Taking your car test after your bike one

[Stowelly]

Been riding for a coupel of years now and passed my bike test about a year ago. did some car lessons about 10 years ago, and have driven mates cars a few times between now and then, but have probably forgotton everything still. how much do you think from riding is transferable? could do with trying to get through my car test with minimal expense. I dont even want a car, the bird just keeps whinging at me that she wants to be the one who gets to drink when we go out sometimes lol

[Wafer_Thin_Ham]

Roadsense, that's about it.
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[The Artist]

If you can drive a car and are familiar with the rules of the road then it will be easy.

I think you will have to do the car theory test aswell.

When I did my car test, the only thing is could have possibly failed on was technicalities like mirror checks at exactly the right time or a manoeuvre error.

[Stowelly]

[The Artist]

Pretty much. Just do a couple of lessons to make sure you have everything ready.

Beware of examiners saying you need 10-15 lessons when you don't. I had one who told me complete bullshit and the 2nd one was better but still made me worry I wasn't going to pass but I only got one minor and that was because when I was parking, I had to straighten up.

[DrDonnyBrago]

If you ride a bike then driving is easy in comparison; no balance issues, a naff road surface makes little difference, only one brake input, weather doesn't really matter, locking the wheels doesn't cause you to fall off etc etc etc.

Get familiar with low speed manoeuvring and the overall size of the car and you shouldn'thave a problem. A few lessons to brush up on what the examiner wants will help.

[Stowelly]

[Rogerborg]

I find the main problem with driving a car now is staying focussed and alert. "Cocooned" really does sum it up. You'll be fine on a test though, and your observations should be way above a typical cager candidate.
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Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike

[Stowelly]

[The Artist]

[jaxx]

I'm in a similar situation at the moment...
I've been taking some "lessons" in the wifes VW camper... The size difference is obviously huge, but I'm hoping that when I get into a little corsa or summat to take the test, I'll be ready for it.

Just gotta book the theory now. I'm more nervous about the practical than the theory. Going to book a few lessons with an instructor, lose a few bad habits, and take what they say regarding amount of lessons needed with a pinch of salt.

[stinkwheel]

It's much easier than the bike test. They are looking for far fewer obs and the degree of fine speed/clutch/throttle control is mush less than required for the bike test.

I actually had an instructor tell me I was doing too many blind spot checks "You just need to look in the mirror, no need to be peering out of the back window.". I put him right on that score.

You can fall foul of being too advanced in your driving too. I had 4 minors on my test (having had a bike licence for several years). Two for clutch, two for gears. Both given going round the same corner. The examiner actually asked me about it because he wanted to know why I changed up instead of down before entering the corner since he'd taken me round it again and I did the same thing both times.

I told him I'd short-shifted because the corner was covered in loose gravel and I didn't want to lose traction. He seemed slightly taken aback by this, clearly wasn't the answer he'd been expecting but had already put the marks on his sheet.
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[Sham]

Passed my car test years ago, but a friend has recently gone through the process and passed on the third attempt just after I passed my bike test.

Drawing on both, I would say car is harder. They are sat next to you, can see if you're getting in a state and can therefore down mark you. Car driving seems to be tested more as a process. Bike test appears to be passed 'on balance' with my examiner at least, recounting minors as we sat in the office. There seems a lot more leeway with the bike, with the overall ride taken heavily into account. I didn't get that impression from the current car test.

[Scythe]

I'm starting to do car lessons soon so would like to know this too.
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2009 Yamaha YBR125 -> 2000 SV650S -> 2005 Kawasaki ZX6R 636

[Frost]

Differences:

weaving to avoid manhole covers, sequentially changing down to engine brake in every gear, shoulder checks, using the full rev range. Are all generally frowned upon when driving a car and it can take a little while to brake yourself of the habbit.

[benvanwell]

I was in this same situation and found it difficult to show my instructor everything he wanted. I wasn't used to doing things just for show, like turning your head to show that you were checking your rear-view mirror. For example, he was always badgering me about poor observations, when I knew they were well above "new car driver" average.

It came to a head after I told him that I knew which road users were where at least as well as him...After a busy road junction he asked me whether I had given enough room to a green car (implying that I might not have seen it). I coldly asked whether he meant the green R reg peugeot 306 as we approached the traffic lights or the aggressive M reg audi A4 which joined behind me just after the junction....

He didn't bother me about my observations after that!

