Everything You Need to Know About Driving and Getting Your Licence

How to get your driving licence

This is our simple, stride-past-footstep guide to learning to drive and getting your total Uk driving licence

23 Sep 2020

If you're considering learning to drive, have information technology from all of the states here at Auto Express that we highly recommend it. Mainly because having a total UK driving licence opens doors which lead to awesome road trips, exciting B route jaunts and a life-long dearest affair with cars. Possibly more importantly, it as well makes you more attractive to employers and presents you with a level of liberty no other mode of transport tin can match.

Learning to drive is a challenge and driving is one of a few delights reserved merely for adults. Even if yous are unsure equally to whether or not to under take the claiming of learning to drive, we strongly advise you to try it equally the worst case scenario is that yous don't savor it and stop. In the best instance, you'll have miles and miles of fun!

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But the question remains, how to go about learning to drive in the UK? Fortunately, that is exactly where this guide comes in. To make things relatively easy, the path involved in getting from a provisional driving licence and passing your test to pootling downward the road all by yourself is fairly well defined. That being said, there are several vital points and procedures that you as a driver demand to be aware of along the mode, so be sure to read what is below carefully.

Scroll downward the page for our complete guide to learning to drive a machine and getting a driving licence to exercise so in the UK. If you lot demand more details in any detail expanse, we've added links to the relevant pages beneath.

How to go a driving licence

1. Apply for a provisional licence: you have to be 15 years and 9 months old (or over) to do this.
two. Pass your theory test: this involves multiple choice questions based on the Highway Lawmaking and a hazard perception exam.
iii. Pass your practical driving exam: made up of vehicle prophylactic questions and a driving ability test with an independent driving section.
4. Apply for your full UK driving licence: make full out the forms and beginning driving!

How to utilize for conditional driving licence

The offset pace on the road to a total Great britain driving licence is applying for your provisional driving licence. You lot have to live in Great United kingdom (at that place's a unlike service in Northern Ireland) and you have to be at least 15 years, nine months quondam. If you lot want to drive a car, you'll need to be at least 17 before you can practice so on UK roads.

In that location are, however, exceptions to the age limit. Yous can get a provisional licence and have your car driving exam at 16 if yous receive the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) that's made to long-term sick or disabled people.

16-year-olds tin also drive some specially-classified lightweight cars with a conditional licence. These 'lite-quadricycles' must weigh under 350kg and have a top speed of under 28mph. They're classified with mopeds and can be driven with a provisional licence later on taking the Compulsory Basic Preparation (CBT) that you need to ride a scooter or motorbike.

To get your provisional driving licence you must meet the minimum age and eyesight requirements and live in Great U.k.. Yous can so complete the application form, either online or past ordering a hard copy from the DVLA, provide proof of identity and pay the fee. Do all that and your provisional licence volition be sent to you in the post.

Learn to bulldoze

With a conditional driving licence under your belt, you're free to outset learning to bulldoze a car on public roads, but there are strings attached.

Y'all must be accompanied at all times by a full licence holder who is over 21, qualified to bulldoze the vehicle you're driving and has held their licence for 3 years. You'll need to display Fifty-plates (D-plates in Wales) and you can't drive on motorways.

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About learners exercise a mixture of paid-for driving lessons with a qualified instructor and informal practice with a member of their family or friend. There's no minimum corporeality of practice you have to practise earlier taking your driving test and then in theory you could apply for it directly away - but it's ameliorate to get evaluated by an teacher before wasting coin on a test date you may non be ready for.

Take a driving theory test

What you will definitely need to do earlier taking your practical driving test is take and pass your theory test. All you need to accept the theory exam is your provisional licence, enough cash to embrace the fee and a reasonably comprehensive grasp of the Highway Code.

You can volume the theory test online or over the phone and it takes the form of a gear up of fifty multiple selection questions followed by a risk perception examination. There are costless online tests where yous can practice both parts of the theory exam but you'll have to go to the examination centre to take the real ane and if y'all fail you have to wait at least three working days before taking information technology once more.

Anyone who has taken the Government'due south Safer Road User Award can have a special abridged version of the theory exam. It costs a chip less and only has 35 questions instead of the usual 50. They still accept to do the hazard perception exam, which involves watching fourteen video clips of road scenes on a computer screen and identifying hazards. If you pass, you'll become a theory test pass certificate.

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Take a practical driving test

And at present we come up to the crunch, the applied driving test. At this point you're just one hurdle, guarded by a clipboard-wielding examiner, away from a life on the open roads.

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To volume your driving test yous need to have passed your theory test. So it'south just a thing of supplying your driving licence number and paying the fee. On the day of your test, y'all'll need both parts of your provisional driving licence and your theory test pass certificate.

No matter how skilled you lot are behind the wheel, the driving test tin still exist a daunting prospect. The hush-hush is to fix properly, know what to wait and, if at all possible, try to relax.

The practical driving test kicks off with an eyesight cheque where you lot're required to read a car number plate from twenty metres abroad. And then it's the ii 'prove me, tell me' questions relating to vehicle safety and just then practice you get behind the bike.

The driving ability cess includes various manoeuvres that your examiner will ask yous to perform. It will usually include a hill first, an angled start from behind a parked car and normal braking tests. Yous'll usually also be asked to perform either a reverse around a corner, a turn in the road or a reverse park.

Once that'southward out of the way, information technology's ten minutes of independent driving where you'll be asked to follow a series of directions or traffic signs and evaluated on how you bulldoze without constant instruction. It doesn't matter if y'all get lost or become the wrong way, the primal is to bulldoze well and safely.

Go your full Uk driving licence

If you make fewer than 15 driving faults and no serious faults over the grade of your whole driving exam, you'll laissez passer. Your driving examiner volition give you a pass certificate and ask you if you'd like your full licence sent to you automatically in the post.

You don't have to expect for the licence to make it though. You can start driving on your ain directly away.

If you fail, you'll demand to wait at least x working days before you lot can take another examination but we hope that doesn't happen. Adept luck from the team at Auto Express!

Beginning Cars on Car Express...

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How to go your driving licence
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Driving theory test: everything you need to know
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Driving test 'testify me, tell me' quesions: hints and tips
Practical driving test: how to pass
Driving examination pass rates explained
Driving test aids product test
History of the UK driving test

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Best outset cars for young drivers
Cheapest cars to insure
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Everything You Need to Know About Driving and Getting Your Licence

Source: https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/car-news/first-cars/91118/how-to-get-your-driving-licence