❌ Dry Steering: Why It’s More Than Just a Test Loophole

A blog for ADIs and PDIs who teach for life, not just for test day

As driving instructors, we often hear the phrase,

Dry steering — turning the wheel while the car is stationary — falls neatly into that category. It’s not penalised on the driving test, and for manoeuvres like bay parking or turns in the road, it might even help a pupil achieve a better angle.

But here’s the question:

Are we helping them learn to drive — or just learn to pass?

This blog explores why dry steering should be used with caution, even though it’s not technically incorrect. Because when we teach learners to skip fundamental skills, we’re often planting the seed of future problems — both in terms of vehicle wear and driving confidence. 

🔄 1. Dry Steering Bypasses Coordination Skills

At the heart of good driver training is building coordination: the ability to move the car and steer at the same time. This is a foundational skill that separates confident, adaptable drivers from hesitant, robotic ones.

Dry steering breaks this link.

Instead of learning to manage speed and steering together, the pupil stops, turns the wheel, then moves — forming a disconnected habit loop.

The result? Learners who:

• Struggle with tight angles unless they have time to stop and think
• Develop clunky, mechanical manoeuvres
• Lose the feel for how much steering input to apply in motion

As instructors, we know that in real-world driving, the ability to adapt your steering while the vehicle is moving is critical — and dry steering doesn’t teach that.

🧭 2. It Undermines Reverse Manoeuvre Understanding

One of the most common struggles for learners is knowing which way to turn the wheel when reversing.

When they move forward, most learners quickly develop an instinct for steering direction. But reversing often throws them — especially in bay parks and tight spaces.

Here’s what we see:

• They begin looking at the steering wheel to work out direction
• They try to ‘calculate’ the turn visually rather than feeling it
• They fall for the “false straight” — where the steering wheel looks centred but isn’t, due to previous rotations

Dry steering makes this worse.

When the car is stationary, the learner has no feedback from vehicle movement to help them understand which way it’s turning. It’s purely abstract. And for many learners, abstraction = confusion.

On the other hand, moving while steering helps learners build a physical intuition about how steering inputs affect car direction — forwards and in reverse.

That’s a skill that stays with them far beyond the test.

⚙️ 3. Most Learners Drive Older Cars After They Pass

Here’s something we often overlook in our nearly-new tuition cars: after they pass.

These cars might have:

• Weak or worn-out power steering
• Poor wheel alignment
• Balding tyres
• Worn suspension components

In those vehicles, dry steering places greater stress on already fragile systems. It can cause:

• Premature tyre wear (especially at the edges)
• Steering rack and tie rod damage
• Extra heat in electric power steering motors
• Noisy or clunky steering performance

What seems harmless in your dual-control Fiesta could be the tipping point for mechanical failure in their 15-year-old Vauxhall Corsa.

So when we say,

🎯 4. We Should Teach for Life, Not Just for the Mark Sheet

It’s tempting to use dry steering as a shortcut. It works. It avoids hassle. It helps them “get it in the bay.”

But as professionals, we have a bigger responsibility.

We don’t just prepare people to pass a test — we prepare them to drive safely, confidently, and mechanically sympathetically for the rest of their lives.

Dry steering may not be penalised on the test. But it’s:

• Bad for habit formation
• Bad for mechanical sympathy
• Bad for learning how a car behaves

That’s enough reason to phase it out of our teaching, or at the very least, reserve it for only those situations where no other option exists.

✅ What You Can Say to Pupils

Here’s a clear way to frame it 

This isn’t about making learners’ lives harder. It’s about giving them skills that will make everything easier later.

Final Thought

Teaching someone to drive is like teaching them a language. You can train them to repeat phrases — or you can teach them to speak fluently.

Dry steering may get the phrase right. But it’s not fluent driving.

Let’s keep our focus on the bigger picture — building drivers who don’t just pass the test, but master the road.

Driving Lessons - Where will my Instructor pick me up and drop me off?

"Hi, I've got a lesson later today can you pick me up from.....?"

Or...

"Do you mind if you drop me off in town at the end of the lesson?"

Your Instructor might be able to, but don't be surprised if the answer is a polite no!

There may be a number of reasons for this, but it definitely isn't just to be awkward.

Most Driving Instructors set their diaries up to provide lessons of between one or two hours duration. This means they are teaching quite a few different pupils each day and usually over a weekly cycle. Your instructor will agree a pick up and drop off location at the time of booking and then fill their diary spaces with pupils from a similar location. 

To keep costs down and to maximise their use of time, they organise enough time between lessons for travelling to the next pupil and to take a short break - it can be hard work teaching people to drive, so regular breaks are required. 

In these pandemic times we even have to plan a cleaning down break or a comfort break as many of the usual local public toilets have been closed.

In addition to this they will have to consider the impact this request will have on the lesson plan and how suitable the location is to your level of ability and also the impact it will have on arriving on time for the next pupil.

