6 Things To Unlearn From Your Driving Test
1. 'Feeding' the wheel
The ‘pull-push’ method, also known as ‘feeding the wheel’, is argubly the most important ‘driving test’ technique. It’s a method that has been taught for years; even the police force use it when training Class 1 drivers. The idea behind the technique is that it allows you to keep both hands on the wheel at all times, therefore making you a ‘safer’ driver.
Unfortunately, this is nothing more than ill-advised rhetoric. Feeding the wheel is inefficient, outdated and in some circumstances, it can be dangerous. For example, imagine that you’re on a country road and you approach a blind corner. You enter what you think is a shallow bend, but as you turn in, the corner starts to decrease in radius. To avoid running wide, you need to add more steering lock quickly but smoothly; something you can’t do effectively when feeding the wheel.
If you attempt to ‘pull and push’ the wheel, you’ll end up making jagged inputs at a point where the car is already unstable. And if the corner continues to tighten, the push and pull technique will be too slow, and you’ll end up running wide.
Instead, if you keep both hands on the wheel and cross your arms, you maintain that vital connection with the wheel. You can feel what the front end is doing and you can add steering input progressively. There’s a reason why ARDS qualified racing instructors ask first time track drivers to keep their hands at nine and three.
2. Constantly applying the hand-brake
The handbrake is your best friend on the driving test. Almost every time you stop, you’re required to use it; even after the emergency stop! Thankfully, most drivers come to their senses and drop this ‘bad habit’ once they’ve passed their test.
In reality, there’s no need to handbrake every time you come to a halt. For example, if you’re in stop-start traffic, the foot brake will usually suffice. And if you need to make an emergency stop in a pile-up situation, the last thing you should do is apply the handbrake. Once stopped you should check your mirrors, put the car in gear and pull over to the side.
Don’t get us wrong, we’re not saying that you should never use it, but you don’t need to apply it every time you stop.
3. Checking your mirrors at pre-determined intervals
Every time you set off you should theoretically conduct a six-point check. The process goes (in the UK): look over your left shoulder, check your left exterior mirror, check your rear-view mirror, check the road ahead, check your right mirror and then finally look over your right shoulder. On your test you need to make these checks look super obvious to avoid incurring any minor penalties.
Our problem with this technique is the fact that it turns situational ‘awareness’ into a box-ticking exercise. And as we all know, when you do something simply for the sake of it (in this case, pleasing an instructor), the process ceases to have a meaningful effect.
4. Don't flash other road users
The Highway Code states that you should ‘only flash your headlights to let other road users know that you are there. Do not flash your headlights to convey any other messages’. As a result, you cannot flash your headlights on your driving test, and you cannot react to someone else flashing their lights at you. Now, we understand that in some circumstances this form of communication has the potential to be hazardous, but in most cases we find it to be rather helpful.
Flashing people to say thank you or to let them into a line of traffic is a daily occurrence for most of us. And whatever you might have been told, flashing your lights in the UK is not illegal.
5. Speed is the enemy (it's actually your friend)
Controversially, the driving test in the UK fails to incorporate any form of motorway driving. The majority of your lessons will take place in busy towns or cities where your maximum speed will be limited to 30mph. As a result, young drivers often view speed as the enemy. This isn’t a major problem on crowded streets, but it can play havoc when it comes to driving on motorways.
When merging onto a faster road, it’s vital that you accelerate to match the speed of the adjacent traffic. Unfortunately, learner drivers often get intimidated and slow down on on-ramps. Not only is this dangerous to the learner driver, but it’s also dangerous to drivers travelling at high speed on the main road. If only they knew that mashing the loud pedal is actually safer.
6. Constantly checking your speed
Speeding during your driving test can result in instant failure. As a result, most learners spend the majority of their assessment staring at the speedometer. This is because the test is nothing more than a box-ticking exercise: as long as you’re under the limit, you’re deemed to be safe.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. If you’re doing the speed limit, but not focusing on the road ahead, this is equally (if not more) dangerous than speeding. Thankfully, the more you drive, the more accustomed you become to multi-tasking (checking speed, road conditions and surrounding traffic).
Finally, we want to know from you guys, what pointless things were you told during your driving lessons? Let us know in the comments below!
Comments
Everything said here is what I learned in driving school here in France, with some minor changes of course. Is driving lessons THAT crappy in the UK ? oO
The most annoying thing about not flashing your headlights at other drivers is that you’re actually supposed to respond to others doing it to you (if it’s safe to do so) else you can be penalised for holding up flow of traffic or for undue hesitation.
My instructor’s most often complaint with me was that every time someone let me round a parked car or into a junction etc. I’d raise my fingers from the wheel, but still keeping a grip with my thumb, to say thanks.
Ok, that handbrake thing i’ve never heard before. I know nobody who’s been taught to pull up the handbrake whenever they’re in traffic, only when they park
Should wearing a seat belt be addes to your list? Since I passed it, I pretty much stopped wearing it..
Then you’re a moron
I’ll be at your funeral.
Laughing at your idiocy.
I said pretty much, when going on the highway I do wear it tho. But in the town I live, where I do most of my driving since I work and live in the same city. My work is like 1 km away from my house, and I don’t feel the need to wear it for just a km
Disagree with the handbrake point. Nothing pisses me off more than being behind someone who’s sitting with their footbrake on, brake lights are unsurprisingly pretty bright. And don’t get me started on people who hold their car on the clutch! Just stick the handbrake on until the traffic moves or the lights change.
The point I would make about not using the hand brake would be that you know they are stopped and you know their intentions. Imo it’s just as bad as having no brake lights at all.
Falls under the same reason why truckers use their hazards if they are moving slow up a hill.
If an animal (such as a goat in my case) runs onto the road, you must hit it as to attempt to avoid it would endanger other road users. On my driving test a goat ran out infront of me, so I continued driving at a steady speed and missed it by an inch, now I didn’t want to fail… 30 minutes I was chasing that goat round that field and he still failed me, where’s the justice in that?
I have done my driver ed during my wonderful canadian winter and the instructor was really nice but jackass… He pull the handbrake while I was turning in a crowded parking lot during a snowstorm to see what would be my reaction. I hit the gas and countersteer but he told me that almost 95% of the time the students hit the brake instead making them slide and sometime hit another car or a curb.
That’s a good test, but shouldn’t he have done that in a controlled environment?
The handbrake thing is new to me you use it while driving????? The hydraulic brakes work fine they don’t need any help from the cables
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZUWNuHOFOc
raise the speed limit already
In Brazil, we are only required to know how to shift between first, second and reverse gear. So you basically get a license unprepared to tackle a motorway/large avenue
Actually this is true! I was used to ride only with my father in the driver seat. He isn’t a petrolhead like us but he like a lot driving so he drives very well. He shifts very well too.
When I rode for the first time with some other people I noticed how common is people who do not know how to shift very well. My stepfather, for example, rarely engage the 4º and hardly reduces to pass on a speed bump.