Someone asked on a learner forum what to expect on the driving test. Along the way, another person asked::
Is it unlikely to have the same examiner twice?
They got the answer:
No, I had the same one three times.
At my two test centres, there are around 8-10 examiners working at each. That means you’ve got as high as a 1 in 10 chance of getting the same instructor twice. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times it has happened, even with pupils who have taken more than 2 tests. It depends on where you are, and what day of the week it is (weekends, only one or two examiners might be working).
Then there is the comment:
You pull out of the test centre, either doing a bay park then or driving for about 10 mins before doing a reverse park, three point turn or reverse round the corner, drive for another ten mins then do independent driving
Not everyone has a test centre you can “pull out of” (one of ours, for example), which means that a bay park is probably not even on the agenda. Even if it is, there is a 50:50 chance the bay park manoeuvre will be done at the end of the test. And if that’s the manoeuvre you’re going to do, you won’t have to do any of the others – except maybe the emergency stop, which is separate and is carried out on a third of all tests. Again, it depends on where you are.
Someone else asks:
How many times do they ask you to pull over?
One reply says that they were asked three times. But for the record, I once had a pupil who was asked to pull over at least 10 times – the examiner explained at the end that it was a near perfect drive, but he just wasn’t checking his blind spots on moving away. He’d given him a lifeline by keep pulling over, but he didn’t cotton on to it, so he failed. On the way back the pupil said:
I couldn’t figure out what was going on. He just kept pulling me over!
I could have killed him. On his previous tests he had not had a single fault for this – on this one he just went nuts. Yet again, there is no set answer: it just depends.
But the best comment so far has to be:
Just check your mirrors like every 2 seconds and check EVERYWHERE before you pull out/do manouvers. I passed before the new rules came into play so i’m not sure what exactly happened, but as for the show me tell me questions, your allowed to write on the parts of the engine what they are (i.e brake fluid, screen wash) and apparently its not cheating. There is a full list of the questions they will ask you online, here’s the one I used: [link removed]
DON’T check your mirrors “like” every 2 seconds. You’ll spend more time looking behind than at what is happening in front.
DON’T write anything under the engine (unless you want them to think you’re a prat from the start). Strange as it may seem, the parts you need to remember have little pictures on them which can take the place of words if you learn what they mean! There are other tell-tale signs:
- the windscreen washer reservoir has a picture of a windscreen with squirting water on it
- the engine coolant/radiator fluid reservoir has a hot water symbol on it, and pipes lead to it from the radiator at the front of the car
- the brake fluid reservoir has a normal brake symbol on it
- the oil dipstick looks exactly how you expect one to look, and has a ring on the end so you can pull it out
It varies a little from car to car, but not by much. And the other thing to remember is that the test marking sheet has around 50+ tickable items on it. The show-me-tell-me questions are peanuts compared to the rest of it (you only get one fault if you get both of them wrong – though doing so will still make you look like you don’t know what you’re doing), so just learn them and concentrate on driving. Don’t make it harder than it needs to be.
I also shake my head sometimes at answers like this, which strongly suggest the author didn’t have a clue going in. Because the answer is rather simple…
If you want accurate information about the driving test, get it from the DSA – not people who think what happens to them is the only possible way. And your theory test material and driving instructor should cover the questions so they don’t come as a big surprise.