I Passed my Driving Test

Going into 2020, particularly with the onset of COVID, I had set myself some personal goals for this year. One of those was getting my driving licence and back on 10th December I achieved that. Since passing I’ve had a lot of messages of congratulations from friends and some of them have told me about their own difficulties and their own experiences with learning to drive in a COVID year. So I figured that perhaps other people could derive some value from me talking about my own experiences.

Getting Started

I think the most difficult step in the entire process is getting started, particularly when you’re younger or perhaps living alone. I didn’t learn until 25 for various reasons but one of the biggest factors can be that it’s very daunting with the costs involved. Therefore, you're very conscious of getting value for money, which raises questions like where you are going to learn, will you get the right teacher, will you get along with them, and so on. Honestly, the anxiety and uncertainty from these questions probably delayed me learning for about two years, but once I was able to actually take that first step, I was so glad that I did.

Learning through COVID

Of course, COVID had a massive impact on my learning and this presented a few challenges.

The biggest thing I’d say is you have to consider that this process is probably going to take longer than you anticipate. After completing an initial 12 hours just before the end of the first lockdown, I was then out of the car for over four months until late July. The thing is, there was very little you could do about it because even if you were practising there wasn't really the opportunity of working towards any tests.

But come July, when lessons started up again and they slowly started reintroducing theory and practical tests, I was able to get my practical test done along with another 12 hours. This second batch wasn’t really that different from the first, the only difference being the requirement to wear a mask.

By this point, my instructor believed I was becoming ready to take my test. It was approaching early September, and there was already a huge demand for tests combined with the backlog that had built up since March. The theory situation hadn’t been too bad, as I only had to wait for one month, but I was very fortunate that I was able to get a driving test in early December. Even then, this was at a different local centre to the one I’d been learning out of and still involved a three-month wait, which is still an incredibly long time to be out of the car. So, given the latest lockdown we are now in, there is going to be a large number of people waiting on a test so you could be looking at upwards of six months with the demand inevitably going to be so high.

What I Learned

I genuinely loved the opportunity to be able to go out driving and learn. I was very fortunate to strike that rapport with my instructor and my biggest takeaway from enabling this was constantly asking questions and maintaining that line of communication. That was genuinely the bedrock to ultimately succeeding. It can be very difficult to admit when you are unsure, and this can quickly develop bad habits. For instance, one of the first things you learn is setting off and pulling up, however, in a lesson two weeks before my test I was feeling very insecure about my ability to consistently pull up on the left. It felt awkward admitting this right before a test when it felt like such a simple move but doing so enabled my instructor to plan some of this session around performing this multiple times until I felt comfortable.

Secondly, this can depend on your circumstances, but I really got value out of doing two-hour lessons. I'd heard a lot of stories about one-hour lessons not quite being enough, and maybe two is too much. Personally, it was always more beneficial to be doing that little bit more. Even towards the end of my learning where I felt like I was sometimes just trying to chew up time, I was grateful to have this additional time to gain more experience. Every time you are on the road, the environment is always different, you could go down the same road 100 times and a different thing could happen on that road every time. So, spending as much time as you can behind the wheel and building the largest bank of experience that you can is vital. However, somewhat contrary to this I would stress not to do lessons for the sake of it. Every lesson you embark on should add something, there is no use doing as many hours as possible, instead try to do as many hours as you need. For instance, after completing the 24 hours of lessons that I booked, I did one final session with my instructor to improve on any weak points and take some final pieces of advice to consider for the test and that was very beneficial for me.

Taking the Test

When it came to taking the actual test, I learned two big things that were beneficial for me in passing.

Preparation

The first of these was preparation. Your driving test is a test of your ability to drive a car but it's also a test of your ability and your knowledge of the road. So, it's very important to put the time and the effort into researching and practising what you’re likely to face. This includes test routes, likely manoeuvres, speed limits on different roads and so on. Knowing the roads is just as important as driving the roads, for instance, there was a part of my test where I was aware of a change in the speed limit on one particular road and it's being aware of little things like that which subsequently avoid you potentially receiving minors for the correct speed.

If you're lucky enough to do one of the routes that you’ve researched, it immediately puts you at ease because you know places where you're likely to be asked to pull up, you know difficult parts that you need to be paying attention to, and, most importantly, you’re less likely to be surprised by the route. Being prepared and knowing what's coming is invaluable.

Confidence

A massive thing that will defeat people is those who are good enough can let the pressure of one particular drive get to them. The one thing plaguing my mind was that eternal possibility of one thing going wrong and you just have to accept that it's driving, things can happen, and nothing is ever going to be perfect. What got me through was having confidence and the knowledge that there was a reason I was going to that test that day; I was good enough and I had the skills needed to be able to pass a driving test. I had put in the work and I had the knowledge and I feel like a lot of people can easily overlook that.

You worry about doing it so perfectly that you almost treat minors as major incidents. It is very easy to let that get to you and to let that affect the rest of your performance. Hence why it is so important to have faith in your ability to be there, and it's so important to reassure yourself of that. This happened to me after a dodgy situation when pulling up, however, fortunately, I was able to take a deep breath and reset. It was gone, the test wasn't over, and in reality, something that feels like a fatal error in your head is a lot of the time a very minor thing in the examiners head. The examiner isn't there to catch you out, they’re focused on the task at hand just like you and are ultimately there to want to see you pass. I felt that with my instructor, I had shown enough of my ability throughout the large majority of the test that when little things did happen like when I pulled up on the left, he was there to tell me ‘okay thank you’ and cut me off before I start trying to perfect things. You give yourself credit for what you’ve done well and the examiner will be giving you credit for that as well.

Finally

I am genuinely over the moon with such a personal achievement and the people I've spoken to who are on the way so doing that for themselves, I hope something like this is beneficial. If anyone has made it this far, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Until next time.