Top 5 tips for passing your practical driving test

You can’t wait to pick up your first ever car. Head on long road trips with your friends, drive to work or school and show off your new wheels. But first, you need to pass your test.

You’ve spent weeks and weeks getting ready. Honing your skills behind the wheel and stuffing your mind with road signs, signals, speed limits and so on.

You’ve invested a lot of time and money into getting where you have. You want to get it right first time round.

Well here I’m going to look at some top tips to help ensure that you pass your driving test.

Revision

So you aced your theory. Well done. You shouldn’t forget what you’ve learnt though. Everything in theory needs to be put into practice.

Before you head out for the big test put just as much revision into your theory as before. You’re going to need to be able to take note of road signs, lanes and other things. All of which you would have covered in your test.

Too many people think that they can forget about everything they learnt on paper after their theory test. Make sure you aren’t one of them!

Practice

The best way to ready yourself for your test is to jump in a car and hit the road. By getting plenty of practice in you’re going to be exposed to more and more situations on the road. And if you’ve handled them once, you can handle them again.

You should also put plenty of hours into practicing your manoeuvres. 3 point turns, emergency stops, parallel parking. Any of them could pop up on your test. Make sure you’re ready.

Stay calm

Probably the most common reason people fail their test is because they’re overly nervous. When we’re nervous we don’t perform well. Remember to take your time and go through all the procedures you’ve learnt.

Make sure that you get plenty of sleep the night before too!

Test yourself

Don’t just practice in dry conditions. The day of your test is probably going to be the usual wet and windy weather that we all know so well. You must get plenty of practice in these conditions so that you’re prepared.

Don’t be afraid to head out in the snow either! You’re going to have to do it at some point in your life.

Ask for help

Lastly, don’t be afraid to ask for more help. Feeling underprepared (even though you probably aren’t) can bring on those nerves that we talked about. If you feel like you could work a bit more on one manoeuvre, or read up on one aspect of the road ask a friend or family member. Or you could go one better and ask a pro like myself.

‘Failing to prepare is preparing to fail’ as they say. Make sure that you do everything you can to ready yourself!