Many of my pupils ask "What is the Driving Examiner looking for during the test"?

The answer is - "The same as me"! - if you drive, confidently, have due consideration for other road users and show good car control skills when manoeuvring you will pass. I often tell my pupils "you will know when you're ready for the driving test" - I say this because the examiner is assessing you to see if your're ready to take to the roads by yourself and don't require any assistance in dealing with all the hazards that you'll encounter on the roads. In the early stages of training I'm talking all the time - helping you to cope with what you've yet to learn about; as your training progresses and you learn more I will be passing more responsibility for coping with problems over to you until we reach the point where the only time I speak is to highlight the occasional minor fault or discuss a particular situation that may be new to you. Once you shut me up you're ready for the test!

If you browse around learner driver sites on the net or listen to your friends I'm sure you will have heard many stories about being assessed by grumpy examiners, being taken on a "hard test route", or failing the test because "I was unlucky because .......". In my experience all the examiners I have come across have been scrupulously fair - they don't have quotas to adhere to and they don't want you to fail (but if they do fail you they're doing you a favour because if you're not ready to drive by yourself it's much better to take some more driving lessons to make sure that when you do drive alone you will not be permanently stressed because your skills aren't up to scratch). There is no such thing as a hard test route - if you can drive, you can drive anywhere! And I can show you how to guarantee good luck on your test - go here to see how to be a lucky driver.

You will find it different when the examiner is in the car with you - they are strangers! But if you are well prepared it will make no difference to your performance - 5 minutes after you get started you won't even notice they're sat beside you. When you take driving lessons in Hull with me I'll be preparing you for your assessment drive well before your test - one of the things I'll be saying is "Imagine it's me sat beside you and think of what I would be saying". This can help you to concentrate on the job of driving rather than being distracted by anything else.

But it's nice to know what to expect, what the examiner will be looking for and how the test is marked, so this section will give you an insight into what will happen in your assessment.

All examiners undergo the same training at the same place - they will all say very similar things to you. They may say things slightly differently to the way I or you own instructor would (although the directions they will give you should be the same or very similar), if you don't understand what they're telling you - ask; the examiners are human - they won't mind you asking questions to clarify things although they cannot help you with how to drive during the assessment (if they have to you would fail). Because they've all been taught the same they have certain phrases that they must use and they sometimes can sound a little formal - it's just the way they've been trained! Most examiners will expect you to be nervous (it's natural) - they may well try to put you at ease by talking to you during the drive - I advise my pupils that if they want to talk - fine; but if you need to concentrate on what you're doing just say "I'll just deal with this junction and then I'll answer you" or even ignore them (keep concentraing on what you're doing" - the examiner will NOT be offended, they're probably only doing it for your benefit and if you need all your concentration for driving they'll understand.

When you take your driving assessment your driving examiner will judge you against a perfect drive (you however, are not expected to driver perfectly). Each time you make an error and deviate from that standard they will record on the marking sheet and the examiner has to decide whether it was a minor or major fault. They do this by asking themselves:

'If this candidates 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 answer is no then they will record a minor fault (and you're allowed up to 16 minor faults during the drive). If the answer was yes the error is recorded as a serious or dangerous fault.
One serious or dangerous fault will mean the test being failed - here's why.

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. 

There will be occasions where drivers on the assessment need assistance from the examiner either verbally or physically - if this happens it will also result in a failure - remember the aim is to demonstrate that you can drive without assistance.

All errors and the overall result are written onto the driving test report, we'll look at one and see the sort of errors that will result in a mark being recorded. If you click on any section of the report you'll bring up a window that shows the type of things that are classed as errors - the lists of potential errors looks long but if you look at it carefully you'll see that they are all things that you've been taught to do properly by your driving instructor - the lists of possible errors shows just how much you've learnt since you began taking driving lessons.

Let's look at the driving test report now.