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Topic: All your great driving test tips...  (Read 1531 times)

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All your great driving test tips...
« on: July 29, 2014, 04:40:03 PM »
Hi everyone,

I just passed my theory test this past weekend (yay!!) and it got me thinking that I wanted to share the little tips I had that helped me pass without worry (well...with little worry).  Then I thought, there may be others that have great tips too, tips that will help make getting a UK license that much easier, it is hard enough as it is!

Please share any tips for the driving theory and practical tests that you have learned throughout your driving journey.  (Heck you can share any worries as well!)

I am excited to learn more as I am starting to prepare for the practical test.

Ok I'll start...

For the theory I read through the Highway Code - of course - but what really helped me were two android apps, (I am sure there are similar ones from the same developer for iphone).  The first one is Driving Test Success Theory Test 2014 by Focus Multimedia, it costs less than 2 (GBP) and the other is Hazard Perception Pro by Deep River Development Ltd, again about the same price as the other app. 

The Hazard Perception was especially helpful as I didn't know anything about this portion of the test.  There are 33 videos that give you plenty of practice and detailed instructions that help explain it all. 

 ;D ;D


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Re: All your great driving test tips...
« Reply #1 on: July 29, 2014, 05:44:36 PM »
I passed the theory test and then kept avoiding the practical test- so long of avoiding I went past my year here and couldn't drive for awhile. In the end I booked a 2 day intensive driving course in blackpool where you stay there go out all day for two days and then take your test- it was a lifesaver for me. Just got it all over and done with in one go! One tip the instructor said was to move the mirror a bit so I couldn't glance to just see out it-- inexperienced drivers are very obvious when they check mirrors where experience drivers do it casually and sometimes fail for mirror checks on the tests, by moving the mirror it becomes obvious when you check.


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Re: All your great driving test tips...
« Reply #2 on: July 30, 2014, 12:41:21 PM »
For me, the biggest obstacle was to just relax and drive, like a normal person who's been driving every day for half my life.  My first 'lesson' with a (very young, fairly new) local instructor was a damned nightmare;  I was in tears within 20 minutes.  He had me so nervous, and confused, and irritated that I was convinced I'd never pass the exam and would just have to leave the country.  I waited until about the last minute before I booked the test, and found a very experienced, relaxed instructor to give me about 10 hours of intensive lessons for a few days before.  He told me that about 80% of the things the other guy had me so worried about, didn't actually matter-- I wasn't going to fail if I didn't move my hand immediately from the gear shift to the steering wheel, or  if I signalled even though there was no other traffic.  That helped a lot.


In my case, I also found it helpful to talk during the exam-- not, like, unloading my life story on the examiner.  Just the typical (if heavily 'edited for TV') running commentary I usually make while driving.  If nothing else, it broke the tension and made me feel less nervous-- this was just another passenger, not a merciless automaton hell-bent on finding reasons to fail me. 

And while I certainly can't prove it, I think it may have helped in the test itself, because the examiner saw that I was aware of other traffic ('what's that guy doing?'), and in a couple of cases, that I was acknowledging an error or something that didn't go well (i.e. when I missed the first turn on the round-about, 30 seconds into the test, and said 'well, we'll just take the scenic route' as I continued around), and was dealing with it safely, rather than panicking about it.  I suppose that, if it had any effect at all, a different examiner might have taken it differently, so YMMV.


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Re: All your great driving test tips...
« Reply #3 on: September 23, 2014, 10:40:22 PM »
I started driving when I first got here, then didn't start to take lessons until right before I needed to take the test.  I think getting comfortable driving on my own, without an instructor was a huge help.

 I used the lessons to learn what they were looking for on the test - but honestly a lot of it felt like "un-learning" to drive. Just for example, the instructor kept trying to teach me to turn the wheel a certain number of degrees when doing parallel parking and I just couldn't get it - however, I can parallel park just fine without using whatever weird trick he was trying to teach me. I think a lot of instructors aren't quite sure how to teach someone who already knows how to drive.

I also downloaded some test routes to my sat-nav and would drive around them on my own.  It helped me get familiar with my town and the types of roads i'd be seeing on the test. The route the day of the test was all on places i'd been before on the sample routes.

http://www.drivingtesttips.biz/driving-test-routes-sat-nav.html


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