Anyway, what I wanted to say before I had my cool story bro moment was that there are differences in what you need to show the examiner to make them comfortable to pass you. This was the most difficult thing for me as there was no sense to it.
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Currently Riding: Triumph Sprint ST 1050
Previous: GSF600s, GS500, BMW F45, CG125

[The Tot]

I'm inclined to answer this because I passed my car test last monday (those on my facebook will know), and a LOT of the things are transferable.... Just thought I could brag it here to get a "cool story bro", but I ended up passing with NO faults whatsoever.

A lot of things are transferable. I definitely found the road awareness and observations to be the key. On a bike, because you're subconsciously examining the road for hazards, more so than in a car because of your vulnerability, you apply that on 4 wheels without much awareness. My instructor and examiner said nothing on my observations because they knew that it was because of being on the bike. However, one bad habit I do is right shoulder lifesavers! It's because I do it ALL The time on the bike, I did it a few times on my lessons when changing lanes. Get used to using your rear view mirrors and RHS to try and stop this force of habit in the car.

Control isn't everything in the car exam because if you can manage balance and clutch control on a bike, it's just about hand to eye coordination when exercising your maneuvers at slow speeds. They bung you on a 10 minute independent driving session where the examiner gets you to follow street markings for a particular destination, plus only 1 maneuver during the test.

In fairness, I do drive in summer when I'm back in Indonesia, but that's only like 500-800 miles in a month, every other summer.

The fact that I bossed it goes to show that if you apply what you already know from your bike, then it will be a simple case of adapting your car control to suit.
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The Tot 2019 Z1000SX - 2007 R1
Never argue with autism

[Conon]

[The Tot]

The reasoning was

1) You're not looking at where you're going - use your mirrors. It's acceptable when changing lanes, but I was doing it all the time every time I moved into a different position
2) Do that on a roundabout exit and you might well clip a cyclist!

A mate of mine failed his trailer test ironically for being over observant!
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The Tot 2019 Z1000SX - 2007 R1
Never argue with autism

[elgard]

I had been riding for about 8 years before i did my car test and that was only because the wife was pregnant and was panicking.
The fact that i had road sence from riding helped and cut down the lessons to 8 in all.
And like you i didn't really want to do it so come test day i was more like "Let's get this over and done with" instead of thinking "SHIT this is really important i need to pass." and just took it all in my stride and passed. When he did say i passed it was OK cheers and that was that.
When i passed my bike test i had a permanent grin on my face for days

[kal9001]

I passed my bike theory and bike practical first time. When I did my test it was during a thunderstorm and the examiner was quite impressed that I managed to ride confidently int he wat as he says most people start to ride funny and overly slow. Locked the rear wheel on the E-stop but he didnt fail me on it.

When it came to the car a year later this was more troublesome, It took me 'several' attempts at the hazard perception crap and I faild my practical once also.
Was on a dual carridgeway in the right hand lane needing to get into the left lane for the next junction.
I do a mirror check and the lane is clear, Indicator and start to change lane position to drift over into the left, Just before I leave my lane I spot in the mirror a brown can gaining VERY rapidly. Instead of continuing and have him hit us I pull fully back into my lane (I hadnt actually left my lane yet anyway) and he understook us doing at least 90mph on the 40mph road we were on, Check again then complete the lane change.
At the end of the test he says I got one serious error that I didnt see the car that undertook us....WHA!?....you mean the car that I saw so kept in my lane instead of cut him up...yea right! Almost had an all out argument in the test centre, If I hadnt seen him he I would have changed lanes and he would have very badly rear ended us.
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[Doovy]

[Stowelly]

did my introductory 2 hour lesson, went really well, struggled a bit with the controls attempting maneuvers, and kept creeping over the speed limit (seems so fucking slow in a car) but the guy said id only need 10 hours and was quite impressed with everything. so i guess a lot of it is transferable!!

[Scythe]

[Noxious89123]

I did 10x 2hour lessons, and passed easily. I clipped the control stalk with my hand whilst rapidly turning the wheel doing my "turn in road". Window wipers were going like mad and I didn't know how to properly turn them off. Every now and again the rear wiper would move The examiner just leaned in a little and quitely told me to pull the stalk 1 click forward...

Only reason I needed so many lessons was to get my maneuvers *perfect*, but the main thing was my judgement. I was still judging things like I would on a bike, and wasn't always leaving myself enough room to pull out into traffic etc. Was always approaching roadabouts at high speed, trying to slip into the stream of traffic. My instructor stopped us *hard* when I did that. He just looked at me, calm as anything and said "don't do that, yeah?". Was always encouraging me to give it the beans though
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'06 Honda CBR125RW-6 ~ '00 Honda CBR600F-Y ~ '07 Honda CBR600RR-7 ~ Bikeless
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