One of my wife’s good friends recently moved to England from California. She’s been licensed to drive in California for some 14 years. Last week she took and failed her exam to get a driver’s license there. She was talking about it to my wife, who then relayed some points to me, so it’s quite possible some things got messed up in the relay. However, some of the things she mentioned sounded downright bizarre to me, so I’d like any UK dopers to comment on whether this is accurate or not. Specifically:[ul][]Part of the test apparently included backing around a corner on a street. She evidently failed the test because she didn’t remain sufficiently close to the curb while doing so. I don’t think backing around corners is even legal in most parts of the US, and even if it is it doesn’t sound particularly safe. What’s the point of this exercise?[]She was apparently docked points by the examiner for failing to check her mirrors (side and center) before signalling and turning.[]She was taking the test (and thus would only have been licensed for) an automatic transmission. She was told, in a class I believe, that the parking brake had to be engaged whenever the transmission was shifted. For example, when making a three-point turn in a road the parking brake had to be engaged for each gear change. Come to a halt in Drive, engage p-brake, shift to Reverse, disengage p-brake, … This sounded asinine to me - was there something being mis-relayed?[]She was also taught that it’s illegal to turn the steering wheel while the vehicle isn’t moving. Does this make sense? It’s tough to parallel park in really tight spaces without doing so.She was told that one should not cross one’s hands on the steering wheel while turning, and that neither hand should ever go past “twelve o’clock”. This is quite the opposite of how I was taught to drive. Is it to keep one’s hands out from in front of the airbag, perhaps?[/ul]I’d appreciate it if anybody could shed some light on this. What of these points are simply somebody (me, my wife, my wife’s friend) misunderstanding something? Which are curious differences in driving practices/laws between the US and the UK? Any other possible explanations?
Reversing around a corner is often used when parking. Failing to check mirrors is a real no-no - Mirror, Signal, Manoeuver. I’ve never heard about not turning the wheel when the car is stationary. As for crossing hands, this is also a no-no - you can get your hands in a tangle.
But she shouldn’t be overly concerned. UK driving examiners have a reputation for being complete and utter bstrds. I passed on my second go (and was a nervous wreck at the end); my brother took four attempts. The upside is that when she does pass, she will have shown that she knows her stuff.
Disclaimer: I passed my test fifteen years ago; things may have changed a little…
**To test the driver’s ability to manoeuvre the vehicle; the operation is only ever carried out on very quiet residential roads.
Yup. Mirror, signal, manoeuvre is SOP (plus a turn of the head to check blind spots, if any.
**Nope; (although I took the manual test) - generally, the handbrake is to be englaged when the car is stationary - even during gear changes in a multi-point turn.
**I think this is correct; in fifteen years of driving I can’t remember ever having to steer while stationary.
**Probably nothing to do with airbags, as they have only been standard equipment in UK vehicles for a few years (wearing a seatbelt has been compulsory for quite a while though, so the need for airbags was not a pressing as it is in the US) - the hands should be in at ‘ten to two’ or ‘quarter to three’ - the reasoning I was offered for this is that this provides the best grip - the steering wheel should be ‘passed’ through the hands like a rope.
Turning the steering wheel while stationary is considered poor driving practice as it puts excessive stress on the steering linkages. I don’t recall if it’s actually illegal though.
Crossing hands on the steering wheel is something everyone does - once they’ve passed their driving test - you just have to control your urge to do it until after you get the slip of paper 
Reversing round a corner is just a parking manoeuvre.
Mirrors are just standard, you would fail for that doing the UAE driving test here - a colleague of mine failed for this. Lucky me didn’t have to take the test as a British licence gets automatically transferred. People from India and Pakistan do though. But considering in India it’s very easy to pay someone just to get your test certificate (countless Indian friends have told me this) I think that’s fair enough.
The steering wheel thing - again, that’s one of those good versus bad driving practice things.