I recall a pupil asking, as his lesson started, if he could be dropped off in the area we intended to practice, which was around a 15 minute drive away from his home. My next lesson was due to start 15 minutes after his ended and his home was 10-15 minutes from my next pupil - but in the other direction from where he'd asked me to drop him off. This would have meant we finished the lesson half an hour away from my next pupil. Do you see the problem? 

This would have had a knock-on effect with all of my subsequent bookings and put me behind schedule for the rest of the day. 

I gave him two choices - both are in my terms and conditions; either finish at home as was agreed when booking the lesson or end his lesson fifteen minutes early to allow me the time it would take me to travel back. This travel time is taken from the scheduled lesson time. He chose to be dropped off early. 

On the next lesson he insisted that I owed him fifteen minutes extra because he'd finished early. I had to politely explain that when booking he had booked an hour of my time. His obligation when booking was to pay for the time he had reserved as no one else could use that time. 

It's wise to keep in mind that you are employing the services of a professional - you are paying for both their time and expertise.

My best advice is to plan your commitments around your lessons so that they don't impact on your learning or your finances and remember that the lesson journey isn't just a drive around the area, it's planned learning time based on your learning needs.

Driving test tips - How to Save Money by Hiring a Professional

When you are working to a limited budget hiring a professional often appears to be a luxury. This is probably why DIY is so popular - it can't be that hard can it?

My garage is full of tools I've bought for a particular job and never used again, I've completed the job to a fair degree of satisfaction and saved some money but it never really looks like a professional has done it. My garage also has it's fair share of part completed 'projects' where what seemed to be a straightforward easy job turned out to be slightly more complicated than I'd imagined.

To a large extent this is the case with learning to drive. Loads of people can drive and therefore think it must be easy to teach someone to do it and part of me agrees - driving is not rocket science and even an amateur is allowed to teach you and there's a chance of passing the driving test, even when using techniques that are less than car or wallet friendly.

"If you think hiring an expert is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur"

So why pay a professional?

The difference lies in both the effectiveness and efficiency of learning from a professional.

The cost of learning is quantifiable and therefore it's really easy to see exactly what it costs and think "wow that's expensive." However, it takes a long-term view to see how the techniques taught by a good instructor could save you £1000's. The techniques an excellent instructor teaches you could save you even more.

Take for example the average driver's mileage of around 10,000 miles per year and the cost of fuel at 20p per mile, that's £2,000 per year. But what if you applied the fuel-saving techniques taught by your instructor and reduced this to 15p per mile, it would save you £500 per year.

I recently helped a pupil, initially being taught by her parents, get an extra 18 miles per gallon. Over a lifetime she could save enough money to buy a new car!

Added to these savings is the potential reduction in maintenance costs such as, amongst other things, replacing worn out clutches, brakes, tyres and steering and of course a reduction in insurance premiums by avoiding crashes.

You may not fail a driving test for using certain habits or techniques that are unlikely to be corrected when learning with an amateur, but over a period of time these are serial clutch killers. Habits such as 'riding the clutch' or occasionally unnecessarily 'slipping the clutch', or sitting at traffic lights in first gear with the clutch at the 'biting point' for long periods. These faults may not be deemed worthy of marking on a test but can take thousands of miles off the lifetime of the clutch. Considering that a replacement clutch is going to set you back a good £400-£600 these are expensive habits to have. This cost is comparable to around half of the current fee for learning to drive with a professional. The difference being, you only pay to learn to drive once. When treated well a clutch can last the lifetime of the car, yet if treated poorly may need to replaced regularly.

Another common habit we see that leads to additional wear and tear is changing down through each gear instead of using the more effective, and cheaper to replace, brake components . You really don't want to know what it costs to replace a gearbox.

I often recall a conversation I had with a friend many years ago. He was buzzing because he'd just taken his 4 year old car for a service and he still had 50% of his brake pads left.

"Not bad for 40,000 miles" he beamed.

I replied "that's interesting Rob, haven't you recently had your clutch replaced?"

"Yes" he said.

"How much did that cost you?"

"About £400"

"Oh, and how much would it have cost you to replace your brake pads instead? About £40?"

He didn't reply, but you could see the sudden dawning of realisation on his face.

You may have noticed that I've used the words 'could' and potential' a lot so far. This is because these savings rely on YOU doing what you've been taught, not just in the first few weeks of driving but for a lifetime (a lifetime that can be greatly reduced if you don't). And don't listen to that nonsense about learning to drive properly once you've passed your test, this just makes others more comfortable with their bad habits. You're as much an expert as they are.

Saving a few quid here and there may seem like a good idea in the short-term and I'm all for parents or friends helping out by giving learners the chance to gain experience in addition to driving lessons and actively encourage this, but a wise person should look at the money they are paying for an Approved Driving Instructor as a long-term investment in theirs or their child's future.

