When it comes to failing a driving exam, the usual reasons tend to be things such as not looking both ways when turning or the seemingly dreaded attempts at parallel parking. But, then there are these prospective first-time drivers who went a step further and failed their test in spectacular and embarrassing ways.
What’s My Speed Again?
“My driving instructor’s story: Normal routine with this young girl. She is doing great until he begins to point out the speed limit which is 45 (she was all ready speeding at this point) and proceeds to haul it. He repeats again and she hauls it even more. He has to tell her pull over while engaging his side of the brake. And is freaking out wondering what her problem was and why she would do that.
Apparently she thought the rpm gauge was the speedometer.”
You Had It In The Bag Until THAT Happened
“A friend of mine thought, based on the person’s comments, that he had failed his road test. Pissed off, he peeled out, over the curb and through the lawn and back to the ending point. Absolutely outraged, the instructor informed them that they were about to pass them.”
That’s Gonna Leave A Mark
“My driving instructor said he had to fail someone because they executed a left turn into oncoming traffic. The student totaled the car.”
You Just Ran Over An Imaginary Family
“It’s pretty unbelievable but completely true.
I was really confident when I first got into the car. I had taken more classes than I needed to because I wanted to be completely comfortable driving. So we pull out and the instructor tells me to drive to the stop sign. As I ease onto the break, she started screaming that I ran over some kids. I began panicking looking around the car saying there was no one there near the car or the stop sign. She looks me dead in the face, absolutely serious, and says ‘You killed the imaginary kids! Poor Suzy and John! You killed them!’ I didn’t know how to react. I lost all my confidence and started shaking. She randomly would yell throughout the test saying that I was a child killer or I killed another kid. ‘Parallel park. You hit the curb and killed Tommy!’ By the time we parked, I was sobbing and shaking uncontrollably. She stopped yelling and calmly told me I failed and killed at least eight kids in less than 20 minutes.
It took me about a month to start driving again. And then I took my second test about two months after that. Luckily this instructor barely spoke unless needed and I passed with no infractions.
I don’t know if she was f–king with me or actually sick. To this day, I remember being absolutely terrified. That memory is burned into my mind.”
Flash Warning
“My ex-wife failed her test (on a route that we trained on) by running a stop sign, then claiming she never saw it. I don’t know how she didn’t see it, with the flashing red lights and all, but I’m glad she never got her license (I don’t think she has it still).”
Which One Is What Now?
“Not me, but my sister. She got into the car, looks the guy in the eye, and asks ‘which one is the gas pedal?’ to which the guy responds with, ‘Really?’ she is serious so he tells her and she takes off in reverse, denting the car when it smashes against a car that was behind her. Needless to say, she failed.”
Round And Round And Round
“My friend somehow drove counter-clockwise on a (clockwise) roundabout…”
Wrong Answer And Wrong Way To Drive
“Story from my driving teacher: He was taking a student out on the highway and asking basic questions. He asked the student what R stands for on the gear shift, and the student said ‘R is for racing.’ My teacher laughed and sarcastically said ‘Yup! That’s correct!’ The student thought he was serious, put the car in reverse in the middle of the highway.”
An Examiner Is Taken Hostage
“Not me, but a guy I work with loves to tell this story. A girl, about 16, goes for her road test. Nervous as hell. She’s a little shaky, but doing okay. Gets to the three point turn part of the test, and she loses it. Starts crying, says she can’t do it, and that she wants to go home. Then, she actually DOES try to go home, floors it and just takes off. My friend screams all sorts of threats, but doesn’t know what to do.. He doesn’t want to hurt her and he doesn’t want to cause a wreck, and according to him, she’s actually driving okay at this point. They get to her house, she shuts off the car and gets out (crying the whole time) and then he arrests her.”
Road Kill Leads To Failure
“There was a fairly recently deceased raccoon in the road. I was told never to swerve for animals in the road, so I didn’t. Hit that thing dead on. Splattered half of it all over the windshield, the other half hit the windshield but got stuck on the wipers. I couldn’t see and started screaming. Drifted into the other lane because I was blinded by raccoon guts/carcass. Almost caused several accidents.
I wasn’t even allowed to drive back to the DMV.”
Look Before Opening The Car Door
“My old instructor told me his best story.
Student did really well on the test. Pulled over and parked at the side of the road at the end of the test because the car park was full. Examiner fills in the paperwork that says he’s passed, hands it to the student.
Student is really happy, thanks the examiner, opens the car door, doesn’t look…. And a passing van takes the car door off. Pass retracted instantly and the student owed the instructor a new car door. Imagine what a pisser it is to fail with the pass certificate still in your hand.”
Honk If My Driving Is Passable
“Friend of mine was honked at while he took his driving test. He didn’t do anything bad the dude just honked the second the light turned green. Apparently being honked at was an automatic fail.”
One Rude And Inconsiderate Examiner
“My ex failed her drivers test because of her grandfather’s death. She had gone a few months without a license, but when her grandfather passed away, her grandmother couldn’t be trusted to drive herself around safely.
The driving instructor was a born-again Christian. He got into a conversation about her accepting Jesus, and her family accepting. This rolled into him telling her that her grandfather went to Hell for not accepting Jesus before he passed. She started bawling uncontrollably. On the highway. He made her pull off an exit and she ran his mid 90s Nissan Maxima over a curb and down into a small ditch. Needless to say she didn’t get her license, and he was banned from talking about Jesus while teaching kids to drive.”
