Driving test changes to 'better reflect real-life driving'

15 July 2016

Story from Fleet News.

Changes to the driving test will better reflect real-life driving, says the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA).

The proposals are to:

• Increase the ‘independent driving’ part of the test from 10 to 20 minutes
• Ask candidates to follow directions on a sat nav as an alternative to following road signs
• Replace current manoeuvres such as ‘reverse around a corner’ with more real life scenarios for example, driving into and reversing out of a parking bay
• Ask one of the two vehicle safety questions while the candidate is driving, for example, asking candidates to use the rear heated screen

Gareth Llewellyn, chief executive of the DVSA, said, "“Great Britain’s roads are among the safest in the world. But there is scope to do more to keep road users safe - particularly newly-qualified drivers.

“Making sure the test better assesses a driver’s ability to drive safely and independently is part of our strategy to help every driver through a lifetime of safe driving”.

These changes are designed to help reduce the number of collisions on higher risk roads - most fatal collisions are on this type of road, and using sat-navs will open up routes to include these.