DON’T bolt home on your Driving Test!
Yes, I know you will be nervous on your driving test. The fact of the matter though is that your test IS NOT over till it’s over.
What do I mean by that?
When I saw three examples of people bolting for home on their driving test in as many days I just had to sharpen you up on what it is to wait it out until the end of your test.
Yes, you begin reasonably nervous and when the real driving test starts after your Pre-Trip Inspection you get a sense of calming down a little…at least the long wait is now over.
As you start doing your Alley Docking, Parallel Parking, Incline and 3-Point Turn one-by-one you get settled more and more and start realising that this is what you practiced for all those hours. If it is that you practiced long and hard enough, you soon feel your instincts kicking in and gone are the worries that you may forget your markers and stuff like that.
You complete your Yard Test and your examiner, once they have added your score as a “Pass”, get into the car with you and your Road Test begins.
At most testing stations there are a number of pedestrians around, more than you have encountered on any one driving lesson, ever. Small feat for you, right? You just take extra good care to avoid everyone and soon enough you’re out of the testing centre’s grounds and on the real road.
You are well prepared for your driving test and as your examiner asks you to follow the route, given their instructions, you oblige without a problem…even remembering most of your K53 checks and procedures, but you have a few little oopsies here and there.
You start getting concerned with all this writing the examiner is doing, and if you are a competitive sports person for instance, you start adding your own driving test score in your head. Bad idea!
As you progress with your driving test on the road you realise you are getting closer and closer to reaching the end of your test and a little relief sets in.
Then you turn into the last piece of road heading back to the test station…
BE VERY CAREFUL!
Update 08/08/2011: This is how horribly things can go wrong when you don’t stay focussed. Although the exception and not the rule, in Brisbane, a driver applicant put his mother in hospital.
At this point there may be so much riding on your driving test and only when you handle this last part of the test with care can you assure yourself that you have the stamina to wait till the driving test is COMPLETELY over, I mean over, as in, you stopped the car in one piece, without making stupid last minute errors.
This is what happened to three people in last week.
On the home stretch, coming around the last corner before reaching the test station, my client rode over a solid white line. This is a traffic violation and he failed even though he could see and smell the test station right in front of him.
On the home stretch, coming into the test station, meters before parking his car, another instructor’s client made the exact same error – crossed a solid white line…traffic violation. Fail.
On the home stretch, while driving into the parking bay (can you believe it), my client stalled his car! By the grace of his examiner, he passed. She said he rolled after the stall, he honestly didn’t think he did, and I didn’t see him roll. That I was right in front, in plain view of both my client and the examiner perhaps helped. She first gave him a stare-down from hell and then paid him a compliment and said he drove very well. You’ve never seen such a relieved person in your life! Thanks Mrs. Examiner!!
Please, please, please people – your driving test ends only WHEN YOU GET OUT OF THE CAR!!!! Any thinking of failing, or passing for that matter, before you do, is not only a waste of time and energy, but the most dramatic impact you can place on your results. This is what three people learned last week.
Stay focused now!
