Two days ago, I passed the driving test in the UK after three failed attempts. I got an appointment in the same day (4 hours before the test to be exact), and I did it during the lunch break and finally passed. While many of the details are still in my mind, I decided to write them all here just in case I needed to share them with someone else just before I start removing the applications from my phone and the information from my mind.
Driving in Iraq
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I learned driving in Iraq in 2006, my friend who was also a novice driver had taught me how to control the car in a basic way. After between 2003 and 2011, we had no driving licenses, and in Baghdad it wasn’t a requirement or a necessity until maybe 2018, beside that, the driving test is just a very short practice that everyone can pass it very easily. My real learning path was through a dangerous and expensive process of trial and error, basically learning by accidents (although I wasn’t the one to blame about half of them), a process that made my driving safe in a meaning that I wouldn’t kill someone in the street, but not to keep the car itself unscratched, nor to teach me any driving traditions like lane discipline (many in Iraq don’t understand what is the lane), behavior in roundabouts, focus on blind spots, being considerate about cyclists and many other details.
New learner vs driver from another country
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In the UK, I found that I can drive easily, and get used to the easy rules and traditions very fast, but not enough to pass the test. The period between doing the theory test and passing the practical one was interrupted by two lockdowns and huge backlog in driving tests that made me incurious about doing any learning practice until few days before the test (and sometimes after it). The other thing, it was very difficult to learn, for two reasons: first, I wasn’t really learning, because I had my driving habits, so it was more of a process of habits change; second, in my opinion, many of the traditions of the driving test are just some form of acting, that maybe even the examiners themselves forget to do them in their daily driving.
My attempts
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My first attempt was in Letchworth Garden city, I did zero preparation, I didn’t know what’s the emergency stop nor did I know the importance of safety checks when moving off. And as many know, these things don’t matter at all in Iraq. The test ended in less than 10 minutes with a question if I’ve ever taken driving lessons?
I then took one driving lesson, and I couldn’t do the next driving test until 9 months because of the lockdown and the backlog, I didn’t know that I can change the driving test and get a closer date, and I may have still been waiting for the third one if I hadn’t known about the applications below.
I failed the second one very fast because I exceeded the speed limit in front of a camera. Then, I failed the next one because I made someone slightly brake in a junction. Finally, I passed in the fourth attempt.
The difficult moment was when the examiner tells me that the independent driving has finished and I must follow his/her orders, which means that they’ll guide me to go to the driving test center and end the exam.
In the one that I did yesterday, I acted well, and was a little bit worried during the exam and it was finally done.
Mock test videos
One of the most useful ways to learn is the mock test videos. You cannot imagine doing some errors until you see someone doing them, and you may not know how serious are some of the errors in the exam until you see someone doing them and getting failed for that. Here’re the two channels that provide such a great content:
Advance driving school: I really recommend this, and it’s more accurate than the others.
Learning from the test
I mentioned my first attempt, it costed me the exam fees only, which is 10 GBPs more than the average lesson fee or even less than some lessons’ fees. Never cancel or change the date if you feel you’re not ready, unless if it was related to the fee itself. The best driving lesson you can have is the failed test attempt itself.
Applications for practicing and for booking the test
The following applications helped me to learn the habits and traditions that I needed to learn, if you’re a first time learner you can’t rely on them and you must have someone to teach you how to control the car first. The applications are:
The Official DVSA Hazard Perception Practice
Using the two applications above I passed the theory test in the first attempt.
SimDrive: Helps you to know the sequence of mirrors, looking, position…etc for real scenarios in London driving centers and to practice in the paths virtually.
Practical Driving Test UK: videos to explain all the driving scenarios in details.
Testi: helps you to get cancellations for driving tests, it needs a fast action when the notification appears.
Driving test cancellations 4all: unlike testi, you don’t get so many notifications and you don’t need to worry about being very fast to click or lose the slot, DTC4all gives 15 minutes for you to accept or reject the new reservation.
Both of the two applications above require you to reserve the test anytime / anywhere and then they’ll work on changing your date, but they don’t book it from the beginning.
Games? I wished if there were games and simulations for the driving process, but I couldn’t find that. There’re some games but they weren’t very helpful, maybe they could help someone who’s very new to the process.
Driving lessons
In my unique case as a foreigner who wants to pass the test, I got nothing that I couldn’t find in the apps. The only thing that I got was a negative focus on the minors, while I failed twice for a very silly majors. The way of thinking that I faced usually in UK is that people look at the small problems and big problems as the same, because usually there’re no big problems. That applies to the driving test.
I passed the exam with 6 minors, and I always had minors, you can have 15 until you fail, but one major is enough to fail you. Those who made that scoring system were smart enough to understand this, and the purpose for that is very clear, serious faults (majors) could cause serious issues, while a minor for frequently and unnecessarily changing the gear won’t kill anyone.
The only useful thing was the advices that I got, which I got more from friends and relatives.
Advices
One of my work colleagues had given me a simple advice, drive slowly you’ll get a minor, drive fast, you’ll fail. I got an advice from the driving instructor that I tried for two lessons, always look at from where the danger may come, such an advice gives a meaning to the frequent checks that are very necessary to pass the test, instead of doing them as some form of acting to convince the examiner.
Centers
For foreigners, the first thing that you may be afraid of is the discrimination. I don’t blame any driving center that discriminates against the Iraqis, as we don’t have any driving system in the country, such biases may exist, people are usually full of biases, and they may blame such issues rather than blame their driving mistakes. Me for example, I failed 3 times with white English men examiners, but I passed with an Indian woman examiner, but I don’t think it has anything to do with that.
The other issue is the differences among pass rates in different centers, east London for example, where many Arabs, Indians and other nationalities live, have the lowest pass rates, while the highest pass rates exist in rural areas. That may raise an alarm about the discrimination issue, but I don’t think it’s valid, for example, many ones like me may do their tests in diverse areas, and we are more prone to fail due to the reasons above. Also, nothing can deny that there’re streets that are more difficult and more dangerous than others, accidents for example never happen in some areas while the happen more in other areas. Streets have different designs and that’s the main reason in my opinion.
Google reviews doesn’t count, and pass rates differ according to the year, so that may be taken into account as well. Driving to a far area could cause more stress.
The car and the company
Who’ll accompany you? That’s an important thing, there must be someone who you don’t feel stress with.
And about the car, they usually say: use the instructor’s car, but in the case of a foreginers who probably was able to drive by using an international license for a year, and able to practice as learner while sitting next to a driver, that couldn’t be the case, in my case it was my car that I used to drive and practice in.