Independent driving and the sat nav: what the test looks like now

What independent driving actually is

For most of the test the examiner tells the candidate where to go, turn by turn, in good time. During independent driving they stop doing that. The candidate follows a route from another source, and the examiner watches how they drive while their attention is divided between the road and the instruction.

That division of attention is the point. Nothing about independent driving tests navigation. It tests whether the standard of driving holds up when nobody is prompting, which is the situation every driver is in for the rest of their life after the test.

Sat nav or traffic signs

The candidate does not get to choose, and does not get to use their own device. The examiner brings the sat nav, sets the route, and mounts it. That matters for teaching, because a pupil who has only ever followed their own phone, in their own mount, in their own position, is being asked to do something slightly unfamiliar on the day.

Going the wrong way is not a fault

Worth saying to a pupil in exactly these words, because it is the single most common misunderstanding about this part of the test. If they miss a turning or take the wrong exit, they have not failed anything. The examiner will get them back on route. What is assessed is the driving: whether they checked mirrors, whether they signalled, whether they made a safe decision under mild stress, whether they cut across two lanes at the last second to correct a mistake that did not need correcting.

The fault, when it comes, is almost always the recovery rather than the error. A pupil who accepts the wrong turning calmly and carries on has done nothing wrong. A pupil who brakes hard on a dual carriageway because the device said something they did not expect has.

How to teach it

1. 1

   Separate the skill from the route

   First sessions should be on roads the pupil already knows well, with the device on. The aim is not to learn the roads, it is to learn what it feels like to have an instruction arriving while they are also driving. Familiar roads mean any wobble is clearly about the divided attention and not about the junction.

2. 2

   Deliberately make them go the wrong way

   Set a route, say nothing, and let them miss a turning. Then let them recover. A pupil who has already gone wrong three times with you, and knows nothing happened, will not panic on the day. Doing this once, on purpose, is worth more than an hour of telling them not to worry.

3. 3

   Move the device

   Because the examiner mounts their own, put yours somewhere slightly awkward at least once. A pupil should be able to take an instruction from a screen that is not exactly where they like it, without leaning across to look at it.

4. 4

   Practise the signs version too

   One test in five uses traffic signs. If a pupil has done twenty hours of sat-nav work and no sign-following, they have prepared for the likely case and ignored a one-in-five chance. Following signs to a named town is a different skill: it needs earlier observation and a longer plan.

5. 5

   Then run a full-length independent drive

   Since the examiner can extend independent driving to the whole test, at some point the pupil needs to drive for the length of a test with no turn-by-turn help from you at all. It is a genuinely different experience from twenty minutes, and finding that out on the day is avoidable.

Where the routes come from

You cannot get the examiner's route, and nobody can. What you can do is build the routes you know matter around your test centre, with the awkward junctions marked, and give a pupil something to follow between lessons. That is the point of a practice route: not to guess the test, but to make sure the roads and the sat-nav habit are both familiar before test day.