How to pass a driving test without lessons

[Bilster]

My daughter is keen to pass her driving test. Her dad lives a 8 miles away, can’t drive for medical reasons and the bus there takes ages, so I drop her off and pick her up with her doing the driving and me sitting next to her. We’ve been doing this for a while and she’s a natural. She’s driving perfectly now.

She’s booked a test for 2 months time amd ever since she booked it I have been trying to get her driving lessons. There are just no instructors near us with any availability. I’ve been trying for a few months with no luck. What would it take for her to pass her test with no lessons? What is she likely to fail on? Any tips very welcome cause I’m feeling desperate and don’t want to have to ask her to put the test back.

It was called 'turning in the road using forward and reverse gears' when I took my test in 1994. '3 point turn' was the shorthand.

My son passed first time last year. For him first part of test was following sat nav. Instructor pulled him over part way through and asked him to stop the sat nav and asked him couple of things. Then they went on their way under direction from examiner.
Ds drove most days with me for 3 months and had 4 lessons whilst waiting for his test. Instructor was wasting both his time and my money taking him to petrol station every lesson. Should add, ds had been driving agricultural machines for years so v competant and road / traffic aware.
Id not worry too much about knowing test routes, if they can drive they should be able to drive anywhere.
Good luck.

Here are some good YouTube channels for her to watch:

https://www.youtube.com/@ClearviewDriving

https://www.youtube.com/@DrivingSchoolTV

Both me and my brother only drove with our parents and both passed theory test and actual test first time 2 years ago...my younger brother did the same last year tho had to redo theory as failed on the hazard perception but got it on 2nd go

OP’s words We’ve never used sat nav. Might have to learn. So they’ve never used one but it part of the test. I wonder if they’ve pulled up on the opposite side of the road? Reversed 2 car lengths? Parallel park? All the other things on the list? It’s easy enough to drive on roads .. not so easy to do everything to pass a test.

Ask Chat GPT for a structure you can follow with her to make sure you’re hitting the main points when you take her out. She can only either pass or fail - same as with an instructor.

Statistically, learners who have some professional instruction tend to pass more often — not because instructors are magic, but because they teach how to pass the test, not just how to drive.
Even excellent drivers can unknowingly give outdated advice.
The biggest risk with parent-only teaching…Honestly? It’s usually not the learner — it’s the blind spots in the teaching.

I taught my son in a similar way, I did get him 2 lessons when we thought he was ready to check we were on track. Passed first time. For me I wanted him to drive as much as possible to get hours in and all weather conditions, that wouldn’t have happened on 2 hours a week lessons.
YouTube helped too!

I think this would be difficult because how your taught in a lesson is usually different to how many people end up driving if that makes sense but you’re tested on lesson style driving! Also instructors give you tips about the area you’re taking your test in, which was invaluable in my case (I learnt to drive in a major city and there were some weird bits that I’d have struggled with if we’d not gone through them before).

Driving Instructors have their passes counted and noted, so they’re unlikely to take on someone at such short notice that will probably increase their failure rate. We approached a driving instructor and made it absolutely clear that we did not want him to take her for her test and he would not be mentioned in any way, and got about six weeks of intensive lessons from him.

Don't bother downloading test routes. DS passed his test last year in a town he doesn't know and passed. It makes no difference. If you can drive safely, you can drive anywhere. You just need to be familiar with test conditions.

Knowledge of test routes is a thing of the past. Most instructors don't even know themselves!

DS practised at a part of the town he wasn't familiar with which often catches people out. Luckily it cropped up in the test and as he knew it well after five weeks practicing there he managed fine.

There are 'show and tell' questions now, does she know the answers to them?

The manoeuvres are bay park, parallel park, reverse on wrong side of the road for 2m, can she do that?

Most of the test is following road signs or sat nav without instructions from the tester, can she do that?

What bad habits have you taught her eg crossing your hands on the steering wheel?

If she's taking the test in your car is it totally test ready? Because the tester can refuse to do the test if it isn't.

DS was one of the first cohort passing his test last year when the new rules came into force. The test is apparently meant to be more like real life driving and not like a "test" for the 40 minutes.

There is an app you can download, it’s about £16 and that gives all the cancellations so you can check early each morning

They can be required to follow sat nav instructions in their test. So instead of the examiner saying 'Turn left' it would be following a series of instructions on the sat nav. I'd agree with others that unless you have experience of teaching you are very likely not teaching her everything she needs to know to pass. I would be researching a lot exactly what is required. As others have said, there's stuff like, 'show me how you'd check the oil' 'show me how you open the petrol cap' etc. And a hell of a lot more observations than any regular driver does (constantly and obviously checking mirrors and blind spot). I'm sure it's possible without lessons but only if you teach to the test not just rely on, 'she's a good driver'. I've been driving 30 years and pretty sure I wouldn't pass a driving test lol.

And if you have it, the driving test website decides you're a bot and blocks you:

Dear customer.Thank you for your email. If you have Testi installed on any device in your household you will be blocked with the error 15 message.
This is because your IP address will know that a device in your household has testi installed, meaning no matter what browser or device you use you will be blocked.
Delete the testi app and clear all search history, cache and cookies off your devices and the error 15 message should be fixed.

Doesn't manage to block the actual bots though

I'm learning at the minute, they don't teach 3 point turns or reverse around a corner anymore. She will need to park in a bay, reverse park in a bay, reverse parallel park, definitely observations need to be really obvious, 6 point check before moving off ect, mirror signal manoeuvre, follow a satnav and confidently drive at speed. It would be best to get a couple of lessons of you can to learn what the examiner will be looking for.

You can’t take your daughter on a motorway, she needs an instructor to do that, so make sure she knows all the signs and practises on dual carriageways. Apart from that, everything that everyone else says. Make sure she drives multiple routes, on every type of road. Manouveres. Reverse parks. Parallel parks. Three point turns. Reverses around corners. Mirror checking. Rush hour traffic. School pick up times. Road works. Country lanes. Roundabouts. Etc etc

You can't go on a motorway at all as a learner

Well obviously reversing, parallel parking, reversing into supermarket car parks is all part of the day to day driving we’ve been doing.

You can with a qualified driving instructor. Not sure when it changed. My dd went on motorway each week with her instructor as it was quickest way to test route. Obviously when out with me she didn’t.

Hi OP, I took my test a few years ago mid-Covid (ahem four times...). A large part of the test, around 20 mins, will be spent following a route that the examiner puts into a Satnav. Around 1 in 5 tests are spent following road signs instead - two of my tests were! So, it's absolutely worth practising following a Satnav around some of the test routes, and also getting your daughter to "follow signs to X until I instruct you otherwise". I think in my tests the Satnav/road sign navigation was the first half of the test, up to the point we did the manoeuvre, and then they directed me back to the test centre.
As someone with too much experience of driving tests, the things I slipped up on were twice driving into side roads too quickly, and once mounting the kerb trying to clear a path for a lorry!
I'd really recommend Driving School TV on YouTube, he's great at explaining manoeuvres and test technique.

You need to make sure the car she will be using meets the standards too
www.gov.uk/driving-test/using-your-own-car

Oh clearly yes, sorry I didn’t have the super power to read you mind. So you’ve also practiced all other manoeuvres, all sat nav procedures (well we know you’ve not done that), you know about pulling up on the opposite side of the road, reversing 2 car lengths, show me tell me, and the other long list? ….