New Driving Test Changes from December 2017

Sat, 15th April, 2017

The Car driving test in England, Scotland and Wales will change from Monday 4 December 2017

The changes will only apply to Car driving tests

The 4 main changes to the car test are:

Independent driving part of the test

Will now be longer (approx 20 minutes) and take up half of the test.

During this part of the test, you have to drive without turn-by-turn directions from the driving examiner.

Following directions from a sat nav

During the independent driving part of the test, most candidates will be asked to follow directions from a sat nav.
Oddly, One in 5 driving tests won’t use a sat nav. You’ll need to follow traffic signs instead.

The examiner will provide the sat nav and set it up. You have to use the one supplied by the examiner so you can't use your own.
You won’t need to set the route - the examiner will do this for you.

You’ll be able to ask the examiner for confirmation of where you’re going if you’re not sure. It won’t matter if you go the wrong way unless you make a fault while doing it.

Reversing manoeuvres will be changed

The ‘reverse around a corner’ and ‘turn-in-the-road’ manoeuvres will no longer be tested,but it's important that you still learn how to do these and your instructor should still teach you.

You’ll be asked to do one of 3 possible reversing manoeuvres:
  • parallel park at the side of the road
  • park in a bay - either driving in and reversing out, or reversing in and driving out (the examiner will tell you which you have to do)
  • pull up on the right-hand side of the road, reverse for 2 car lengths and rejoin the traffic
See How to:- Pull up on the right and reverse for more.

Answering a vehicle safety question while you’re driving

The examiner will ask you 2 vehicle safety questions during your driving test - these are known as the ‘show me, tell me’ questions. At present these are asked at the start of the test.

From 4th December 2017 you will now be asked one ‘tell me’ question (where you explain how you’d carry out a safety task) at the start of your test, before you start driving and then while your driving during the test, the driving examiner will ask you one ‘show me’ question (where you show how you’d carry out a safety task) for example, showing how to wash the windscreen using the car controls and wipers.

List of all the new questions:-
Tell Me - Questions asked at the start the Car Driving Test From Dec 2017
Show Me - Questions asked during the Car Driving Test From Dec 2017


Watch how the new test will work

This DVSA video shows how the test will work from 4 December 2017.