Your driving test fails

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Lighthearted thread..

I am a later in life learner! Early 40s.
And I have my first ever driving test this week. I’m extremely nervous and scared that I am going to make a silly mistake on the day due to nerves.

I thought it may make me feel a bit better to hear if others have made mistakes (including silly mistakes!) but then after failing they have gone on to pass and be good drivers!

I would love to hear your stories to help me feel more positive

Ahh well done!

That's amazing - congratulations!!🥳 🚗

Did an emergency stop to avoid running over a squirrel and because a squirrel is a wild animal I failed. Bit harsh I thought.

My wing mirror clipped a bus during my test…the buses fault…I think! Because I stopped safely when able to do so and readjusted it I still passed!

Don't do what I did. Went out to celebrate and got brethalised coming out of the pub. Only just escaped a ticket! Well done OP.

Disaster of a parallel park where I mounted the kerb approx 4 times before giving up.

i still can't parallel park.

He manspread so much that his leg was against the gearstick and I crunched it trying to get it in gear. He said I didn’t have control at the roundabout changing gear. I should have told him to move his fat leg. He had a reputation as failing people more than any others.

Congratulations!

I was also a late learner, I (finally) passed last year a week after my 56th birthday. I passed on my fourth attempt.

Test 1 - I got in the wrong lane. In my defence I was told to go straight on at a junction we were approaching, the road sign was hidden by a tree and the road markings were non existent.

Test 2 - A strange one. I pulled up at a junction on a housing estate where the council were refurbishing a number of homes. Their many vans were illegally parked on both sides around a corner meaning that I couldn’t see anything that was coming from the right. I narrated that I was going to carefully creep forward so that I could see but as soon as the front wheels very slowly crept over the stop line the examiner shouted stop and hit the brakes. Not quite sure what else I was supposed to do.

Test 3 - I was told to turn left onto a minor road, visibility of around the corner was poor due to a van parked fully on the footpath and as I turned someone was just about to step up onto the footpath on the opposite side. I should’ve stopped even though I couldn’t see them until I’d almost fully turned the corner and at that point they were two steps away from finishing crossing.
I actually put in a complaint about the examiner, the whole test actually felt like I was being used as a therapy session. I heard all about his divorce, his issues with housing and also that his Dad’s house is worth £1m but he won’t inherit anything and he’s okay with that.

Well done!

I failed 5 tests before I passed. The first 4 tests I had the same examiner and he was lovely and tried to put me at ease but the being lovely and trying to put me at ease just made me so much more anxious. The 5th test I failed hit me really hard. I had a short break and then did more lessons in my uni city and passed. My instructor 2 days before my test said I wasn't going to pass and if I was able to cancel without losing my fee he would tell me to do that as it was he said do your best and we would start prepping for the next test...I vowed when I started that driving test that it was going to be the last time I drove that car and I passed!

It took me 2 years to go through the 6 tests and I had to redo my theory test.

Highlights of tests...
were failing for hitting the kerb whilst doing a reverse around the corner... On the opposite side of the road
Minors for driving too fast and too slow
Doing a bay park with the handbrake on
Getting confused with my left and right even though I had them written on my hands
Nearly running over someone leaving the test centre

By the time I passed I was a very confident driver and my first drive after passing was the 100 mile journey home from uni most of which was on the motorway, with my trusty dad at my side.

I failed because we were late back and there was only one space left in the car park, right in the corner and there was a motorbike in part of the space. I squeezed in as best I could after the second attempt.
Still don’t know what I was supposed to have done as if I hadn’t parked there I’d have failed anyway 🤷🏻‍♀️.

I also failed another test for ‘swerving’ to avoid being hit by a car being chased by police. There was no one on the other side of me and the road had barely anyone on it so we weren’t in any danger. I moved lanes but the instructor hadn’t clocked what was happening in the wingmirror so was unaware I was about to move into the next lane. She said she ‘feared for her life’ 💩. We were doing 30mph.

