Canterbury Driving Test Centre

Aim to be at Canterbury ten minutes early. Because parking and waiting facilities are not the same at every DVSA centre, check the approach on the DVSA centre finder before the day. Demand is very high and the modelled wait is close to 18 to 22 weeks, so an early booking and a cancellation alert are both worth setting up. The examiner needs to see your provisional photocard licence to begin, and the car you bring must be roadworthy, fitted with L plates and a working interior mirror. If Herne Bay is fully booked, Canterbury is the next closest centre, roughly 7 miles away.

The test runs for around 40 minutes and follows the same DVSA format used at every centre. The examiner checks your eyesight at 20 metres, asks you a tell-me safety question, then sits in for the drive, with one show-me question while you are driving. About 20 minutes of it is independent driving, either following a sat nav the examiner sets up or following road signs to a named place. You will do one of four set manoeuvres, and roughly one in seven candidates is asked to perform an emergency stop. The drive works through whatever mix of urban and outlying roads sits within about a twenty-minute radius, and at a centre this busy that usually means heavier traffic to read. Across DVSA marking nationally, the fault recorded most often on car tests is junctions - observation, worth drilling on the local routes before your date.

You find out there and then, back at Canterbury. The examiner runs through the faults on the DL25 feedback form and, on a pass, keeps your provisional licence so a full licence follows in the post. Clearing the test means staying under 16 driving faults, that is 15 or fewer, with no serious or dangerous fault; 50.3% of candidates here manage it on the current marking. Candidates on their first attempt clear that bar more often here, 53.5% against the 50.3% overall figure.