It felt like a trick at the time. He had me stop to perform my 3 point turn on a stretch of straight road about a mile long, when there was a vehicle approaching from the other direction. It was far enough away that I knew I could finish the turn in time without rushing, and he had told me to do it, so I did it. On the 2nd leg (backing up, so I was back in my original lane, just pointed the wrong direction), he told me to stop, rolled down his window and waved the other vehicle (still a good quarter of a mile away, but had slowed way down) to proceed. We waited for it to go, then he said for me to finish, and I did. He lectured me a bit to never make a 3 point turn when there was any other traffic around.
I spotted the sheet he graded me on as we got out of the car, and I’d come within one point of failing. Meh. That was 30 years ago, and I’m still alive and haven’t killed anyone.
Mine totally tricked me. I even remember his name, over 30 years later, because he was such a dick. I had done the whole driving test and done a pretty good job. We were driving back to the DMV, almost there, when he said, loudly and agitatedly, “turn right here!” I got flustered and tried to, whereupon he started yelling at me not to, and told me I failed.
He had tried to get me to turn the wrong way onto a freeway offramp.
Yeah, it was my fault for doing it (the offramp and the DMV entrance were very close to each other), but I was 16 and nervous, and he was pretty mean for doing something like that. And he was amused by it, which made it worse.
His name was Royall Miller. Two Ls. Clear as day. He’s dead now, apparently, so he probably won’t be googling himself.
Not exactly a trap, but part of my test was an emergency stop, and the signal he said he’d use happened to be one I wouldn’t see perfectly, so I said so.
At my local MVA, the building where you meet the examiner is on one side of the street, then you have to pull out of the parking lot and cross the street to the lot on the other side where the course is. It’s marked by a stop sign, only to the left is a humongous bush that’s too large to see around if you stop behind the white line. So you have to pull forward and stop again to check before driving across. My driving instructor walked me through the course on foot the weekend before the test and pointed that out, but apparently a lot of people miss it and don’t even get into the course before failing.
Not a trick, just an amazingly dumb guy. When I took my motorcycle driving test I aced it. It required 3 figure 8s inside of a parking spot on top of running through the usual course for drivers. When done I drove up to where the guy stood watching and he said “You didn’t use your turn signals”. I was somewhat taken aback. Keeping as calm as I could I explained to him that my bike didn’t have turn signals and that I was using hand signals. He looked at me oddly for a moment, then scratched out something on his clipboard and said “Ok, you pass”.
When I was 17 I took my motorbike test, which entailed me riding around one of the city squares until the tester signalled me to stop.
On my second circuit I was waiting at a stop sign for the traffic to clear. The tester was standing near me. It was then when a mate of mine who was a policeman came up behind me, wrapped his arms around me and yelled, “You’re nicked”. When I recovered from my shock I said, " Christ Roy, I’m on my test, There’s my tester." The traffic cleared and I rode off. On the next circuit the tester and my copper mate were talking, and on the next circuit I was called in and given my bike licence.
The tester told me that it was the most bizarre incident he’d experienced in his testing career.
On the contrary, the car battery went dead half-way through the test. He could have failed me right then, but let me call for a hot shot and take the test from the beginning again. I passed.
No tricks or anything for my test. Plus it was super short, “Go up that road, back up in a straight line. Go up that road, turn left, turn right on some other road. Go back to the DMV. Nice job, you’re done.” I didn’t even have to park the car, just pulled up to the curb.
I got a perfect score of my driving test but only because the examiner gave me a second chance at parallel parking!
I took the test in my '85 Honda CRX (a tiny 2-seater) and I pulled into the parallel spot (and fit fine) but didn’t go though the proper procedure. She let me show her that I knew how to parallel park (in case I ever needed to do it in an adult-sized car) and I did.
By the way, that was 24 years ago and I think I’ve parallel parked once in all that time…
My father is profoundly deaf. They were supposed to give him the instructions in writing, in advance, which they did. The examiner then proceeded to gesticulate wildly and try to get him to look at her while he was taking the test. He looked over a couple of times and she failed him allowing himself to be distracted.
No, but I snagged neutral briefly before settling into Drive, and he marked off a point for “not knowing gears.” Still pisses me off 36 years later. (I passed by 3 points.)
I’d been working on that car for at least 5 years by that point. I knew the fraggin’ gears.
Yeh. He said “Now make an emergency stop”. I slammed on the brakes and it practically gave him whiplash. After an angry exchange, he explained that he meant to find a safe place to pull over to the side of the road and turn my wheels into the curb and put on my flashers and handbrake. I told him I thought he meant an emergency stop like a kid runs out in the street.
Mine tried. He told me to turn right at the next corner, where there was a “No Right Turn on Red” sign. While waiting for the light to change, he impatiently once again said to turn right. I told him I was waiting for the green. He said “good” and scribbled something on his clipboard.
Still how it’s done. My son has his test on 4/21. The kids around here all talk about how there’s one mean guy examiner at our nearest MVA. They say if you get the mean guy you won’t pass your first time no matter what. I have no way of knowing if there’s a mean guy, a guy who sticks tightly to the rules, or a whole lot of kids who should’ve practiced more before taking their road tests.
I lost two or three points off a perfect score, for a stupid reason. Before you start your parallel park on your test, you are supposed to tap your brakes three times to let the other testers in the area know you are doing it.
I forgot to to the brake tap. It sucked because I’m never going to have to do that again in my life and it’s test-specific. Ah well. Passed my military drivers tests the first time out, even though I did get into an accident in one truck during a practice.
Mine deliberately didn’t put his seatbelt on and was waiting for me to start driving so he could ping me for it, but I’d be warned about it beforehand by my driving instructor so I politely asked him if he’d be so kind as to put his seatbelt on first.
There weren’t any tricks or traps after that and I passed the test.