AFAIRemember, when you take the UK driving test, there are “definite fail” things, and “minor errors.” Two/three or more minor mistakes would fail you the exam, but only one definite fail would. I think crossing your hands once and driving immaculately the rest of the time might get you through, but it would also depend on the examiner’s general assessment of your driving ability. They do make allowances for exam nerves. IIRC you are allowed a couple of errors, eg if you mess up the parallel park you can sometimes do it again.
The handbrake thing I don’t know, because I only drove a manual until recently, and passed my test only ever having driven manual. I am now driving an automatic and it’s as weird as hell, like a bumper/dodgem car at a fairground. It goes forward even if you don’t have your foot on the accelerator. Weird weird weird. I so miss the clutch!
What the OP’s friend discovered looks generally correct to me.
I was certainly taught not to cross my hands on the steering wheel. If you keep the wheel at ten to two, you are always in a balanced position to be able to react quickly in either direction. Plus the instructor said that if I got in a mess, he might need to lean over and correct the wheel with great urgency, and if my hands were in the wrong position, he could literally break my arms. Maybe that was a lie designed to reinforce the message.
I was also taught to use the hand brake between every gear change in a 3-point turn in a manual car. I don’t know about automatic.
Finally, bear in mind that the pass rate of the UK driving test is about 45% It is not a US-style “don’t crush too many cones in two minutes in the parking lot and you’re OK”, licensed-to-kill approach. The Georgia test doesn’t go out of the parking lot. I took my test in Virginia where I had to drive round one quiet block, which involved doing only right turns.
Particularly if you recognise and state that you made an error and would like to retry (rather than waiting for it to be pointed out).
I once took a test with the guy who tests the examiners. The rolleyes expression on my tutor’s face said it all on my slow march to the car outside the test centre. Might as well have cancelled it then and there.
This site includes an online driving theory quiz, which gives some instances of the questions the examiner is likely to ask during your test in the UK.
I think I will have to retake my driving test to get an Australian license, should my migration application ever come through.
How nightmarish is the Aussie driving test?
(And please don’t tell me I’ll have to have P plates for two years after being a driver for more than a decade… sooooo embarrassing!!)
Not illegal, just knackers the steering rack and tyres (especially common in cars with power steering).
You’re allowed 15 minor faults ( a minor fault would be something like not putting the handbrake on for the turn in the road, not checking mirrors, poor lane discipline, etc.), but if you get one major fault (nearly causing an accident, etc.) is an automatic fail, as is dangerous drin#ving.
Here is a nice link.
The reversing round a corner is considered a safer and more legal form of the u-turn or 3 point.
Only ever reverse from a major into a minor road.
The rearview mirror is supposed to be checked every 6 seconds (at least) while driving. The blindspot and both mirrors are checked before every manoeuvre.
Moving the wheel while stationary is a no-no for lack of control of the car (you don’t know how it will turn until you start moving), as well as knackering the driving gears.
The procedure at traffic lights is to put the handbrake on and get into neutral. Hello? Does anyone NOT sit in first gear in real life?
The test is about 30-45 minutes long. It consists of driving on as many types of road as possible, rural, residential, dual carriageway etc.
There should be:
At least one lane change
At least one major roundabout
A right turn at a traffic light
A traffic light with a filter lane.
A t-junction
At least one hill-start.
The standard manoeuvres are:
Emergency stop
And 2 out of:
Reversing into a parking space (between parallel lines) in a car park.
A parallel park (don’t hit the cars in front and behind, don’t end up too far from the kerb or too near it).
Reversing around a corner (don’t go over the middle of the road, don’t go too near the kerb, don’t go too far away from the kerb).
A 3-point turn, (which may be up to a 7 point turn as long as the car is turned safely in a contolled manner and doesn’t hit the kerb).
3 minor faults for the same thing count as one major = automatic fail.
Up to 15 minor faults are allowed overall…highly unlikely you’d get as many as 15 without 3 in the same area.
Failing a manoeuvre fails the test.
Breaking the speed limit fails the test.
Going over the white stop line at a traffic light fails the test.
Skidding in the emergency stop is not a fail if you feather the brake and recover from the skid.
Going into the wrong lane at a roundabout is a fail.
Driving too close to parked cars is a fail.