I nearly crashed into a milk float.

Well done!!

Not a fail, as I passed. But towards the beginning, a dog with no owner was on one of the streets and kept running ahead of the car on the pavement and then darting across the road. Then halfway through, the "no seatbelt" alarm started going off for the back seat, where my handbag was sitting (and had been for the whole test so no idea why it suddenly freaked out). The examiner didn't even know what the noise was and nearly ended the test. Then there was huge traffic on one of the roads due to a nasty accident so we were back very late.

My first test, I failed because an arsehole pulled up behind me while I was doing the parallel park manoeuvre and beeped aggressively. I stopped to let him go around me (plenty of space and a quiet road so no reason he couldn't) but he didn't and just kept beeping, so I did the manoeuvre hastily (a few inches from the curb, intending to correct) to get fully out the way. He still didn't go past and kept beeping every five seconds. I just lost my nerve and said I was done with the manoeuvre, and obviously failed because of it. What a cunt.

On one of my fails we were approaching a junction where we always turned right on lessons, never ever turned left. The examiner must have told me to turn left but I instinctively turned right, and failed.
On another there was a lorry parked on the road outside a factory. If I was driving on my own I would have pulled out and gone around the lorry, but it looked too tight for a test situation so I put my indicator on and waited, and waited. In the end the examiner shouted at me (actually shouted and scared me) to go round it, and I failed .

Woohoo! Well done 😊

Congratulations!

@Superscientist I had to retake my theory too when it ran out.
I had my second test at the start of July, failed and booked my third for the earliest date which was the end of November. That was cancelled on the day because of the lightest snowfall during the night which completely thawed during the morning rush hour. My instructor was doing lessons around the test area in the morning and said it was completely clear but the decision had already been made to cancel all tests, my test was early afternoon.
The date given for the rescheduled test was over five months later, I couldn’t get a cancellation so had a wait of nearly nine months between tests.

First test failed because I checked everywhere but my blind spot when doing a reverse bay park.

second test failed because I stalled blocking a main road coming out of a junction.

3rd test is coming up in December!!

I failed my first test on 'steering' 🤣

The Examiner touched the steering wheel while on my test so that was an automatic 'fail'.

I passed second time with only 1 minor fault.

That sort of story does give credence to the quota idea. Was it on a Friday afternoon? That was really harsh.

Congratulations OP!

My first driving test was a total shitshow - in an unfamiliar town, with a different BSM instructor from usual as my regular one wasn't available that day, and his car was also subtly different from the one I'd had most of my lessons in. I was a bag of nerves.

It went so badly that after about ten nightmare minutes - midway through an excruciating 25-point-turn - the examiner terminated the test in the interests of public safety, took the keys out of the car and walked back to the test centre by himself, leaving me sitting there in the rain waiting for the instructor to come out and collect me and the car!

To make it worse, the BSM insisted candidates hire the car for a three-hour block, so when we got back to the driving school premises I told the instructor he was welcome to take the keys with him and go inside but I still had 90 minutes' hire time left and I wasn't budging out of that damn car until 11.30am. A new manager had started that day and made the awful mistake of trying to coax me out with a load of soft-soap about how I was obviously very upset and I should "...come inside for a nice cup of tea, love, and we can talk about booking some more lessons." Being called "love" was the final straw and I told him to fuck off.

I felt so utterly humiliated that it was four or five years before I could face taking driving lessons again, but I did pass on the third attempt.

...Oh, and CONGRATULATIONS to the OP on passing!

Congratulations OP! 🎉

I failed my test 7 times. Each time I got no minors and one big clanger of a major. I changed lanes without looking and nearly hit a van (the instructor has to grab the wheel), I hit a curb going down a steep, windy hill, I did 60 in a 40 thinking that was the speed limit, and I mounted the curb and hit a wall trying to parallel park.