-spot tests when changing lanes, pulling away from junctions (cyclist check), pulling away from a standing start, before manevours, during manevours and after pulling away from manevours. And make it really obvious that that's what you're doing. I got into the habit of just glancing with my eyes to make mirror checks, and got a minor for "mirror use" because I wasn't moving my head around to check and making it obvious.
As long as you don't do anything stupid it's fairly hard to fail. By now gear use should be second-nature, so you shouldn't have to worry about that, and as long as you treat it like it's just another driving lesson you'll be fine.
I know for the entire length of my driving test I had my instructor in my head repeating his sayings "less space, less speed," "has a cyclist pulled up" "what are you doing you idiot that was a child."
I failed a few times for being too nervous and a few more times for minor mistakes.
You have it a lot easier, just pretend you're calm and that you're looking out of the mirrors and windows and you'll be fine.
But it's like anything. If you're confident in your abilities you can just relax and treat it like any other lesson.
Or maybe that's just how I could do it because my instructor treated every lesson after the first as a test..
Remember that they do not give marks for what you do right, they only mark you down for what you do wrong. I think perhaps my situation helped me at the time, since I spent most of the 45 minutes at a standstill, and distracted the examiner with chatter.
Proctor made me fail once because I was hesitating too much another one made me fail because I didn't look through the mirror clear enough (that was the first time, I was pissed! It was a really sunny day, so I was wearing sunglasses because my instructor always told me that that is the responsible thing to do and wouldn't let me drive if I didn't have them on me. Then the examinator tells me she had the feeling that I wasn't looking around good enough. Nevermind that I didn't cause any dangerous situations or crashed into anything or whatever. GRAH)
When you turn onto a street make sure you look both ways - both while you are stopped, and then right as you start to accelerate through into the turn. Easy on the brakes, don't jam them to a screeching halt. If you have to, ride the breaks down a hill or whenever to stay on speed limit and for a nice smooth stop when needed.
Though right on red is true, double check any crossings for a "NO RIGHT ON RED" sign. I've accidently missed those sometimes - and though its not too big of a deal in real life I've found, the testers are pretty strict about it.
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EDIT: Oh wait, I forgot to add, I think most of the life or death speech came because I was going 12 in the parking lot and the speed limit was 10 mph, or something like that. Jeez.
No, I know this, I do it all the time... but the guy was bitchy because I looked forward for a second to the mirror. Small mistake. My bad. But he didn't need to give me such a morbid speech.
Things I remember from my own driving test:
Don't rev hard, at all. They'll fuck you over if they think you're racing the engine. You shouldn't even be fully engaging the clutch in first before you change up.
Don't speed. By which I mean, you cannot allow the speedo to read higher than the speed limit. You need to be as close as possible to it though (provided there isn't a reason for you to be travelling more slowly) or you'll pick up minors for "not making progress."
Failing to check you're blind spot is an insta-fail. I can't remember the situations in which you're supposed to do it, so if in doubt, glance over your shoulder.
Mirrors. You must move your head when you check your mirrors, or they won't notice.
If you're stationary and not about to immediately move off again, you must engage the handbrake. By itself it's not a major error (it is a minor though), but there are certain circumstances in which it can become one., like if a pedestrian walks in front of your stationary vehicle.
This page has a list of all the instant fail errors that the tester will be watching for (the rest of the site looks pretty useful as well). Don't try to remember them all, because there are too many. Instead, have a skim through and look for any that you do when your driving, and remember those.
Lastly, and I don't know if this is still true, but it used to be the case that test centres had to fail a certain percentage of the driving tests they did in a month, which meant that sometimes, close to the end of the month, you could be sitting in a car with an examiner looking for a reason to fail you. Try to take the test at the beginning of the month, if possible.
Right on red varies by state and city. In all cases that you can turn right on red treat it as it were a stop sign(full stop before you turn)
My instructor is also and examiner, and he said this is a myth. They now get all of their results checked, and if they're passing excessively or failing excessively they'll be audited, but that's it.
Thanks for the help everyone, keep it up, it's all helping.
I said I couldn't until she was in the car. She nodded and we got in and I buckled my seatbelt. ALSO MAKE SURE THE OTHER PERSON BUCKLES UP. She didn't buckle up and I had to tell her to, and if I didn't she'd have failed me. Anyways, at the end of the driving test she said I did well. She also told me she would've failed me if I moved the car up, which she counted as driving alone without a license, or didn't tell her to buckle up. Be mindful of that, but I'm sure you won't get one as sadistic as the one I got.