Myths Yanks believe about the UK Practical Driving Test, debunked

Many of us, when looking for information about a subject we are interested in, troll the Internet. I did when I began to wonder what was required to change my US driving license for a UK one, something I would need to do once I became a legal resident of England. Mainly, I found horror stories.

The horrors were not about the roads themselves, although especially in the southwest, where I live, many roads are ancient ones built when even the King's Highway needed to be only as wide as the rumps of two cart horses side by side; they've been paved since, but otherwise little altered. The roads are somewhat intimidating.


The dreaded UK Practical Driving Test
So, although there was some concern on the Internet about the general lack of generosity in use of paving materials nationwide, most commentary was about the feared--nay, dreaded--UK Practical Driving Test. The UK Practical Driving Test is regarded as one of the two toughest in the world, I have read. The single one that's tougher is the South African driving test. That one is so hard, a great many people there simply learn to drive, buy a car, and never annoy a government driving examiner with their presence. In fact, there are myriad UK nationals and immigrants who do likewise in the UK, hoping nothing untoward will happen. Stupid. Just stupid.

After all the horror stories, and admitting to a healthy dose of fear about meeting disarticulated lorries (known in the States as semi-trailers, or semis) on the narrow roads, I booked driving lessons. Forty-six years of points-free driving in the US, and I booked lessons. Bizarre.

Truly, though, there are some road tricks that can help immeasurably with the British highway heebie jeebies, and my first instructor taught them to me immediately. Road positioning for example, is paramount where the verge is a rock wall and there's no center line and the road is barely two cars wide. The trick? Just use the light-colored stripe down the middle of your side of the road to position the driver's seat over...remembering, naturally, that one is on the WRONG side of the road. Later, I learned another trick: feel as if your shoulder is against the white line in the middle of the road (or where a white line should be), and the car will be in the right position. With windows open, and cars whizzing by at as much as 60 mph, it can be a little unnerving. But my instructor kept saying, "There's plenty of room." And I kept saying, "Not to a Yank." But eventually, I got used to it.

The roundabout, scourge of the American driver
OK. So all that was good. But then there was the question of roundabouts. They are simple enough when they are one lane, but two? Oy vay. It seems, until one learns the correct idiom, as if drivers are just hurtling at you from every which way. In fact, sometimes they do, because the UK has lousy and inconsiderate drivers just like every place else. Still, if you know you are correct and know where to look for those who aren't, you've got most of that job done. Keeping your wits about you will do the rest.

Old ladies driving, oh my
If the tiny roadways, ubiquitous roundabouts and wrong-side travel were not enough, the UK also has a legion or two of OLD drivers...really old drivers...who were issued licenses during WWII, when the driving test that had been instituted in the mid-1930s was put on hiatus during the war. They learned to drive when top speeds were about 50 mph, cars had no power to speak of, the roads were wide enough to accommodate the skinny old cars, there were not seventeen kinds of pedestrian crossings and 8 pages of road markings and signs to learn. Result: They never had to learn all that to pass any sort of test, don't know any of it now, and are still legally tooling around in cars with power and width on roads designed for horses under rubrics devised by bureaucrats to cope with increasingly inadequate roadways without spending money for such things as tarmac and sign gantries. Nothing, bar the oldsters telling the Driving Standards Agency when they are too blind or ill or impaired to drive, limits a UK license. It is good FOREVER, although the yearly health reports are supposed to be made after age 70. Supposed to be made is the operative phrase. Did I mention oy vay?

Well, maybe backing around a corner is worse
Worst of all, however, is the spectre of backing around a corner, required on about a fourth of all tests, in alternation with backing into a parking bay, three-point turns, and parallel parking. Americans are terrorized most by backing around a corner since it is basically regarded as dangerous in the States and is illegal in many states. When I learned to drive in New York State, doing something like that would get you a hefty fine, or worse.

Next in fearsomeness is backing into a parking bay. No American can understand why anyone would want to do it as a matter of course; it's tough to load the groceries that way.

Three-point turns and parallel parking, though, should not strike terror into Yankee hearts, but they do. And herein lies another myth to be debunked.

Americans are told that if, while doing either of these maneuvers, their tires contact the curb, they will fail.

Not so.

If they mount the curb, they will fail. If they touch it while going dead slow--I mean really dead slow, like a baby crawling--they might lose a point, but won't fail on that account. And doing it that slow is desirable; the examiners are looking for fine motor control, a balance between clutch and brake and gas, and 360 degree observation virtually every few seconds, or sooner.

Which leaves only one other seriously weird thing Americans worry about when taking the UK Driving Test: turning the steering wheel.

Old-lady driving techniques are NOT required
When I learned to drive, in 1963, we were taught a hand-over-hand method, as that allowed quite a good deal of both finesse and accuracy. Our instructors even made fun of people, usually old folks, who pushed and pulled the wheel through their hands, or threaded it. Not a good way if you need to make a fast turn for some reason, like to avoid a Mack truck bearing down in your lane, for instance.

