A Lucky Test Swap and a Very Good Drive Lucy moves her test forward and passes on her first attempt
Lucy’s dad got in touch with me about organising driving lessons for Lucy, who lives in the Fairmilehead area of Edinburgh.
A few years earlier, I’d taught Lucy’s older sister, Emily, who had gone on to pass her driving test on her first attempt. Now it was Lucy’s turn to take on the challenge — and perhaps add a little bit of friendly sibling competition by seeing if she could do the same!
Lucy had turned 17 towards the end of the previous year and had already been getting some driving practice with her dad. By the time we started lessons together at the beginning of the summer, it was immediately obvious that she had already developed a number of useful skills.
For our first lesson, we headed to a quiet housing estate not far from Fairmilehead so I could assess her driving and see what we could build on.
One of the first things we looked at was the order in which Lucy was using the pedals. With two feet and three pedals, it’s very easy when you’re learning to have one foot effectively telling the car to go while the other is telling it to stop!
The aim was to get everything working together and keep the car perfectly balanced.
We found a useful little circuit containing an uphill junction, a flat junction and a downhill junction. That allowed us to practise the same skills across all three gradients until the correct order started to become natural.
Lucy picked this up really well.
Before long, we were heading down towards Morningside, where we could introduce some more complicated driving and put those newly refined clutch-control skills into real-world situations.
From there, we went out weekly and gradually worked our way through the driving syllabus. Lucy continued practising with her dad between lessons, and the benefit of that extra experience was always noticeable. Each time we went out, things we’d previously covered had become more established, which meant we could keep progressing onto something new.
Eventually we’d covered everything and Lucy was getting close to test standard.
There was just one fairly significant problem — actually getting a driving test!
Lucy had been organised, completed her theory test and booked a practical test. Unfortunately, with the waiting times in Edinburgh, the date she managed to secure wasn’t until January 2027.
That was a long way away, and from the speed at which Lucy was progressing, it was obvious she was going to be ready much sooner.
Rather than continuing with weekly lessons unnecessarily, we decided to put things on hold. Lucy could continue practising with her dad while I kept an eye on the Edinburgh driving instructor groups I use for possible test swaps.
Usually, instructors are looking to move tests by a month or two rather than several months, so finding someone wanting to exchange a September test for Lucy’s January date seemed fairly unlikely.
Then we got lucky.
I spotted another instructor looking for exactly that swap — moving a September test back to January.
I jumped at the opportunity; we managed to arrange the exchange, and suddenly Lucy’s driving test was considerably closer than we’d expected!
That was brilliant news, although it also meant we had to be strategic with our preparation.
With around two weeks to go, we arranged another four lessons to make absolutely sure everything was ready.
One of those included another mock driving test. Lucy had completed a mock earlier in the summer, and there was a big improvement this time around. The mock gave us a final list of areas to concentrate on, and we followed it with targeted practice to tidy everything up.
By our final lesson before the test, everything was looking consistent. We covered the manoeuvres, carried out an emergency stop and went through a good mixture of driving.
The advice I gave Lucy was simple: just do exactly that on your test.
There was no need to do anything fancy or try to impress the examiner. She simply needed to demonstrate that she was in control of the car, aware of what was happening around her and able to safely fit in with everyone else on the road.
Then Wednesday arrived — test day.
By now Lucy was studying at Heriot-Watt University, so I collected her from university between lectures and we headed out for one final warm-up.
We covered all four manoeuvres, completed an emergency stop and drove a good selection of roads to get Lucy settled and ready.
We arrived at the test centre, parked up and headed inside.
I was extremely confident that Lucy was ready.
Thankfully, that confidence was well placed.
When Lucy returned with the examiner, I was delighted to find out that she had passed her driving test on her first attempt, with the examiner also complimenting her on a very good drive.
So the sibling competition ends in a draw — both Emily and Lucy passing first time!
Having her licence should also make a big difference to Lucy. With university at Heriot-Watt and a part-time job nearby, having the option to drive will give her much more independence.
There might just be one final challenge left to solve — working out who gets the car when both sisters want it! I’m sure some sort of rota can be arranged…
Well done, Lucy! Another exam ticked off this year, and a brilliant first-time pass. It’s been great going out with you, and good luck with university! 🚗👏🎓
