‘Ready to Pass’ – DVSA campaign

Are you ‘Ready to Pass’?

In January 2023 51% of driving tests resulted in a fail.

The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) first published their ‘Ready to pass’ website in 2022 and it has recently been updated. The aim of it is to try and reduce the waiting times for driving tests by making sure that learners are properly prepared for their test. The ‘Ready to Pass’ campaign covers five key areas that a learner needs to be able answer ‘yes’ to are:

1. Your driving instructor does not prompt you at all.
It is easy to convince yourself that you are driving to the required standard but when you come to your test you are completely on your own. Your examiner will not comment on any aspect of your driving – unless it becomes necessary and that won’t be good news! So if you are still having to be prompted on some thins by your instructor then you almost certainly will need more practice before being fully ready for your driving test.

2. You make no serious or dangerous mistakes while you are driving. Serious driving faults can be as silly as driving just that bit too much over the speed limit or not coming to a complete stop at a STOP sign. But these are important issues as it probably means that you are not fully understanding what is required of you. Some serious faults can b rather more obvious – like changing lanes without properly checking if it is safe to do so or not indication to let other driver know when you are turning left or right or leaving a roundabout. This leads on to…….

3. You are able to pass mock tests. You are very likely to do at least one mock test with your instructor – you might even ask to do more. It is important that you perform well in these. Ideally you can pass a mock test but if there is just a silly error that would have resulted in a fail then it may well be that, between you and your instructor, you agree it was out of character and that you are unlikely to make the same mistake again on your actual test. But, even so, it’s much better to go to your test confident that you have passed at least one mock test.

4. You are able to control your nerves. A driving test is one of the most nerve-wracking experiences you can go through so it is important that you try and approach it as calmly as possible. We do have links to Diane Hall’s courses that have been proven to help calm nerves. Ask your instructor if you would like more information on this.

5. Your instructor is happy for you to take the driving test. We are quite strict about this! We won’t let someone ‘have a go’ just for the experience if we are not confident that you should pass. We have a wealth of experience with this and, in most cases, we find that the learner actually tells us he or she is not ready – but every now and then we have to be firm and say we are not prepared to go to test. We know this can be disappointing to hear, especially with the long waiting times for tests – which is why we want to be confident of a first time pass.

As a driving school, Training Wheelz endorses everything in the ‘Ready to pass’ campaign and we would encourage all our learners to look at it. There is also a version of this on You Tube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmHPRQw3G-w