Now that the DVSA are back to being fully operational with driving tests since the COVID pandemic, they are working at reducing the wait times for driving tests caused by the backlog. As part of this, they have launched a “Ready to Pass?” campaign, details of which can be found here. This campaign is a result of driving test analysis, and the most recent data highlights that under 50% of candidates that took their test in the first three months of 2022 passed (actual number is 47%). This is down by 1% during the same time period in 2021, which is having a direct impact on the ability for DVSA to reduce the backlog. It has been recognised by driving instructors and the DVSA that 1 in 10 people who fail their driving test say the main reason they failed is because they were too nervous.
The DVSA are encouraging test candidates to use mindfulness techniques to help manage anxiety, feel relaxed and stay focused during their driving test. If you’re not sure what this means or how it can help with safe decisions in a car on test, this article will hopefully provide some insight into how to implement mindfulness techniques during your driving test.
In essence, mindfulness is simply being able to pay attention to the present moment, including your thoughts and feelings, to be more aware of yourself and your interaction with the world around you. It involves noticing what is happening around you, right now, on purpose and with curiosity and being aware of yourself in that moment. More details on the NHS website can be found here. On the surface in everyday situations, this is relatively simple to apply – if we’re hungry, we eat, if we’re thirsty, we drink.
The challenge a lot of us face is how do we maintain mindfulness in stressful situations – school/college exams, job interviews, driving test etc. With life-changing events where the outcome determines the next steps we take in life, we naturally feel extra pressure to do well, causing us some stress. In order to make sense of how we react to these stressful situations, it’s important to understand how our brain deals with a stress response and how we can be aware of how this affects our decision making.
With regards to the specifics of a driving test, there are a lot of things being assessed by the DVSA to ensure you can drive safely for life. Therefore, there is a lot of pressure to get things right, and other driving instructors and myself have witnessed test candidates doing things on a test that they have never done during a lesson. When asked why that decision was made, they don’t have a rational explanation for it. An example could be stalling the car when moving off. Logically there are four main reasons why a car will stall when moving off from stationary, these being:
- Not applying enough gas
- Too fast coming off the clutch
- Not being in first gear when moving off
- Not releasing the parking brake if this has been applied
In normal lessons or everyday driving, if the car stalls we would be able to logically figure out what the problem was, fix it and try again. It becomes a very different problem if this happens during a driving test and stress means that logic goes out the window – pupils often give feedback of having no idea what happened or how to fix the problem. A stall on driving test does not result in a fail – it’s just a driving fault for moving off (control). However, the stall could snowball into other things which result in a fail as logic and rational thinking have now gone because of the stall.
The problem for humans is that we are pre-programmed from birth to react to fearful and stressful situations by producing a fight, flight or freeze response. This response is from a part of the brain called the amygdala, located very close to the brain stem, and it’s widely recognised that this is the first brain function we all experience when we’re new-borns. We therefore have very limited control over our initial stress response as the amygdala can be over-stimulated when faced with a perceived threat or a fearful experience. This over-stimulation will send information to other parts of the brain to prepare the body to either get away from the situation, face the situation or clam up – the “flight, fight or freeze” response. Additional details on the function of the amygdala and how over-stimulation affects our thought processes can be found here.
Essentially, a severe stress response happens when the amygdala hijacks our brains and thought processes. If the stress response causes strong feelings of anxiety, anger, aggression, or fear, this can result in illogical and irrational overreactive behaviours to be displayed, and all we’re left with is a fight, flight or sometimes freeze behaviour. In the case of the car stalling, we’ll keep trying the same thing to get the car moving as we don’t want to hold up traffic, or just do nothing as we think it’s all over. The more we try and fix the problem illogically and nothing changes, the more we panic, making the problem worse than it needs to be.
However, if we ignored or over-rode the hijacked stress response and applied logic, we would know that it’s just a stall, why we did this and what we can do to fix the problem. This also applies to anything we could face on our driving test – emergency stop, the reversing manoeuvre, roundabout or something on the test never experienced much before, like an emergency vehicle on a blue light emergency and we’re in the way.
Our mindfulness on the test boils down to what techniques we can use to deal with stressful situations in order to suppress the amygdala hijacking our normal logic and reasoning, often referred to as emotional resilience. There are many ways to practise mindfulness – take some deep breaths, count to 10 etc. This will allow you to regain awareness of yourself and your surroundings and identify what is truly happening to help you regain control. There are many useful resources on the internet regarding mindfulness while driving, and the DVSA have published a blog on mindfulness techniques that can be used during driving lessons and on test. These steps allow your brain’s normal rational and logic processing to take over from the irrational response caused by the amygdala.
It is therefore important for us to understand how we can quickly override the stress response in order to be mindful – knowing directly what is going on inside and outside ourselves, moment by moment in whatever situation we found ourselves in on test. It makes sense that the more private practice and lessons with a driving instructor you have, the better prepared you will be for test; you will have more experience on different road conditions and the type of hazards needed to be faced while driving and how you will react to these. Also, the more mock driving tests you can do with your instructor, the better equipped you will be to understand the stressful conditions of a driving test.
You can then formulate a strategy on how to deal with the stressful situation of a driving test, in order to remain logical and apply reasoning to any given situation. You will also experience how your brain will react to the stressful and fearful experience of a driving test and what triggers might cause the extreme stress response from the amygdala, so these can be managed on the day of your test in order to remain mindful of your thoughts and actions.
