Five Critical Errors That Will Cause You to Fail Your Practical Driving Test – and How To Avoid Them

The rules of the road can be confusing, even for those who have been driving for many years. But for someone who’s about to sit their practical driving test, knowing the rules are essential if you want drive away with your licence in your pocket.

So to help you on your way, we’ve put together a guide on five critical errors and the key to avoiding them when sitting that all important driving test.

Practical Driving Test Fail #1: Getting Stuck in an Intersection When Turning Right on a Green Light

This is a tricky one for inexperienced players, however, even the most seasoned drivers often don’t know how to deal with this one. When approaching an intersection controlled by traffic lights and turning right, we are often faced with a plain green light (i.e. no turn arrow).

The first vehicle arriving at this light must move into the intersection. Move past the stop line and commit yourself to the intersection. If a gap presents itself, then you may move through the intersection. If no gap appears and the light turns amber, the car already in the intersection must clear it on an amber or even red light.

Failure to clear the intersection will result in a critical driving error (CDE). It’s a simple process, but its amazing how many times learner drivers fail their test this way. Nerves can do funny things to people in a stressful situation such as a practical driving test. It is important to practice this in driving lessons and apply it during the test.

Practical Driving Test Fail #2: Rolling Through a Stop Sign

When approaching a STOP sign with a solid white STOP line, the vehicle must be brought to a complete STOP, with the whole vehicle behind the STOP line. See what I did there? I used the word ‘STOP’ four times to emphasise the fact that you have to STOP at a STOP sign.

Are you catching my drift here? Saying to the driving examiner in your practical driving test “but I thought I did stop” or “but there were no cars coming” is not going to make them any happier.

The tip is to mentally register the stop sign but don’t look for other traffic until you actually stop. Look to the left, look to the right and double check before moving off. This process usually takes two or three seconds, which is the recommended time for a stop.

Practical Driving Test Fail #3: Cutting Off The Corner On a Right Turn

Turning right against oncoming traffic has always been a good test of a drivers’ ability. However, besides this judgment issue, many learner drivers struggle to get the road positioning correct – especially with the added pressure of achieving it in a practical driving test.

Firstly, there is the positioning before the turn; bringing the car as close to the centre line for a right turn is essential. This then leaves room for other drivers to overtake to the left of the turning car.

If the road is unmarked (that is, has no centre line) learners often find it more difficult to get the position correct. Too far to the left and they block traffic, and too far to the right and they are partially on the wrong side of the road.

Having more than half the car on the wrong side is considered a critical error. Cutting the centre line on the side road is also an error, with more than half the car over being a critical error and therefore a driving test fail for road positioning.

Practical Driving Test Fail #4: Speeding Down a Hill In a 50kph Zone

Speed – it was a great movie with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock but not something that is tolerated in your practical driving test. Zero tolerance in fact.

This is for good reason as “Speed kills” as we all know. We all complain about the police putting speed cameras at the bottom of a hill and I have heard many complaints from learner drivers on their driving test, who have failed for speeding down a hill. Now remember that even small increase in speed lengthens our stopping distance, and after all: rules are rules. Even if you don’t accelerate down a hill, your momentum will pick up on a steep grade and before you can say… “5 Ks over”, you have failed your practical driving test.

So be prepared to use your brake down a hill, and use the gears in a manual car to slow yourself to an acceptable speed. You would also be surprised to hear about the number of experienced drivers who don’t know, (and therefore never use) the lower gears in an automatic car.

Practical Driving Test Fail #5: Not merging correctly onto a freeway

The freeway on the other hand is where you need to use speed. This is important, and many people struggle not just in their practical driving test, but in real life too. The aim when merging, should always be to match the speed of the cars already on the freeway. So this means, if the freeway is busy and everyone is only doing 30kph, the entering traffic should also be doing 30kph.

When the freeway is doing exactly that… running freely, build your speed up as you proceed up the ramp. An early indicator is a good idea, so that you arrive at the merge with an indicator flashing in the face of those you wish to merge with. Although there is nowhere else to go, they then fully comprehend the fact that you wish (if its’s not too much trouble) to merge with them. Remember it is also the obligation of those already on the freeway “adjust their speed to permit the safe entry of merging traffic”.

So the person making their way on to the freeway must build their speed, shoulder check for the blind spot, use the mirrors to find their gap, adjust their speed to suit the gap presenting itself, and have one more shoulder check before blending in to the traffic. Remember, no sharp turning, braking only if it’s absolutely necessary and most of all…. HOLD YOUR NERVE.

The judgment of this skill is subjective and has been the cause of heated discussions at the driving test debriefing. Failing your practical driving test for not obtaining the correct merging speed can only be the result if you affect another driver with your ineptitude. If there are no other drivers affected by your poor merging technique it will only be a minor error.

As stated above, checking your blind spot is a big part of merging correctly. If you haven’t yet fit a blind spot mirror on your car, pick one up at your nearest car accessory dealer and follow the instructions in the video below:

 

 

So, here’s my list of five critical errors that will cause you to fail your practical driving test, and how to avoid them. Of course, there is a lot more to it than this; but these are the most common ways to fail your driving test.

I believe that to pass your test, you also need to know what it takes to fail. I have witnessed all of these errors many times in the past 17 years as a driving instructor. I regularly tell these stories about failed driving tests so that my students can learn from the misery of others.

I don’t want it to sound as if we have lots of failures, because we don’t. In fact, we have something like a 90 percent pass rate as compared to the average of about 60 percent state wide. If you want to “learn the right way” and pass your practical driving test first go, call me on 0418772498 to find out about our driving lessons.

Best of luck, Glenn.