I failed twice before I passed, the first time wasn’t my fault, I made the examiner stop the test because I got my period (unexpectedly), and couldn’t drive because of the cramps.
The second time I drove too close to a parked car.
Third time I passed with 3 minors.
Irishfella passed first time with 1 minor.
Jammy Git.
Of similar ilk, would an American be able to obtain a license in another European country with which the UK has straight forward reciprocity (swap license for license)?
Hand over hand driving is a no-no. When I was learning, it was taught to pass the steering wheel through each hand.
Hand placement was taught as 10 and 2 for the safest position with the most control.
Three-point turns, emergency stops and reversing around a corner are all new to me as part of a driving test.
Even though I’ve been driving for 21 years I’m afraid to take the UK exam. Gonna have to bite the bullet and do it soon though… ::bites nails nervously::
I think so: once you’ve got a license in one EU country, it applies all over the EU. Certainly when I fill out insurance forms in Ireland, it classes “Irish and EU” together. I still drive on my UK license.
However, my former boss, from the US and with 10 years’ driving experience there, had to drive on a provisional license (with L plates!) in Ireland.
Other point:
Reversing round a corner is only legal when going from a major road into a minor one.
Anecdote:
I went to the Testing Center in Connecticut to get my UK driver’s license converted to a CT one. I was told that I’d have to take the test. So I did the theory part, then I went to the driving test line, and the guy behind the counter said “You’ve got a British license? Hell, you don’t need to take a test here: you guys’ve got the strictest driving test in the world.” And I got given my license there and then.
Thanks for the replies, all. As you can probably gather from the OP, things are a bit different in the states.
However, I’m still having difficulty envisioning a situation involving backing around a corner to park. Could somebody give me an example?
brad_d
Maybe you have more spacious car parks in the USA? It’s quite common in the UK to have cars parked side by side (as opposed to nose-to-tail) in rows, with quite narrow lanes between. To get into or out of a space when the park is nearly full, you have to make a tight right-angled turn (either when backing in or backing out). House driveways are often tight enough to need a similar manoeuvre.
Ah, I think I understand now. Sort of.
Yes, I believe we have similar parking setups here (the rule rather than the exception, IME), although it’s possible (likely, actually) that the amount of room generally available for the maneuver is higher in the US. That extra space alone may be the only real difference.
But it seems that people are talking, not about backing out of a parking space or driveway, but of literally backing around a corner at an intersection of two roads. I’m getting the impression that this sort of thing is commonly done over there. I just spoke with a friend here in my lab, and he agrees that this is probably illegal in most part of the US.
It could easily be a terminology or language misunderstanding, but I’m still not quite understanding why this maneuver, which sounds illegal and dangerous here, would be a test element there.
Most parking spaces in the US are diagonal parking, whereas the vast majority of parking spaces in the UK (England anyway) are straight in. Also as mentioned by raygirvan driveways are difficult to access, so this method is useful.
British parking: LLLLLLLLl
American parking: ///////
The width of roads over here are a fraction of US roads. On-street parking can be awkward to say the least. Being able to reverse around a corner would allow access to spaces on or near a corner. Rather than pull out into the intersection, you turn the corner then reverse back around it. It can also be useful perhaps if you turned the wrong way and rather than flip a Uey, reverse back and go again. Remembering that there is no grid system over here, so going around the block is not as easy as it sounds… (ask me how I got lost in Birmingham :rolleyes: )
I think that’s because British city centres are often based on much older road systems (try Oxford!) You might have had more luck in Milton Keynes, that’s a perfect chequerboard.
Gotcha, Washte. Thanks. The differences in accepted practices on opposite sides of the pond are quite interesting to discuss.
A minor nitpick 
: In my experience, parking lots in the US are pretty much evenly distributed between “angled” and “straight.” Both are pretty common.
I’d imagine that the space between rows in American lots are typically considerably larger, though, which does (or at least should) make backing out without hitting anything easier. (Not that this stopped some hit-and-run asswipe from redecorating my front fender some months ago.)
The rules for driving in the UK are contained in The Highway Code
Some details of the driving test can be found here