Most deranged thing you’ve done in a driving lesson/test?

[Shania7788]

My test is coming up soon. Been doing really well but I made the stupidest mistake today and I’m too embarrassed to tell anyone I know in real life. But I need to tell someone before I spend the whole week thinking about this before I fall asleep.

I was following a route I’ve done before but never with the satnav. Approached a mini roundabout before dual carriageway slip road and was going straight over/2nd exit. I must’ve heard ‘turn right…’ or something and been daydreaming, because I went the wrong way around the roundabout 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️😩. It’s such a stupid mistake that I’m half convinced the satnav showed an anti-clockwise diagram that I followed blindly. So dangerous of me and ridiculous because I live on a road with three mini roundabouts! Argh!!!

My teacher says the rest of my driving is great and doesn’t want to move the test but it really shook me (and him I think!!) obviously I’ve never done it before.

Please tell me your stupid and deranged mistakes/decisions as a learner to make me feel better and push this out of my mind!

Oh and in my second test (which I passed!), the (lovely) examiner told me off for trying to read the notes she was making on her clipboard instead of concentrating on the road 😬

My first test was a complete disaster. We live near a bridge and before it goes up, the red lights flash. I didn't notice them flashing and just went to follow the rest of the cars over. The examiner silently put the break on me and said nothing. Took me a while to work out what I'd done wrong. Obviously I then realised I had failed 10minutes into my test I continued and then on the way back to the test centre, he put the break on me again as I had to cross a bit of pavement. Hadn't noticed how close the pedestrian was. He said nothing, just "you've failed" got out of the car and left.

The second test, I had way more minors but passed. In 20years I've never had an accident so it's not all bad!

My first driving lesson was in a Modern Mini. I was awful, I sideswiped a temporary traffic sign and managed to go from second to reverse and turn the gearbox into shrapnel.

The instructor said that I'd done the impossible, it just shouldn't have been able to happen. I stuck with the bike for a few years after that.

Not an actual driving incident...

I was on Tunbridge Wells walking on the pavement and a driving instructor in a marked test car clipped the kerb next to me as she was talking on her phone.

Omg! Wow! That looks confusing.
I've added a picture of the Colchester one.

The Colchester one doesn't look as bad now.

Failed three times!!!
Most memorable being driving through a Red light!! Reading some of these stories is making me feel a bit better about my disastrous driving test days tbh 😅
Good luck OP, even if it takes a few times you'll get it eventually. Just be careful for a few months when you do pass, you are still learning really 😉

If you see a learner car with only the instructor in it they are usually driving quite fast !

Oooo the one in Hemel is kind of like that. Don't think that extreme though

It actually looks a lot better in the pic than it is. It is literally traffic going in all directions!

I hate any roundabouts!
Especially the mini ones

I did know a woman a very long time ago. Nervous driver, she should not have actually been on the road to be honest.

She would only ever turn left. She would never turn right. And all her journeys were planned around that. Her DH used to have to plan her journeys for her to avoid right turns, this was before the days of satnav... just as well... I know you can avoid motorways and toll road on satnav settings, don't think there's an 'avoid right turns' on it!

Hope the lollipop lady was ok ????That made me laugh so much .

Nothing major. Did screw up a roundabout on my truck test - but got away with it as I didn't impede anyone else.

Craziest thing that happened on a lesson (also in a truck) was a cyclist coming up the outside of the truck and then turning left across the front of the truck as I was about to pull out onto a mini roundabout. Luckily I saw them, but could so easily have killed them.

I'm so so sorry but I've just laughed out loud at this one 😂🙈

My first test, I had to turn right on a complicated junction which I’d only ever gone straight over. Tried to drive down the bit people come out, and had to reverse back to where I’d come from with the hazard lights on… I was SO upset, that we had to abort the test and my instructor walked back to the centre while I waited for my mum to collect me in her car.

My second test, I followed the wrong traffic lights and started to go when I was meant to be stopped. THEN I overshot a different traffic light stop line.

