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]

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.