One of the main reasons for failing a driving test surprisingly isn’t due to your skill of driving. It’s often due to your mind-set on the day of a driving test and how this affects the application of your driving skills under test conditions. Hopefully this article will provide some techniques that will help you maintain a positive mind-set and focus leading up to and during your driving test.
The secret to any success is preparation – fail to prepare, then prepare to fail, which is especially true for your driving test. Remember the 6 Ps: Proper Preparation and Planning Prevents Poor Performance. Your instructor would have provided instruction on all the competencies that you could be tested on during your test, so you will be well prepared at a skill level. If you worked well with your instructor, they wouldn’t have suggested booking your test unless they knew you were ready anyway, so take confidence from that.
For 40 minutes, you have to prove you can do the following in front of an examiner:
- Make safe decisions
- Manage risk from hazards
- Staying in control of your vehicle
- Making progress where appropriate
The best way of dealing with this is to treat your driving test with an examiner as a driving lesson, just with a different instructor. The instructions provided by the examiner will be the same as your instructor provides, so you will know what type of instructions to expect. Here you can find examples of how the examiner may word questions to you.
Naturally, you will be nervous for the first few minutes of your test, and there is a separate article on calming nerves available here. Once you are focussed and concentrating, it will probably feel more like you are on a driving lesson anyway. Once you get into your groove of driving, the 40 minutes will fly by and you’ll be finished before you know it.
One common and proven technique for success is to create a mental picture of success and what that looks like ie. pulling off a fantastic reverse bay park or smashing lane discipline, and ultimately passing your driving test. In the few days before your test, focus on all the things you can do with the new-found freedom of gaining your licence. This will help visualise the moment of, “Congratulations, I’m pleased to inform you you’ve passed your driving test”. Verbal affirmations can also help – whatever works for you – utilise this fully. Whatever you do, focus on success rather than failure – it will help create a positive attitude where passing your test becomes possible and achievable.
During your driving test itself, focus on driving positively (driving to pass), rather than driving negatively (driving to fail). An example of this is “I will maintain driving at or under the speed limit”, as opposed to “I will not drive over the speed limit”. Our brains are conditioned to respond to negative words by increasing activity in its fear centre. This floods our system with more stress-producing hormones and the result is we end up doing exactly what we set our not to. In this case, it would be driving over the speed limit, resulting in a failed driving test.
The other challenge for us as humans is our instinct to get ourselves out of any stressful situation as quickly as possible, which can result in rushing your driving test, and consequently making silly mistakes that are not usually apparent on lessons. Take your time. There is no rush. Examiners know the importance of this and will often encourage candidates to take their time while driving. Making progress is expected where appropriate, but safety always comes first. Taking your time allows you to think and reduces the stress response.
Think carefully about putting any unnecessary pressure on yourself, especially from family, friends and colleagues. This can be avoided by them not knowing about your test – what they don’t know about, they don’t worry about. They often think they might be doing you a favour by encouraging you with phrases like, “I’ll make sure I’m off the road at your test time”. Unless you know the person really well and you understand their sentiment, this could result in them reducing your confidence. Peer pressure can also undermine your confidence. Full licence holders often put unnecessary pressure on you, with statements like “all of our family passed first time, with no more than 5 driving faults each” etc. Ignore statements like these – it’s your test, and just focus on what you need to do. Healthy, friendly competition is OK, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of driving at test standard. There are no prizes or special licence categories for first time passes or number of driving faults. A pass is a pass.
Overall, it’s really important to keep your driving test in perspective. If you do fail, this does not mean you are a failure. On average, only 50% of test candidates pass first time, and there is no difference in passing on your first or tenth attempt. If you do fail, it will take a while to recover from this and regain your confidence. Your examiner and instructor will help identify what went wrong, and more importantly how to fix it so you can learn from this. When you are ready and finances allow, have another go and treat past test attempts as learning experiences. There’s always next time, and try to book your test as soon as you are able to following a failure. You will approach your next test with this past experience, so you will know exactly what to expect and how you felt, which can help you be even better prepared.
Overall, it’s really important to keep your driving test in perspective. If you do fail, this does not mean you are a failure. On average, only 50% of test candidates pass first time, and there is no difference in passing on your first or tenth attempt. If you do fail, it will take a while to recover from this and regain your confidence. Your examiner and instructor will help identify what went wrong, and more importantly how to fix it so you can learn from this. When you are ready and finances allow, have another go and treat past test attempts as learning experiences. There’s always next time, and try to book your test as soon as you are able to following a failure. You will approach your next test with this past experience, so you will know exactly what to expect and how you felt, which can help you be even better prepared.
Finally, when you’re at the test centre waiting for your examiner to greet you, use the time wisely. Your instructor will ensure you arrive in plenty of time before your test, so use this as an opportunity to focus on what you need to do, calm yourself, switch your brain on, and remain positive. Approach your test as your opportunity to demonstrate what you can already do, not what you can’t do. If you approach it this way, you know you can do this!
