What Are The Manoeuvres In A Driving Test?

You may be a confident driver preparing to take your test, however, even some of the best drivers struggle with the basic driving manoeuvres, including bay parking, reverse bay parking, parallel parking and an emergency stop.

Whether you have already booked your test or have only just started learning to drive, it’s absolutely vital that you know the driving test manoeuvres and understand how best to demonstrate them. As your driving test examiner will ask you to perform one manoeuvre chosen at random, it’s important that you can successfully and confidently demonstrate all four manoeuvres.

Bay Parking

One of the most important manoeuvres is bay parking, which is a basic manoeuvre which you will most likely be using every time you drive your car. Bay parking is split into two manoeuvres of forward bay parking and reverse bay parking. While many prefer to forward bay park, it is far safer to reverse bay park and is, in some instances, much easier than forward bay parking.

Forward Bay Parking

You should start off by choosing a bay that is easiest for you, bearing in mind that you should avoid bays with vehicles on either side, if you can.

Move over to the left and give yourself plenty of room and take your time to prepare. Check your mirror and blindspots to plan your point of turn, ensuring that you cause minimal disruption to pedestrians and other drivers.

Ensure that the way is completely clear before steering quickly while moving at a slow pace. Turn the steering wheel into full lock to manoeuvre the vehicle into the correct position, then straighten up and slowly drive forward until you are wholly in the bay. Stop the vehicle and apply your handbrake.

Reverse Bay Parking

Choose your bay and aim to position yourself in the centre of the road to give yourself enough space to manoeuvre, with approximately two car lengths past the bay, which is typically the third line from the bay.

Position the steering wheel into a full lock and slowly reverse the vehicle back towards your chosen bay, making sure that you take your time and check your side mirrors throughout the manoeuvre. As you move into the bay, check your mirrors and straighten up until the lines of the way are either side of the vehicle. Continue reversing back and stop when you are wholly into the pay. Put the gearbox into neutral and pull up the handbrake.

Parallel Parking

The most complex manoeuvre for many is parallel parking, which involves critical positioning, slow moving and checking your blind spots and mirrors during every step. The trick is slow reversing, but fast steering.

If your examiner asks you to demonstrate parallel parking, you will be required to reverse into a space behind another vehicle by pulling up besides it. This manoeuvre is critical to learn if you live in a city or if parking is restricted where you live, for example, in a street of terraced houses.

Pulling Up on the Right

Pulling up on the right is one of the most controversial manoeuvres for the DVSA driving test as it urges learner drivers to pull out where drivers are usually advised not to park against the flow of traffic. With that being said, pulling up on the left is not always possible if parking spaces are only available on the right-hand side of the road, so it is therefore important that you learn how to do this manoeuvre safely for the future.

Emergency Stop

While we understand the emergency stop isn’t strictly a manoeuvre, your examiner may ask you to safely demonstrate this during your DVSA test. The emergency stop tests your ability to stop the vehicle quickly, without losing control, and demonstrates your hazard perception skills and response rate, which means that the preparation for the hazard perception section of your theory test will be paid off!

Practice Makes Perfect

Pass your driving test with confidence and be on the road in no time with our industry-leading driving instructors. All of our instructors are super friendly and you can either book quickly and easily online or call the office and one of the team will talk you through your options.