Something that has stayed with me is a phase my old House-master at school often said "the saddest two words in the English language when put together are...if only"

He's right you know.

For expert driving tuition or driving tips visit my website www.udidit.co.uk



Advertising in the driving school industry - how bad is it?

Legal, decent, honest and truthful

These four words form a key part of the intrinsic values of every Approved Driving Instructor (ADI) – don’t they?

For some time now I’ve had a bee-in-my-bonnet about the standard of advertising within the driver training industry, including both the intended and unintended messages these communicate.

I realise that for many ADIs this is the first time they have been self-employed, becoming not only a training deliverer but also, amongst many things, their own website designer, copy & proof reader, and marketing manager. However, websites and social media content generally goes unchecked and a lot of the transgressions are unintentional, but I guess even when giving them the benefit of the doubt, is ignorance really a valid defence for a responsible business owner?

Some businesses should know better

I recently received an email from one of the voucher scheme providers and one headline caught my interest

“Get 4 beginners’ driving lessons - £12”

After the usual round of eye-rolling and tutting I looked past the headline and clicked on the “fine print” which told me that the "Deal consists of 2 hours worth of driving lessons at the start and 2 hours before the driving test."

This revelation got me wondering what I’ve been doing wrong all these years –I’ve been doing pre-test preparation lessons two hours prior to the test and tend to get the beginner lessons out of the way quite early on when the pupil is...huh erm.... a beginner (Seemed more client-centred to me).

Now taking into account the fine print this particular headline appeared to be a little misleading, so I followed the advice of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and sent the following business-to-business email politely requesting a change to the wording.

Dear Voucher Scheme Provider,

I would like to bring to your attention the misleading nature of a current advert you have running for XYZ Driving School. This advert clearly states:  "Get 4 beginners' driving lessons"

However; the terms and conditions restrict this to two beginner lessons.

Quote: "Deal consists of 2 hours worth of driving lessons at the start and 2 hours before the driving test". This means the customer cannot take four beginner lessons and [the advert] is therefore misleading and should either be removed or reworded.

Very shortly after I received the following reply from Voucher Scheme

“Thank you for your E mail.

Any customer purchasing the deal with the merchant XYZ will get two 2 hour free lessons at the start when you begin learning. Any lessons the instructor feels the customer needs leading up to the driving test the customer will pay the merchant XYZ for. Before you take your driving test the 2 lessons all customers will have before their test will be free of charge. This equates to 4 lessons in total each at one hour in length.” 

For us mere mortals who couldn’t follow that logic, here’s a summary;

Two x 2 hours + 2 hours = 4 (1 hour lessons) and these are free

Where did the £12 go?  And how does 2 x 2 + 2 = 4? And how does a two hour lesson become a one hour lesson?

Time Travel

This made me wonder how I managed to miss the ADI training classes on how to bend the space and time continuum....

...and then it struck me, I realised just how it is they can deliver beginner lessons just before the test and only charge an equivalent £3 per hour – they must have a time-machine taking them back to the beginner lessons and then at the end of each day it takes the instructor back to the 1970’s when the cost-of-living was lower.

If they haven’t invented time travel then I suggest this particular advert isn’t accurately representing the service being offered and so I made it clear to Voucher Scheme Provider that if they continued the campaign with its current wording then I would have to formally complain to ASA. This did the trick and Voucher Scheme Provider sent another email informing me that the wording had been changed, although by this time the campaign had ended with over 220 vouchers sold.

Now you might be thinking so what? What’s this got to do with me anyway? Well, as a consumer and business owner it’s all about a sense of fairness and no doubt at some point we’ve all questioned the validity of an advertisement’s content, so why wouldn’t I challenge those in my industry which directly affect my business?

Buyer’s Remorse

Here’s the problem. Those 220 customers are now 220 fewer customers for all those businesses who follow the rules and play fair. Also, those new customers may regret not having read the fine print when they eventually find out that their expectations are not met and consequently a distrust of the industry as a whole grows. I recently took a call from a potential client who'd bought a voucher and spent the entire duration of the lesson driving around a car park because the instructor didn't know the area.

Over the next few weeks I continued to look out for further advertising by this company and sure enough around a month later a similar email was received. This time though, the wording had indeed changed and the “beginner lessons” simply became “lessons”. The effect was dramatic, as this time around the number of people purchasing the voucher dropped from 220 to 77. So, it appears that a large number of consumers were possibly misled by the wording of the previous advert and may well have made a different transactional decision had it not included the word “beginner”.

Many ADIs work independently and are unaware of the rules and regulations. Without an awareness of the advertising codes ADIs are likely to fall foul of the rules and leave their businesses open to all manner of issues. 

For expert driving tuition or driving tips visit my website www.udidit.co.uk

©Stu Walker 2021