Driving Test Tips are crucial and very important but when you ask a friend or go online, you can get many advice from your friend or you can find many blogs, websites or wikis that tell you how to test DMV Driving Test in your first attempt. But most of these tips or information are not based on real facts because no one is telling the secret recipe or best Driving Test Tips that will make you pass behind the wheel test easily.
Your friend probably passed this test ages ago and he/she will not remember most of the details of his/her first DMV Driving Test experience
If you want to take the old school approach, you can read articles below that will give you enough information about DMV practice tests, written tests, DMV Driver Handbook etc.
Driving is almost same wherever you live. In some countries like United Kingdom and India, the traffic flows on the left, contrary to many European countries and US. Other than that, there are no big, major differences.
Who enters the driving test? Basically, we can put this into three categories.
- Newcomers: The people, mostly youngster who wants to get their first driving license.
- Senior Drivers: In California, if you are over 70; you have to go to local DMV office to renew your driver license and in some cases, they may want you to take the behind the wheel test again.
- Immigrants: This category may include from F-1 students to tourists, legal or illegal any type of immigrants who move to US for a particular reason.
Typically to pass the road test or behind the wheel test, you must not make more than 30 regular errors and zero critical errors.
Check this out the learn what are the regular errors and what are the critical errors:
A typical road test will take around 25 to 30 minutes and the routes for the tests are almost same all the time. There will be an examiner with you while you are driving and here come the very important driving test tips right here.
Driving Test Tips
If you are from another country and immigrate to US, probably you have lots of driving experience in your home country. You may have a valid driving license for a long time and you can consider yourself like a pro driver. But; this is not your home country. This is USA and things are a bit different here.
First of all; the examiners take their job very seriously and they will behave you as if you are decomposing the atom, not driving a car. If you are lucky, you can find a smiling face but mostly when they understand that you are a foreigner, their attitude will completely change and your chance of passing the road test will diminish.
TIP ONE: Try to get your examiner’s sympathy won’t work.
You can think that you are experienced enough to pass the test at your first attempt. This will be one of the biggest mistake ever that will lead you to fail.
TIP TWO: Your past experience doesn’t count in USA.
I know many people who are professional drivers in their home country and yet, they still failed DMV Road Test. If you just arrived US, you’ll also probably fail because you’ll not have enough data about traffic rules, the signs and other traffic related factors in US.
A simple example is the location of traffic lights. In most countries, the traffic lights will be in front of you, parallel to the white line but in US, traffic lights located on the other side of road. So, if you pass the white line just because to stop in front of lights, you’ll not only fail the test but also, you’ll cause an accident. I know, many of you will think this is a stupid mistake but it may happen. The important bit is you have to familiarize yourself to the surroundings, traffic signs and other major factors.
TIP THREE: Practice the Road Test Route
This is our secret recipe. Or this is a secret most people know but for a reason never use it. DMV offices are very clumsy and process is so slow.
This scene from Zootopia animation very well defines the process in DMV. Don’t mad at them. There 250 million vehicles in US and lots of bureaucracy. But this is also an advantage for you because DMV rarely changes their testing routes. Here is an example below:
If you don’t know the route, you can go to DMV early and observe the examiners. You can follow them but I don’t recommend this because they may think you are some sort of freak. You can get information from your family or friends who took the exam before.
After you learn the route, take a friend that you trust and pretend that he or she is your examiner. You can download the score-sheet here and drive this route unless you make zero mistake. As I said earlier, a typical road test will take around 25-30 minutes. So I recommend you test the route on Sunday first and then a week day because you have to drive while there are actual real traffic just like a normal day.
Don’t Ignore These Driving Test Tips
While you drive;
- Check the traffic signs in this route
- Check the speed limits because there may be a school nearby and the speed limit will change automatically.
- Check any construction sites because rules may vary while you are near a construction field.
- Check if there are any intersection or blind spots, curves that may prevent your view while driving.
- Practice everything from beginning to the end with your pseudo examiner and let him or her to be harsh on you.
- More you practice, more likely you’ll pass the road test in your first attempt.
- Don’t forget: most successful keynote speakers or leaders practice in front of a mirror before they make their actual speech. This is no different than that. The route is your mirror and the only cure for your anxiety and excitement in the actual, real road test is your experience on the route.