New UK Driving Test Procedures welcome

13 April 2017

We welcome the changes being made to the car driving test which will become effective from Monday 4th December 2017, and which will include following directions from a sat nav and testing different manoeuvres.

The changes are designed to make sure new drivers have the skills they’ll need to help them through a lifetime of safe driving. It may be appropriate for fleets to run their own drivers through these to see how they do!

The 4 driving test changes

1. Independent driving part of the test will increase to 20 minutes

The independent driving part of the test currently lasts around 10 minutes. During this part of the test, you have to drive without turn-by-turn directions from the driving examiner.

This part of the test will be made longer, so it’ll last around 20 minutes - roughly half of the test.

2. Following directions from a sat nav

During the independent driving part of the test, most candidates will be asked to follow directions from a sat nav. The examiner will provide the sat nav and set it up. One in 5 driving tests won’t use a sat nav. The candidate will need to follow traffic signs instead.

3. Reversing manoeuvres will be changed

The ‘reverse around a corner’ and ‘turn-in-the-road’ manoeuvres will no longer be tested, but the candidate will be asked to do one of 3 possible reversing manoeuvres:

• parallel park at the side of the road
• park in a bay - either driving in and reversing out, or reversing in and driving out (the examiner will tell you which you have to do)
• pull up on the right-hand side of the road, reverse for 2 car lengths and rejoin the traffic

4. Answering a vehicle safety question while you’re driving

The examiner will ask 2 vehicle safety questions during the driving test - these are known as the ‘show me, tell me’ questions.

They will be:

• ‘tell me’ question (where the candidate will be sked to explain how to carry out a safety task).
• ‘show me’ question (where the candidate will need to show how to carry out a safety task) while driving - for example, showing how to wash the windscreen using the car controls and wipers.

More information is available here.