Are you ready for your test? Do you practice safe driving? How can you make sure your first time is really good?
As a front seat passenger if you have found yourself going for the imaginary footbrake, it was not a very nice feeling. It meant the driver was going too fast.
On a driving test the examiner will be that front seat passenger and will be mentally driving the car with you. He will look and see what you are doing and compare it to what you should be doing, but making allowance for the fact you are a learner.
The advice from the test people (The DVSA) is you must be driving consistently well, with confidence and without assistance. So what does this mean?
The aim should be to go to the driving test where you are unlucky to fail rather than lucky to pass.
The DVSA say you have to be a ‘level 5’. This means you drive without prompting or assistance.
So what are the levels?
1. Introduced.
2. Done under instruction.
3. Done when prompted.
4. Seldom prompted.
5. No prompting at all.
Besides driving without prompting another way of viewing if you are a level 5 and ready for your test is. If you have you reached something called unconscious competence. This means you do not think about how to do something, you just do it.
Writing can be a good example of unconscious competence. You do not think about how to write, but rather what you are writing about. The parallel with driving is you do not think about how to control the car but what you want to do with the car.
So are there other levels of competence? And if so what are these other levels and what do they mean.
1. Unconscious Incompetence:
You do not even know what it is let alone how to do it.
You have no idea what driving is.
2. Conscious Incompetence:
You know what it is but you certainty can not do it.
You know what driving is but you can not drive.
3. Conscious Competence:
You are thinking about doing it properly.
You are now learning to drive, but still thinking about how to do it.
4. Unconscious Competence:
You do not think about it any more you just do it.
In driving terms you are not thinking about how to drive but rather where you are going to drive.
What all this is saying is that if you have internalised the practice of safe driving you are ready for your test.
