Test day stress busters
Thousands of people fail their driving test each year, and although some of them are evidently due to lack of ability, how many do you think are as a result of the pupil being nervous on the day and making a silly mistake that they wouldn‘t normally do? If you can drive to test standard on your lesson, then there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to drive as well on your test. Therefore, this chapter has lots of different exercises and techniques for eliminating test day nerves, and giving you total confidence in your ability, ensuring that you pass your test stress free.

Top ten reasons for failure...and how to avoid them
Six out of 10 reasons for failure are as a result of lack of observation, and missed mirror checks, so why does something so simple as checking a mirror feature so prominently in the top ten? Did you know that every single manoeuvre features on this list? This chapter looks in depth at all of the top ten reasons for failure and gives you all the information that you need to make sure that you avoid all of the top ten reasons for failure on your own driving test.

So, what makes a good driver?
I believe that equal amounts of competence and confident are required to ensure you pass your test easily and become a good driver. What do I mean by this? If you are a competent driver, but don’t feel very confident, then you won’t have enough faith in your ability to pass your test easily. However, if you are too confident but don’t have the ability to back it up, then again you will take a long time to pass your test. Therefore, it’s important to have equal amounts of confidence and competence. The next two chapters will help you to do this.

Your baseline competence level
In this chapter, you will assess your current driving ability (if you haven’t started driving yet, you can return to this chapter) and be able to discover whether you think you are a ‘natural’ driver, and if not, what you can do about it to boost your competence levels and therefore pass your test in fewer lessons.

Your baseline confidence level
It may be that you are a person who lacks confidence generally, or perhaps you usually have a lot of confidence, but just have a lack confidence when it comes to learning to drive. This chapter looks at whether you need to boost your confidence, and how to do this, again with the aim in mind to pass your test easily and in fewer lessons.

The ‘Basics’
This chapter is aimed at pupils who are just getting to grips with driving and for more experienced drivers who tend to forget the ’basic’ Mirror, Signal, Position, Speed, Look routine. It includes exercises to make sure that you always remember the correct order, so that your instructor doesn’t need to waste precious time reminding you of the ’basics’.

Mastering the Manoeuvres
Every single manoeuvre features in the top ten reasons for failure published by Driving Standards Agency. Getting it right nine times out of 10 is no good if the one manoeuvre you get wrong is the one that you do on your driving test! In this chapter, you will find exercises that will ensure you get the manoeuvres right every time, without fail.

Are you talking yourself into failure?
If you talk to yourself in a negative way it can have devastating effects on your driving, and ultimately the number of lessons and driving tests that you will have to take. If you have ever said something along the lines of, ‘I hate roundabouts and manoeuvres, I can’t do hill starts, I always roll back’ etc. then you are creating your own ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’. Isn’t it amazing that whenever you say ‘I hate hill starts, I can never do them’, miraculously this comes true! This chapter looks at how your negative thoughts may affect your driving, and what you can do to make sure that you stay positive, in control and therefore learn easily.

When do you want to pass your test?
So often pupils seem to ‘drift’ from one lesson to the next, without any clear idea of when they want to pass their driving test. This chapter will focus your attention on setting a specific date by which you want to take your driving test. This will mean that you are much more focused on every lesson, and don’t just think, ‘I’ve got ages yet’. Ultimately, as a result of reading this chapter, you are likely to pass your test in less lessons as you are more likely to give your ‘all’ to every lesson.

How much is your personality costing you?
Your personality traits can help or hinder you when learning to drive. For example, being a perfectionist is good, right up the point of becoming obsessive. If you are shy or nervous it may mean that although you could be a perfectly capable driver, it’s possible that you won’t learn at the rate at which you are capable due to your nerves getting in the way. Not ‘bovvered’! seems like an odd personality, but I teach so many who really don’t give it 100%. This chapter delves into many different personality types and gives you great ideas on how to make your personality work to help not hinder you.

Dyslexia Dilemma by Sandra Read
Sandra Read who is an authority on dyslexia and its associated problems has kindly agreed to contribute her knowledge to dyslexic drivers to help them learn to drive more easily. Generally people who are dyslexic can have two major issues when learning to drive: left/right co-ordination and short-term memory difficulties which can be a problem when trying to remember routines, such as Mirror, Signal etc. In this chapter, Sandra uses proven techniques which will help dyslexic drivers learn more quickly and easily compared to not using the techniques in this book. At present, we are also looking at making the book available in more user friendly formats for dyslexic readers, and we will update the site when we have more information.

Contributor: Sandra Read, OCR, MPNLP, is an authority on dyslexia and lectures in Higher Education. You will find more information at freedomfromdyslexia.co.uk