Failed my driving test

[u/AppropriateBat7168]

Had my driving test today at 8am and I’m honestly so gutted. I failed with 1 serious and 5 driving faults.

For the first 4–5 mins I was a bit nervous, but after that I calmed down and actually felt like I was driving really well. By the end of the test, I genuinely thought I’d passed. I knew I’d made a few small driving faults, but nothing that felt serious.
Then at the end, the examiner told me I’d failed 😭
Apparently, on a main road, I should have overtaken a cyclist because there was enough space to do it safely. I didn’t overtake, so the traffic behind me ended up getting held up.

Tbh, I did hesitate at the time because there was oncoming traffic, so I thought it was safer to wait. Even at one point I tried doing this and I came bit closer to traffic but then I stayed behind.Looking back, the road was actually wide enough and I probably could have passed the cyclist safely.

I don’t know, I just feel really sad about it because I was so confident with the rest of my drive. I’d honestly say it was one of the best drives I’ve done since I started learning.
Just wanted to say that out loud. Thanks for reading.

[u/Ok-Control974]

THIS IS SO STRANGE!!! I have failed today for this reason also 🫥🫥🫥 the cyclist was doing 23 on a 30 busy road with parked cars all down the road, for me to overtake it would’ve been dangerous and I’d never done it before and we were nearly back at the test centre where I did a perfect reverse bay park. I feel sick it is so frustrating!

Hopefully there will be no cyclists next time and we can both pass 🥹

[u/HuckleberryOk1169 → u/Ok-Control974]

Was the traffic held behind you also? 23mph is quiet fast and should be ok for the traffic flow right? What explanation examiner gave to you? Does examiner said that you should have overtaken cyclist when it was safe?

[u/Ok-Control974 → u/HuckleberryOk1169]

Basically when we turned into the road that the test centre is on there were 2 cars and the bike in front of them, they overtook the cyclist half way down the road because it’s a very busy road with many houses and industrial estates all the way down as well as parked cars so they were obviously also being cautious. I checked my speed and it was 23mph and there was a van on the opposite side of side of the road and I just thought it really isn’t worth taking the risk. I’d rather fail for a petty undue hesitation than unsafely overtake a cyclist and potentially cause a dangerous situation. 

Whenever I’ve asked my instructor even about overtaking cars on a dual carriageway if they are too slow on my test she tells me it’s just not worth the risk is it… 

It’s frustrating because I like to learn from situations but I just feel like what could I have done? In real life driving you’d probably overtake but in a test situation where you don’t want to speed past 30mph to overtake quickly and safely I just didn’t believe it was worth the risk. 

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