Driving test practice in NSW: what the testing officer marks

Who can sit the NSW driving test?

If you’re under 25, you need to be at least 17 and have held your learner licence for at least 12 months. You also need at least 120 hours of supervised driving in your log book, including 20 hours at night. If you use a log book app, submit it at least 48 hours before the test.

If you’re 25 or older, you don’t need a log book. You can sit the Driving Test once you’ve passed the Hazard Perception Test (HPT).

Every learner has to pass the HPT first. It’s a computer test with 15 short videos. If you’re under 25, you can sit it after 10 months on your Ls. Once you pass it, you have 15 months to pass the Driving Test, or you’ll need to sit the HPT again. So don’t book the HPT too early.

There’s no rush to book the Driving Test itself. You can keep practising on your Ls for as long as you need. When you’re ready, book and pay the test fee online or on 13 22 13. You can change or cancel a booking up to 48 hours before the test.

How the NSW driving test is scored

The testing officer directs you around a set course of 25 zones and fills in a score sheet as you drive. They mark you on five areas:

• speed management
• road positioning
• decision making
• responding to hazards
• vehicle control.

To pass, you need at least 90 per cent with no fail items. The official guide lists 19 fail items. A few catch out a lot of learners:

• going over the speed limit at any time, including school zones, roadworks and your learner speed limit
• not stopping at a yellow light when it’s safe to stop
• finishing your stop more than 1 m back from a stop line, or with any part of the car over it (if you stop short, move up and stop again within 1 m)
• rolling back more than 500 mm when you move off
• mounting the kerb or a roundabout
• following the car in front too closely
• repeatedly missing head checks or indicators
• driving well under the speed limit when conditions don’t call for it.

If you commit a fail item, the test usually keeps going so you get a full assessment, but you won’t pass. The officer can also stop the test straight away if you do something that puts the public in obvious danger. If the officer has to help you, by talking you through something or using the extra controls in a driving instructor’s car, that’s a fail too. The guide also says no one expects you to drive as skilfully as an experienced driver.

What to practise before the driving test

Many fail items come down to habits, and you can practise all of them on your normal drives with your supervisor. These are the ones the guide spells out with numbers.

Space around the car

Keep at least a 3-second gap to the car in front. To check, start counting when its back bumper passes a pole or sign. If you reach the pole before you get to three, drop back. Make it 4 seconds or more at night, in the wet or on dirt roads. When you stop in traffic, leave one to two car lengths in front. If you can’t see 5 seconds ahead, such as on a blind curve, slow down.

Head checks and indicators

Turn your head and check your blind spot before you change lanes, merge, reverse, pull out from the kerb or turn. On a multi-lane roundabout, check your blind spot before you cross lanes to exit. Indicate for at least 5 seconds before you pull out from the kerb or a parking space. Ask your supervisor to call out every head check you miss for a week. It’s a quick way to find out how often you skip them. For giving way, indicating and lanes at roundabouts, see our guide to roundabout rules in NSW.

Gaps at intersections

When you turn across traffic, you should be clear of the intersection at least 3 seconds before the oncoming cars get there. Waiting too long counts against you as well. If you reject safe gaps or stop when it’s clearly safe to go, you may fail. Practise at busy intersections until you can judge a gap without hesitating.

Smooth control

Steer with both hands, using hand-over-hand or pull-push. Practise hill starts until you don’t roll back. In a manual, don’t roll along with the clutch in, because clutch coasting is a fail item.

The driving test manoeuvres

You’ll be asked to do some of these. The type of park depends on what’s available near the test centre:

• a kerbside stop (pulling over and stopping close to the kerb)
• a hill start
• a 3-point turn
• a park: reverse parallel, 90 degree or 45 degree, front or rear to the kerb.

For the parks, finish less than 500 mm from the kerb and 1 to 2 m from other cars. You get up to four changes of direction. In a reverse parallel park, you fail if you go back more than 7 m behind the car you’re parking behind. You also fail if you end up more than 1 m from the kerb or with your wheels on the parking lines. Your wheels shouldn’t touch the kerb when you park. Touching the side of the kerb with a tyre isn’t a fail item on its own, but driving up onto the kerb is.

For the 3-point turn, look left and right before each move. You can use up to five changes of direction, but if three will do it, the officer expects three.

You can use a reversing camera and sensors, but you still need to check your mirrors and around the car. If your car has park assist, it must be switched off for the reversing manoeuvres.

On the day: the car and what to bring

You bring your own car, and the officer checks it before you start. It must be registered and roadworthy, with working seatbelts, headrests and lights, legal tyres and no cracked windscreen or broken mirrors. It should also be clean, with loose items secured. Safety systems like autonomous emergency braking and traction control must stay on. You still have to show you can drive safely without relying on them.

Bring these with you:

• proof of identity, such as your learner licence
• a completed Licence Application form
• your glasses or contacts, if you need them to drive
• a way to pay the licence fee, or your concession card
• your completed log book, if you’re under 25.

You also need someone with a full licence at the test centre, because you can’t drive home alone if you fail. Arrive at least 15 minutes early and park in the driving test area. The test starts when you sign the score sheet. After that, the officer can’t coach you. If something on the car can’t be fixed on the spot, the test is cancelled and you lose the booking fee.

Think about which car you use. If you pass in an automatic, you can only drive an automatic on your Ps without a supervisor.

If you pass, or if you don’t

Back at the centre, the officer works out your result and gives you a test report with your score and notes on what to improve. If you fail, you’ll only get general comments, because the officer isn’t there to give a driving lesson. Take the report to your supervisor or instructor and work on what it shows. You have to wait at least 7 days before your next attempt, and you can book it before you leave.

If you pass, you pay for your P1 licence and have your photo taken. If the card isn’t handed to you that day, you get a temporary paper licence until it arrives in the post. On red Ps, you can’t go over 90 km/h or have any alcohol in your system when you drive.

Pass or fail, the guide suggests letting your supervisor drive home. Many learners find it hard to focus after the result.

Where DrivePrep NSW fits in

Your driving skills only come from time behind the wheel. But the first fail item on the list is disobeying signs, signals and road markings, and two more are about giving way. That’s road rules knowledge, the same material as the car knowledge test. DrivePrep NSW is a practice app for the knowledge tests, and its Car pathway has category practice and a road signs section you can go back over before test day. Missed-question review shows the rules you keep getting wrong. Category practice, the road signs section and missed-question review are all in DrivePrep NSW on the App Store for iPhone and iPad.

For the HPT, Transport for NSW says third-party practice tests won’t help and the only way to prepare for the test is its Hazard Perception Handbook, so use that, not an app.

Common questions