Brief Summary of the Practical Driving Test Assessment Procedure

When you take to the road the Driving Examiner will be looking to see that you drive with:

• RESPONSIBILITY towards other road users
• CONFIDENCE in driving on you own
• AWARENESS & ANTICIPATION of hazards and dangers
• CONSIDERATION and ATTITUDE to others, especially the vulnerable road users
• Add to this a set of MANOEUVRES

If you can show the Examiner you can control these you will have no difficulty in passing your driving test FIRST time

The Examiner is not looking for a good drive while you are on your practical test, he will be watching for faults with your driving, and will record those faults as they occur. Every departure from a standard of 'Perfect Driving' needs to be assessed on whether the fault is of car control, or road procedure. In assessing the degree of fault the Examiner will first ask themselves the following question as each fault is observed:-

Question

'If this candidate's driving had been perfect up to this point, and this were the only fault made, would this fault be sufficiently serious enough to justify the failure of the Driving Test?'

If the Examiner without doubt or hesitation answers 'NO' to the question then the fault is recorded as a MINOR fault. Minor faults on there own will normally not entail failure, but under the totting up procedure if there are 16 or more minor faults made the driving test will end in failure.

If the answer to the question is 'YES' then he must assess whether it was a SERIOUS or a DANGEROUS fault.

The main difference between these two is that a Dangerous fault is a fault which actually causes another road user to brake, swerve, or take some form of evasive action. A Serious fault is one that might have caused another road user to take action if there had been one present at the time. Just one Serious or Dangerous fault will bring a failure.

If the Examiner is forced to take action either Verbal or Physical he will also mark in the Examiner took action section. This is as well as the failure mark alongside the item that failed the candidate. On average one in eight of all driving tests the Examiner will take some form of action.