But Americans think--and many UK driving instructors also think--that hand-over-hand use of the steering wheel will cause a practical test failure.

It will not. Most experienced drivers will handle the wheel that way. Why would they want experienced drivers to go back to the baby steps that are useful--perhaps--for rank neophytes? They don't. The very first thing I asked my instructor at the Five Day intensive driving course in Norwich, UK, was whether this was necessary. It is not. Repeat: It is not. The standards call for control of the wheel at all times. Period. No specific method of handling it is mandated. And, as the instructors said at Five Day, "We don't teach people to be learner drivers; we teach them to be drivers." All the difference in the world.

So why do so many Americans of vast driving experience in the US and a good bit in the UK before having to change their license (one has a full year to drive on a valid US license) fail the test? Because they have bought into the major myths. Here they are, and the truths:

Myth number one: You have to thread the wheel. You don't. Hand-over-hand is fine.
Myth number two: You will fail if you don't do the backing around a corner perfectly. You won't, necessarily. I was told of a lady who did it very badly on her test, and in bona fide frustration, banged her head on the steering wheel and wailed, "Why can't a grown woman DO this?"  The examiner consoled her, mentioning she'd never do it again in her life (who does?), and while he would take off some points for inaccuracy, her observations and control of the clutch were fine. She passed. (One can lose 15 minor points and still pass.)

This may be an exception, but it is one that points up another myth to be debunked with extreme prejudice: All driving test centers are alike.

They are not. Indeed, my admittedly scanty research suggests that centers in fair-sized cities will be more conversant with the many perfectly safe driving styles as well as with the UK standards, and foreign drivers will have a better chance of proving their skills at those. My advice in that regard would be this:

Spring for a week-long course and get 'er done
Find an intensive driving course and take it. DO NOT fool around with a few lessons for a few months trying to get the hang of the UK requirements, which many less senior instructors don't really know. DO understand that when an intensive course instructor sees an experienced driver, he or she will know that and teach you want you actually need to know (i.e., backing around a corner) and not worthless, needless bulldoody, such as threading the steering wheel through turns rather than doing hand-over-hand turning. Intensive driving schools employ instructors rated by the DSA (Driving Standards Agency) at five or six, the two highest rankings; local driving schools very often have instructors with less exalted rankings, and therefore less extensive knowledge and understanding. Often, that will include very little experience of foreign drivers' experience and skill.

Don't think a nationwide driving school company offering local lessons is the answer, either. I booked some lessons from AA (the Automobile Association), thinking they'd surely be sophisticated and knowledgeable. They were not. In fact, the greatest amount of bogus information I got came from AA, I think because they "teach to test" for rank beginners, period. An experienced immigrant will not benefit from the sort of lessons I had from them, not at all. Indeed, I came home crying after the second of three lessons I had booked and prepaid, and cancelled the third. Losing money was better than losing my mind.

I had wanted to do an intensive course, with the test at the end, and get it done long ago. But it did mean staying in a hotel far from home, missing my family...all that. So I messed around with the local routine for several miserable months. In the end, I sprung for the intensive course anyway, and it was well worth it. It was worth it even though I had already spent a small fortune on the local driving lessons. It was worth it because:

• The instructors are top-notch.
• Distractions are absent; all one has to do is apply one's foreign experience to UK requirements, which is tons easier than trying to re-invent the wheel, needlessly.
• It got it over and done, no muss or fuss.
• There is usually a pass guarantee. For example, Five Day is so sure their method works, they will give those who fail the first time some extra tuition to work on the weak point so they pass the second time. That alone is worth the freight.
• Paying for something that works is better than paying money and spending time with something that doesn't.
• It is actually rather fun to spend time with mainly young people seeking their license...a good way to take the pulse of the country and update one's cultural knowledge.
• Even those of us who think we know it all can pick up valuable information and insights, into driving and all sorts of other stuff, by spending 20 or 30 hours in a short space of time with a highly qualified instructor.
• It is nifty to be able to explore a new area of a new country while making headway toward becoming more a part of that country. I can't think of any part of England that would not offer ex-pat Yanks plenty to hold one's interest in off hours.

You will find, on the Internet, the opinion that if beginners can be taught to pass the tough UK driving test in only one week, then their knowledge will be shallow and their experience almost nil. That's true. But that would also be true if they spent an entire year on local lessons, one lesson a week with time to get rusty in between. In the UK, unlike the US, it is rare that young people learn by driving a few times a week with Mom and Dad; it is prohibitive to insure the family car for learner drivers in the UK. Perhaps the fact that all new drivers lack experience is one reason the UK test is so tough. In any country, new drivers will need to gain experience by driving alone, without an instructor or Mom or Dad to issue commands or even give helpful suggestions. There is inevitably a time when new drivers are dangerous, and there is no way around it. Practice makes perfect, after all, as long as that practice is accurate...which may well be the entire point of the exceedingly picky, very demanding UK practical driving test.

Now, if we could only get them to test the geezers who got a license simply by being alive and tall enough to see over the steering wheel for about six years in the 1940s.....