Human vs Sat Nav

When you’re learning to drive it’s very easy to rely on your instructor giving you directions. You may respond in the same way to a sav nav, but it’s important to realise the difference.

Your instructor will not only have a good knowledge of the road layout but is physically in the car, and will be checking road signs and other road users before deciding which way you should go.

The sav nav will just be calculating the fastest way from A to B. This is obviously very useful, the days of struggling to check a gigantic map whilst pulled over at the side of the road are long gone! You still have to be aware of where you’re going, checking road signs and making judgement calls to make sure that the sav nav hasn’t made a mistake. We’ve all heard the stories of people ending up in a river or going the wrong way up a motorway because they followed their sav nav without using common sense.

Planning ahead when driving is part of independent driving, this means that you are not only aware of your route, but have looked ahead to check for road signs that may be warning of a closed road or one-way system. This will ensure you’re not making late decisions about your route, so you have time to get into the right lane. Making sure you have time to use your mirrors, signal and manoeuvre and make sure you’re correctly positioned the car will make navigating a busy junction much easier and safer.

Why have we made it harder for people to pass?

There were fewer cars on the roads in the past. The authorities don’t want to stop young people from driving, but things have changed. Way back in 1950 there were 4 million licenced vehicles on the UKs roads (from the Department of Transport). At the beginning of 2025 there were 41.7 million licenced vehicles, so you can see how much busier the roads are now! This increase has bought more challenges for new drivers, so it makes sense to change the tests to reflect this.

Road Safety

Sadly over 1,500 young drivers are killed or seriously injured on UK roads every year, and we’d love to reduce this number. Young people are more likely to take risks. This is because when we go from being children to adults our brains go through a process of remodelling. Our brains are still in this process until we reach our mid-twenties. This can increase risk taking and impulsive behaviour, which is never useful when you’re behind the wheel. It can mean that young people don’t think some behaviours, like speeding, are dangerous.

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Long awaited new test centre opens

You might have spotted Natalie on the BBC news last month, yes she’s not just a great driving instructor she’s a bit of a star as well! The reason Natalie was on TV was the opening of the new driving test centre in Reading. Click the picture to see the news article.

The old test centre closed a while ago, as the landlord wanted to redevelop the site. Since then tests have been happening out of the Holiday Inn, but that wasn’t an ideal solution.

The new centre is Pacific House, in Whitley, it’s outside the town centre which makes it easier to drive on faster roads during the test. This is good, as these are the roads where most accidents occur, so it’s a good experience to start new drivers.

Long Wait Times

The Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander has pledged to reduce the average wait time to book the practical driving test to no more than seven weeks by the end of next summer. This has been prompted by problems that learner drivers are having booking their test. The average current wait time is 22 weeks, with three quarters of centres at the maximum wait time of 24 weeks. The BBC reported about the problems learners around the country are facing with long wait times.

Why is this happening?

So what has caused this problem? The pandemic caused a need for extra tests for a while, but the number of tests being taken every year has now reached pre-pandemic levels and the backlog shouldn’t be a problem anymore.

The increased demand during this period may have inspired a new industry of bots that block book tests that are then sold on for an increased fee. The DVSA are aware of this happening and are looking at ways of stopping the practice. Ideally learner drivers should book their own test through the DVSAs website when they are ready to take the test.

How can we help?

So what would we recommend? As the wait times are so long it’s a good idea to be well prepared for your test. You don’t want to have to re-book another test! At Always Pass we always recommend a mock test which will get you used to the format of the test, and expose any areas you need to work on. All of our instructors are here to support their learners, so if you need extra practice on one aspect of driving we will help you. Passing first time is always our aim, we want you to be a great, confident and safe driver.

In the course of giving driving lessons we’ve noticed some of the road layouts that you might encounter during your driving test are trickier than others. Natalie felt that these could benefit from a ‘how to’ video with a driving instructor driving and narrating to show you how to tackle them safely. If you’re learning to drive, or you just find a big, complicated roundabout fills you with dread why not take a look at the YouTube channel? It’s got videos to help with roundabouts and D junctions. Watching how Natalie would drive through these will give you some useful insights. New videos will be uploaded when we can, and eventually this channel will become a library of videos about junctions and other road features. Watching will never be as useful as getting actual behind-the-wheel practice, but we think this is a useful perspective that can help learners.

Take a look at the videos here:

If a bright light dazzles a driver it can cause an accident. Your eyes will take between one and four seconds to recover from a bright light. If you’re travelling at speed your car will have travelled a long way in the time it takes for your eyes to be able to see again.

There is a fine line between being well lit so that you can see and be seen by other road users and being dazzling so that you cause an accident. Car manufacturers have gone towards a blue light as it causes more contrast, so it makes it easier to see objects on the road. Older cars have halogen bulbs, which are a yellower light. It isn’t known if the blue lights are just brighter, or are in some way causing more glare.

Do you find newer lights are too bright? We’ve got an article about checking your headlights, if you’d like more information about how to check and adjust your headlights.

Learning to drive safely is very important. We have experienced driving instructors that will be able to teach you not just to pass your test, but to drive safely for years to come.