The short answer
Most tests are not lost at the controls but at the eyes: a missing shoulder check, observing too late or not at all when turning and changing lane, no look back before moving off. After that come priority errors at blind junctions, the wrong speed — in both directions — and hesitation when positioning on multi-lane roads.
People preparing for the test usually practise what they find difficult: parking, turning in the road, hill starts. What actually goes wrong most often is rarely on that list.
Looking mistakes, by a distance
The shoulder check is the movement most likely to disappear under pressure — not because it is forgotten, but because the eyes stick to the road ahead as soon as things get tight. And a shoulder check that happens after the car has already moved is not one: it is meant to make the decision possible, not to accompany it.
- Moving off from the kerb with no look back
- Changing lane with indicator and mirror, but no shoulder check
- Turning right without a second look at the cycle lane — the classic in Düsseldorf
- The shoulder check too late, so alongside the steering input instead of before it
Speed — downwards as well
Too fast is obvious. Too slow surprises a lot of people: staying well under the limit out of caution obstructs traffic and produces overtaking manoeuvres behind you. Both are mistakes, and both are assessed in the test.
Junctions without lights
Priority to the right works reliably on paper and not always in a residential street, because parked cars hide the junction and there is nothing to see. What is expected is not that you know the sign, but that you are slow enough to still react when nobody else observes it.
Not the first one — the second. Somebody botches a manoeuvre, writes the test off internally, and the next five minutes are worse than everything before them. So we now practise carrying on after a mistake on purpose: let something fail deliberately, then continue entirely normally. It sounds trivial and it is the difference between a mistake and a lost test.
What is not a reason to fail
- Stalling once, as long as you pull away again cleanly
- A parking attempt that needs correcting — correcting is allowed
- A vehicle-check question you cannot answer
- Nerves that are visible
The distinction that matters
What is assessed is not faultlessness but whether you handle traffic safely. Which mistakes end the drive on the spot is set out in a post of its own.
How the drive as a whole runs is here — and how you know you are ready, here.
What to take away
Do not practise the manoeuvres you find hard, practise the looking that deserts you under pressure. Almost every mistake in the test happens before the car does anything — which is also why they can be prevented beforehand.