Driving test faults

Serious fault vs minor: the actual difference

The words minor and major are not DVSA words. The marking sheet has driving faults, serious faults and dangerous faults, and the wording that separates them is short enough to memorise in a minute.

One line does more work than any other here. A serious fault is defined for examiners as one that is potentially dangerous or entails a breach of the law. That second half is why crossing a stop line after red on a deserted junction is not rescued by the junction being deserted.

Fifteen driving faults is a pass

To pass you need no more than 15 driving faults and no serious or dangerous faults. Fifteen passes. Sixteen fails. So a single driving fault, on its own, has changed nothing about your result, and the candidate who talks themselves out of the drive after one small mistake has thrown away an allowance they had barely started using.

There are four ways to fail: not meeting the eyesight standard, picking up one serious fault, picking up one dangerous fault, or reaching 16 driving faults. That is the whole list.

The allowance is not 15 free goes at the same mistake, though. The examiner guidance says a candidate who habitually commits a driving fault in one aspect of driving throughout the test cannot be regarded as competent to pass, so the same slip made over and over can be escalated rather than simply tallied.

The faults candidates pick up most

DVSA publishes a ranked list of the ten most common faults on car tests in Great Britain. The ranking below covers April 2025 to March 2026. The examples under each one are DVSA's own descriptions of the behaviour behind the mark.

One thing to note about this data, because a lot of sites get it wrong: the published table contains ranks only. There are no counts, no percentages and no breakdown by test centre. Anywhere you see a figure like a share of candidates failing for junctions, somebody has made it up.

1. 1
   Junctions, observation

   Failing to judge the speed of an approaching vehicle. Entering a roundabout with a vehicle approaching from the right. No observations joining a dual carriageway from a slip road. Looking too late.
2. 2
   Mirrors, change direction

   Not using mirrors when exiting a roundabout. Causing a vehicle to slow when changing lanes. Changing lane on a roundabout with a vehicle alongside.
3. 3
   Junctions, turning right

   Positioning in the left-hand lane to turn right at a roundabout. Obstructing traffic while waiting to turn right.
4. 4
   Response to signs, traffic lights

   Failing to react to red. Stopping past the first white line at advanced stop lines for cyclists. Not moving when green and clear.
5. 5
   Control, steering

   Not steering enough or steering late approaching junctions. Mounting the pavement when pulling up.
6. 6
   Move off, safely

   Moving off from behind a parked vehicle into the path of an approaching vehicle. No blind spot checks. No rear observations after an emergency stop.
7. 7
   Response to signs, road markings

   Not following direction arrows. Straddling lanes on a roundabout. Crossing double white lines where the nearer line is solid. Ignoring a box junction.
8. 8
   Response to signs, traffic signs

   Wrong side of a keep left sign. Ignoring stop or no entry. Driving in a bus lane.
9. 9
   Positioning, normal driving

   Too close to the kerb or centre line. Unnecessarily in the right-hand lane of a dual carriageway.
10. 10
    Maintain progress, speed

    Driving well below the limit when the road is clear and it is safe to get on with it. Waiting at a junction through a gap that was plainly long enough.

Two things worth reading off that list. No reversing or parking manoeuvre appears anywhere in it, in any of the last three years, so the thing most learners lose sleep over is not what fails them. And most of what is on it, observation at junctions, mirrors before changing direction, moving off safely, is not a knowledge problem at all. Everybody knows to check. They fail because the habit is not yet automatic under pressure, and only hours at the wheel fix that.

If you are testing in Northern Ireland

The thresholds are the same: up to 15 driving faults passes, 16 or more fails, and one serious or dangerous fault fails. The test itself is run by the DVA rather than DVSA, and it still includes reversing around a corner and turning in the road, both of which stopped being tested in England, Scotland and Wales in December 2017. The manoeuvre scenarios above describe the Great Britain test, and the ranked fault list covers Great Britain only.

Where to go next

The pair of vehicle safety questions is worth knowing cold, because getting one or both of them wrong costs exactly one driving fault and no more. The show me, tell me trainer draws the exact pair you would be asked on the day.