Test day

By test day the driving is done. What is left is nerves, and most of what we do that morning is about those: the familiar car, the familiar instructor, a warm-up on the routes, and a straight account of what the examiner is looking for, which is a safe, legal, reasonably confident drive with fewer than sixteen minor faults and no serious ones.

We book the test when your instructor and the mock say you are ready, at Llanishen for the north and east or Llantrisant Road for the west and south, whichever your lessons have been near; both have waits of several weeks and we check for earlier cancellations daily. On the day your instructor picks you up an hour before, you drive a warm-up loop on roads the test uses, and you arrive with ten minutes to spare. The test is about forty minutes: an eyesight check, the "show me, tell me" questions, twenty minutes of independent driving with a sat-nav or road signs, one manoeuvre, and possibly an emergency stop. Your instructor can sit in the back if you want; most people prefer not.

If you pass, the examiner takes your provisional licence and your full one arrives by post, and you can drive immediately; we hand you the Pass Plus and motorway lesson details and a sheet about insurance for new drivers, which is the expensive part. If you do not, the examiner explains the serious fault, your instructor is there for a fifteen-minute debrief on the way home, and we book the retest at the earliest date the rules allow with a couple of lessons before it. About seven in ten of our students pass first time; nearly all pass by the second.

What is included

• The test booked when you are ready, cancellations checked daily
• The hour before, warm-up on the test routes
• Your usual car, with dual controls, for the test
• What the examiner is looking for, in plain terms
• A debrief on the way home if it goes wrong
• Pass Plus, the motorway lesson and an insurance sheet if it goes right

What it costs

£95 for the hour before and the car for the test. The DVSA practical test fee is £62 weekdays and £75 evenings and weekends, paid to them when the test is booked. The prices page has every price, the blocks, the DVSA fees and the pass rate by quarter. No booking fee, no fuel surcharge, no extra for automatic.