Although our driving instructors at driveJohnson’s will never put you forward for your test unless they’re 100% sure you’re confident and ready, likely you will still make a few mistakes on the day. Your driving test is a big thing, and you have undoubtedly been working hard in the lead up to the big day. You probably feel apprehensive and a bit nervous, which could cause you to make silly mistakes, resulting in driving faults. What matters is how serious the fault is and how many mistakes you make on a driving test.
You are allowed up to 15 minor faults on a driving test. If you get 16, unfortunately that’s a fail.
The DVSA recently published the top 10 reasons for failing your driving test. Have a read so that you can hopefully avoid making these mistakes during your driving test.
How many serious/dangerous faults can you get on the driving test?
Receiving a serious or dangerous fault during your driving test will result in an immediate fail, although you won’t find out until the end of the test. Your examiner is looking to see if you can keep yourself, and others on the road, safe. If you display something during the examination that leads them to believe you could be a danger to yourself or others on the road, they will mark it as a serious or dangerous fault on their marking sheet, and you will fail the test.
An example of a scenario that could result in a serious or dangerous fault would be approaching a roundabout and having incorrect lane positioning. If there were no cars on the roundabout at the time of this happening, you would receive a serious fault; however, if there were other cars on the roundabout when this occurred, it would result in a dangerous fault. The difference between a serious and a dangerous fault is that, in the case of a dangerous fault, the examiner judges that the fault is posing an immediate danger to yourself and/or other road users, so much so that they have to take action by using their dual controls or grabbing the wheel. Either way, in both instances, the outcome would be the same, and you would fail your driving test.
If the examiner is seriously concerned about your driving and believes that it is too dangerous for you to continue with your test, they can stop the test and take over. Although rare, it does happen, and in this case, it’s safe to assume you’ve failed your test.
Can you fail for too many driving faults/minor faults?
You may be unsure of what is classed as a minor fault and what is classed as a serious fault. You may be wondering ‘can I fail my driving test for driving too slowly?’ or ‘can I cross hands during my driving test?’. A minor fault referred to as a driving fault on the test sheet, is a fault that has little or no effect on the safety of yourself or other drivers. If you make a silly mistake, the examiner is interested in seeing how you safely deal with that mistake and rectify the situation. For example, hitting the kerb during the parallel park manoeuvre is not ideal. Still, as long as you can safely readjust and complete the manoeuvre correctly, it would only be classed as a minor fault. In the same scenario, if you were to adjust without checking the mirrors and there was a passing car, this would result in a dangerous fault.
You can fail your driving test for too many driving faults/minor faults. You are allowed up to 15 driving faults on a test, anything more than this will result in a fail. You can also fail your test for having too many faults in one particular element of the marking scheme, for example ‘use of mirrors’. As a general rule, if you exceed more than four minor faults in one area of the marking sheet, it becomes a serious fault, and you will fail the test.
Making mistakes on your driving test
No matter how much you prepare for your driving test, chances are you will make mistakes during your practical test. The important thing to remember is you are only human, and mistakes are a normal part of everyday life. Your driving instructor believes you display the characteristics of a safe and competent driver; otherwise, they wouldn’t have put you forward for the test. So be confident, try not to panic, and do your best. If you do fail your driving test, don’t let it discourage you, it just means you need some more practice. Take it as a positive; you can learn from your mistakes and ace the test next time.
Top Tip by Andy Brown – driving instructor in Oxford
I would always recommend anyone approaching their driving test to have a few mock driving tests.
It’s a great way to understand the difference between minor driving faults and serious/dangerous driving faults.
Many learners don’t realise how easy it is to make a fault which would result in a test fail, so by doing a few mock tests it can be great preparation and often reduce the chances of failing on the big day.
