Driving Test in Farsta!

I passed my Farsta manual driving test today! I did it on my second attempt.
I’ve had over 30 hours of driving lessons from a driving school, and I used to have an automatic license in the US. I had a lot of anxiety about driving so I’ll try to explain everything in as much detail as possible to help others.

I had a test scheduled for Monday the 18th of August at 9:00 am and when I was there, I was called up by my examiner, Daniel, who then spoke to me in Swedish to talk to me about how the test was going to happen (all inside Trafikverket). When he finished (I understood what he said enough in Swedish) I asked him if we could do the test in English. He said yes and we headed to the car. In the car, I was asked to do a breathalyser test and a safety check of the horn. We then headed right out of Trafikverket and went towards Vega. In Vega, he asked me to reverse around a corner. We headed to the highway (I don’t remember which way) and eventually made our way back. I failed due to 1) not accelerating fast enough in the acceleration lane 2) I was apparently very good at looking for pedestrians/right rule, but I did not slow my speed down enough and 3) I crossed a solid white line when I was changing lanes at a roundabout (that’s a bad mistake that I had never done before). I was very very nervous.

Right when I got home, I tried to book a new test because a lot of these things I failed on I could improve right away. I booked a new test for Thursday the 21st of August at 1:00 pm and then booked two more lessons with my instructor to try to get better at roundabouts and acceleration lanes right before.

Today, I took my test and had a very nice examiner called Andreas. He was very chatty and wanted to help me be less nervous. He asked me nice questions and was a lot more confident speaking English. He even reminded me to breathe during the exam. We went right out of Trafikverket and headed towards Nynasham and towards the Länna country road. There’s a small rural road with a red house that many go down for the test, we did so as well. He asked me to turn around there and I chose to do a L-turn, but it was a bit difficult and wasn’t my best as it was slightly uphill. On our way back to Trafikverket, he asked me to go into an empty parking lot and reverse park. I think this was him giving me a second chance to prove my reversing skills. I succeeded and I think that definitely helped me pass.

I had heard from others that it’s a good idea to talk out what you are doing during the test. I explained out loud in my second attempt that I was slowing down a bit when it started to rain, explaining that I’m slowing down around difficult to see corners / pedestrian crossings / right rule junctions. I think this also really helped as it gave him context that I am a safe driver. Also just helpful to remind yourself out loud (”now we’re on a main road” - ”Stockholm is the second exit, so I’ll head that way now”), it helped to calm me.

All I can say is the second time I was a lot less nervous as I knew what to expect. They also didn’t make me do a safety check the second time around. Wishing you all the best of luck with your driving. You’ve got this!!