Expected outcome / competence

Safe and reasonable progress should be made along the road bearing in mind the road, traffic and weather conditions and the road signs and speed limits.

The vehicle should be able to stop safely, well within the distance you can see to be clear.

Assessment criteria (example)

Driving fault:

• Drove too fast for the prevailing road and / or traffic conditions for a short period.

Serious fault:

• Going too fast for the prevailing road and / or traffic conditions, exceeding speed limits.

Dangerous fault:

• Any situation brought about driving far too fast that resulted in actual danger to the examiner, candidate, and the general public or property.
• Action (ETA) may be required to avoid a legal requirement being breached. Discretion must obviously be exercised in the degree to be considered acceptable and the tolerance threshold over any speed limit must be quite small.

Expected outcome / competence

Candidates should drive at a safe and appropriate speed for the prevailing road and traffic conditions. Speed limits are not target speeds and there will be occasions where candidates need to reduce their speed to deal safely with situations such as narrow residential streets or busy high streets; this should not be considered as a fault.

Assessment criteria (example = undue hesitation)

Driving fault:

• Lack of judgement, not proceeding when it is safe and correct to do so.

Serious fault:

• Stopping and waiting when it is safe and reasonable to proceed.

Dangerous fault:

• It is unlikely that undue hesitancy could become dangerous in itself unless it was felt that this created situations that encouraged other road users to put themselves at risk.

Other faults:

Use of speed:

• driving too fast for prevailing road
• traffic and weather conditions
• breaking the speed limit

Progress:

• driving at an appropriate speed for the road and traffic conditions
• holding up following traffic

Avoiding undue hesitation:

• stopping unnecessarily at junctions (except traffic light controlled junctions – see 17) and other hazards
• not proceeding when it is safe to do so at junctions

The above is taken from The Driving Examiners Manual.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/guidance-for-driving-examiners-carrying-out-driving-tests-dt1

Where appropriate it has been reformatted and edited so it only refers to the driving of ordinary cars (class b).