Regular readers will know Chloe recently passed her test and today’s guest post certainly uses some of the techniques we adopted.
Passing a driving test can be a surprisingly expensive achievement. Really, though, it tends to be less the actual passing, and more the preparation that you need to undertake to achieve that pass, which sees the costs seriously stacking up. Thankfully, there are various ways in which many of those costs can be trimmed – and even just little savings here and there can add up to an easily appreciable extent.
Pass the test on your first attempt
No doubt you are going to feel incredibly jammy if you manage to pull this off. After all, each test costs £62; that’s a high price to pay before you even consider the possibility of having to pay twice as much due to a botched first attempt. There’s no way of acquiring a cast-iron guarantee that you will indeed pass the first time; however, by preparing especially thoroughly, you can shorten the odds of landing that early pass.
How should you prepare? Simple: practice, practice, practice! Except that it’s not quite so simple; in getting in as much practice as possible with a family member or friend, you should drive in a range of weather conditions and traffic scenarios, Shout Out UK advises. Furthermore, you should read up on breathing exercises that you can take to calm yourself during situations, such as during your test or just before it, where the nerves could obviously easily get to you.
Practice with someone you know and like
While we have already somewhat touched upon this, we should detail further financial advantages of forgoing a driving instructor in favour of practicing in a family member’s or friend’s car instead. Explained simply, going down this route can, in itself, save you money.
When you drive with an instructor, they will have insurance covering you driving their car. However, if you use a car of someone you already know, while they will also have insurance, their no claims bonus and premiums could be seriously affected should you end up involved in an accident. Therefore, it’s appropriate for you to lower the risk by taking out short term car insurance. You can get a great policy speedily by phoning insurance broker Call Wiser if you meet specific criteria.
The policy that Call Wiser ultimately offers should be relatively cost-effective. Choosing this policy would, therefore, strengthen a common advantage of practising in that friend’s or relative’s car: being able to save a lot of money that would be spent if you had chosen an instructor instead.
Choose a good – not necessarily cheap – driving instructor
Despite the advice we have just given, it’s worth keeping in mind that the cost of short term insurance available to you will depend on particular factors. These include what kind of car you will be using and the amount of time for which you have had your provisional driving licence. Hence, you could still find yourself in a situation where going with an instructor is actually cheaper.
After deciding that, yes, you will be taking this path, be careful which instructor you select. Some instructors may charge relatively low rates; however, there could be a good reason why the instructor has set these rates so low. Therefore, pouring more money into tuition could leave you better off in the longer term. A genuinely good instructor can help you to get as much return as possible for the time that you spend with them; this could lead to a highly cost-effective result.
A matter of where, not just who
If, right now, you are convinced that your choice of driving school should be most driven – pun not intended – by the instructor you will be paired with, there’s another factor the influence of which you might have overlooked. That factor is… the part of the country where you will be taking your test. Yes, truly.
If that test was taken in east London, your chances of failing could be double those had you embarked on the test in Barrow-in-Furness, the unassuming town in Cumbria. That’s one of the eye-opening revelations from an analysis reported by The Guardian. That analysis, taking in five years of data from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, found 33.9% to be the failure rate in Barrow, compared to a much higher 67.2% in the area of Wanstead in London.
Other areas with low failure records were found to be Whitby in North Yorkshire, Lerwick in Shetland, and Fort William in the Scottish Highlands. Meanwhile, the probability of failure seemed highest in places including London’s Belvedere and Wood Green and Birmingham’s South Yardley. A crucial lesson to take from all of this is that, by having your test somewhere that is low in traffic volume and roundabout number, you could increase your likelihood of a pass.
Adopt a “test” mindset at each lesson
Really, this feeds into what we have previously said about putting a lot of effort into your preparation. The sooner you pass, the cheaper – so, endeavour to adopt the same kind of diligent attitude as you have done revising for school, college and university exams in which you excelled.
Ultimately, safety needs to be your watchword; it is safe driving that, during the test, the examiner will be looking for. Plus, the more safely you drive after your test, the less fuel you will need to use. Hence, you can continue saving money even longer after that test.
3 Responses
Great tips. We’re not quite there yet, but it won’t be long. I passed my test first time, but I had a lot of lessons, mostly because I really struggled with my first instructor – she scared me! Once I had someone I liked my confidence really grew.
Lesson price is only a rough guide to the cost of learning, lots of ‘cheap’ lessons can work out to be far more costly in the long run than fewer ‘expensive’ lessons if you don’t have an instructor who is right for you.