My third test, I went straight over a roundabout from the incorrect lane, apparently. This was supposedly only a problem because another driver undertook me. My instructor afterwards said I should have passed but 🤷‍♀️

I passed 4th time, with 4 minors 17 years ago now, and the only incident I’ve ever had was someone driving into me a couple of years ago.

im generally a very good driver, and pretty confident. It took me 4 years in total to pass but it was a bit on and off learning as I spent the summers working abroad. I just found junctions incredibly complicated, and an ADHD diagnosis a year ago did not surprise me!

Nah, the Magic Roundabout is great once you know what you're doing! One of my tests (I took a few..😳), I had an ambulance, flashy blue lights and sirens on full, come up behind me on the Magic Roundabout while I was in the middle of it - I sort of panicked and the examiner kindly told me what to do. Didn't fail me for that (but later failed me for turning right across an oncoming cyclist that I'd somehow failed to see! ).

Mine involved a dog too. I was mid-test and was concentrating on avoiding a dog that was in the gutter. Concentrating so hard on the dog, that I didn't see the child running across the road from the other direction!

Examiner stopped the car. And still passed me. I developed chameleon eyes after that!

OMG @PianPianPiano

Do they actually take people who are taking their tests on to the Magic Roundabout?

I have driven it a couple of times and have no problem with it as I passed my test back when dinosaurs roamed the earth..
But new drivers... oh my!

First test was just two days after my last A-level - just another exam in my mind. Except it was also tge first day it had rained in an age and i couldn't remember where the switches were to demist the car, and the indicator and windscreen wiper sticks were the opposite way from where they were on my parents' car, and it all to turned out to be too stressful.

On my second test, at the end, you have to turn back into the road by the test centre. It's quite a tight turn. Every other time I've ever done it, before or since, it's been fine. This test, I had to reverse back out onto the main road and try again on a tighter angle. Though apparently I'd already failed earlier not paying enough attention at a junction, which I had no idea about, so I was almost glad I screwed up at the end, as I'd have been pissed off to have failed on something I had no memory of.

Had the same examiner for test 3. He seemed to remember me. This did not help my nerves in any way.

Different examiner for test 4, and betablockers to calm my nerves. Burst into tears when he said I passed. It was the last day of tests (just before Easter) before they brought in parallel parking and I am so glad I didn't have to learn another manoeuvre - though I am a whizz at it these days (no choice in my street!)

I thought so too. But I was failed because I couldn't get in right lane due to heavy traffic on my right and we had to do a right turn to get back to test centre. He held my steering wheel to get in the middle of 2 SUVs speeding - which I won't do ever even though I passed. I'd just continue straight ahead and then look for next right turn.

The trick with the magic roundabout is to remember to just treat each mini roundabout as a single roundabout, and not part of the mess of crap that it looks like on the road signs!

I failed one for speeding 😬missed a set of 30 signs and carried on going at 40 for a while...

Yes! It used to always be you knew you were going to have to across it if they told you to turn left out of the test centre (test centre has now moved so it'll be different)...

As an experienced driver now, i can see that it is a complete doddle, and you just focus on the roundabout you're approaching and ignore the rest, but as a learner driver, it was terrifying!

I failed six driving tests and then gave up. With my first instructor during lessons I had a lorry driver jump out of his cab into the road and I had to do an emergency stop.. I also had to do an emergency stop when a car came out of a side road in front of us. Another time we were in a residential street where apparently a resident was fed up of driving school cars. As I was doing a three point turn he came out into the road and not a word of a lie fired an airgun into the air. My instructors exact words were "BUGGER THE THREE POINT TURN.....DRIVE!!!"
With my second instructor many years later I slowed down at at a zebra crossing and a bus went into the back of the car. I was newly pregnant with ds2 having lost ds1 so was terrified. The boss of the driving school was called and I can remember him telling my instructor to take the sign off the car.
Our GP. checked me over. I had whiplash and was paid compensation.
Not surprisingly I gave up learning after I failed the sixth test.