Yeah, Nobody Does That
“I failed my first test because I kept landing on the wrong side of the street every time I turned with the excuse of ‘there’s no cars, how am I supposed to know which lane is mine?’ and so I didn’t do any full stops because ‘nobody actually does that.”
Wait…They Passed?!?
“I was the observer student for this girl. She didn’t know how to put the car in gear, would pump the breaks hard to stop, didn’t know that you had to turn the wheel when you reversed as part of a three point turn, and would speed during the test. I don’t know how she passed.”
Failure Right Out The Gate
“Not an examiner, I was a student. After we passed our tests we drove to a parking lot to wait for them to print and bring us our temp licenses. I get mine, the guy in a white pickup next to me gets mine, the girl in a blue sedan gets hers.
I pull out and pass both of them to the exit part of the lot. The guy in the white pickup backs up and turns INTO the blue sedan. I saw it happen in slow motion.”
Pranks And Driving Exams Do Not Mix
“I played an evil prank on my younger sister during her driving test.
She wanted to use my car for the road test, I didn’t want to let her, my mom forced me to. I was put out so right before she came to take the car for her driving test… I had my friends hog tie me and I hid in the trunk.
Waited until her test was well underway, and started thumping on the trunk and screaming.
Finally after 15 minutes of writhing and starting to get pretty sweaty, seriously considering kicking out a headlight, the driving examiner made her open the trunk.
Where she found a sweaty teenage girl gagged and hogtied in the back, pretending to be terrified.
What did my sister do? Deny it? Explain it? Scream? No. She took one look and said ‘Ugh. It’s just my sister.’ Shut the trunk, and actually tried to get back in the car and finish her test.
That sure was a tricky one for our mother to explain to the police.”
Short But Sweet Failure
“Not an instructor. I was actually the one who failed by doing this.
Basically I had been practicing for the driver’s test with a different vehicle then the one I used to take it. Unfortunately for me I had neglected to notice these cars had different ways of putting on the parking brake. And so when they asked me to take it off, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to do so.
Basically the whole test ended in less than a minute. And I would forever have to live with this great shame brought upon me.”
We Hope It’s Safe To See You On The Road
“I failed my road test three times before I finally got my license on the fourth try. List of my mistakes include: 1.) A pedestrian crossing in front of the car and me continuing full speed towards her. 2.) Forgetting which way is left and which way is right and trying to go left on red. 3.) Forgetting that I’m only allowed to turn left if there’s a green arrow, not a green light, and driving us (with the instructor side facing traffic) into oncoming traffic. specifically, a tractor trailer. It’s okay guys I’m licensed now.”
Panic Attack
“I was an examiner for four or five years. We were turning left at a large intersection controlled by traffic lights. This road is a six-lane road that is divided in the middle. We had a green light and everything was fine. As she got about halfway through the turn, she looked up and saw the red light facing in the other direction, panicked, turned back to the right which now means we’re driving down the wrong side of a huge road. Thankfully there was another intersection nearby that had a red light, so there were no cars coming. That gave us enough time to turn around and head straight back to the test centre. She didn’t say a word to me after that – completely silent. I felt kind of bad because I think she was a decent driver that was just really nervous and f–ked up badly.”
Drowsy Instructor
“I have a reverse story about how a driving examiner failed at examining my test. We had to drive on the interstate for a certain period of time to show the instructor we were comfortable with fast moving traffic. So I pull onto the interstate and everything is going well, my eyes are on the road, 10 and 2, in the f–king zone, not looking anywhere but on the road and my mirrors, feels like I have been driving for hours. Finally I look over and my instructor is dead asleep. I’m close to two hours from where I started and I nudge the instructor, she wakes up, freaks the f–k out and tells me to pull off the next exit. She gets behind the wheel and drives us back, politely asks me to not mention what happened to anyone. I passed.”
Can You Hold On For One Second?
“A friend failed when I called them during the test. He answered the phone and told me he can’t speak because he’s in the middle of a driving test.”
Fifth Time Is The Charm
“I have a friend that failed his first driving test because he completed a left turn when the light turned yellow. The test administrator claimed he was running a red light, and told him he should have reversed back to the original position.
Another friend failed the driving test three or four times, for various reasons. On the fourth or fifth try, she finally passed the driving test, and we are all fairly certain it was a pity pass. She is 25 now and still an unbelievably god awful driver.
My 92-year-old grandmother, who has always been an awful driver, performed so poorly on her driving test in the 1940s, the test administrator gave her her license on the condition that she agreed to only drive to and from work. My mom and uncle frequently joke that she would have had her license revoked if she had ever had to retake the driving test.”
Not The Most Ideal Exam Conditions
“Instructor made me take the exam in a blizzard. Yes a blizzard. I lost control of the vehicle and we did a 360 because F–kstick McGee of an instructor kept pushing on his emergency break. He then told me I failed the exam and conditions were too poor for the other two students to take their exams. F–k you Mr. Forest.”
Standard Failure
“Where you do the driving test near my place, as you leave the driveway, there used to be a stop sign. It was in view, but not clearly. It has been taken away in the last few years, but standard practice here is when you fail the test, the test driver asks you immediately to drive back to the building and you fail instantly. My friend went for the test, she was adamant she was going to pass. She forgets about the stop sign and fails the test within 20 seconds.”