You get one reversing manoeuvre out of three: parallel park, bay park, or pull up on the right and reverse two car lengths. The examiner chooses. Being slightly off-square is a driving fault at worst; not looking round while you reverse is not.
Learners spend more nerves on the manoeuvres than on anything else in the test and more of them fail at junctions. That mismatch is worth sitting with, because it tells you what the manoeuvre is really testing: not whether you can park a car, but whether you keep looking while the car is moving in a direction you cannot see.
You do one manoeuvre. The DVSA lists three possible reversing exercises and the examiner picks one. There is no way to influence the choice and no pattern to learn.
The Three, In Brief
| Manoeuvre | Where | The main risk |
|---|---|---|
| Parallel park | At the roadside, behind a parked car | Reversing into a live lane without checking behind and to the right |
| Bay park | In a car park, often the test centre's own | Reversing across a lane pedestrians and cars use, with your eyes on the mirrors |
| Pull up on the right | On the right-hand kerb of a two-way road | Being on the wrong side of the road, facing oncoming traffic, for longer than needed |
Manoeuvres as listed by the DVSA at gov.uk/driving-test.
Note what the right-hand column has in common. In all three, the thing that ends tests is the same thing: moving backwards into space you have not checked.
Parallel Park
You are asked to pull up in front of a parked car and reverse into the space behind it, finishing reasonably close to the kerb and roughly parallel, within about two car lengths.
What the examiner is watching
- A full check before you start, including a look over your right shoulder into the road you are about to reverse into
- Continuing observation while the car is moving, not one look at the beginning
- Whether you stop for anything that arrives, rather than carrying on and expecting it to wait
- Control: slow enough that you can stop instantly
- Whether you touch or mount the kerb
Finishing a foot from the kerb is a driving fault or nothing. Finishing at an angle is a driving fault. Reversing into the road while a car comes up behind you is a serious fault, and the difference between those two outcomes is entirely about where you were looking.
If it goes wrong
You are allowed to correct. Pulling forward to straighten up is not a fault in itself, and doing it once looks like awareness rather than failure. What you cannot do is pull forward without checking first, which is where a correction turns into the fault it was meant to fix.
Bay Park
Two versions, and the examiner will say which. Either drive forward into a bay and reverse out, or reverse into a bay and drive out. Reversing in is more common at test centres because it is what the car park layout suits.
What the examiner is watching
The same list as the parallel park, with one addition: whether you look for pedestrians. Test centre car parks have people walking through them, often examiners and candidates on foot, and they appear between parked cars with no warning. An examiner watching you reverse into a bay with your eyes fixed on the door mirror is watching a candidate who would not see them.
On accuracy, the requirement is that the car ends up inside the bay. Being closer to one line than the other is not a fault. Having a wheel on a line is a driving fault.
Ending up across two bays and leaving it there is worse, and it is one of the few accuracy errors that can be escalated, because it leaves the car in a position that would obstruct others.
Pull Up On The Right
The newest of the three and the one learners practise least. You are asked to pull up on the right-hand side of a two-way road, reverse about two car lengths keeping reasonably close to the kerb, then move off and rejoin the left-hand side.
It has three distinct phases and each is marked.
- Crossing to the right. Mirrors, signal, and a gap that does not make oncoming traffic slow down. You are crossing a live lane, so this part is judged like any other crossing of traffic.
- The reverse. Two car lengths, straight, close to the kerb, with observation all round. You are now facing oncoming traffic, so the main check is ahead as well as behind.
- Rejoining. The part that catches people. You have to cross back to the left, which means checking both directions properly, including the blind spot over your right shoulder, and waiting for a gap in both streams.
The examiner will not ask for this on a road where it would be genuinely dangerous, but they will ask for it on a road with traffic on it.
The point of the exercise is that you spend a short time on the wrong side of the road and have to manage it, and the honest advice is to keep that time short: do not sit on the right-hand kerb sorting yourself out for thirty seconds.
The Emergency Stop Is Not One Of Them
The emergency stop is a separate item and it may or may not be included. It is not one of the three manoeuvres and getting it does not mean you have avoided a reverse: you can be asked to do both.
The examiner will pull you over, explain that they will say "stop" and raise a hand, and then ask for it at a moment they choose.
The marking is on reaction and control: stopping promptly, in a straight line, without locking up in a car that cannot cope with it, and then moving off again with a proper all-round check including over your right shoulder. That final check is the part most often forgotten, because the stop feels like the end of the exercise.
How The Examiner Sets It Up
The manoeuvre does not arrive out of nowhere. The examiner will ask you to pull up on the left somewhere convenient, and then explain what they want in plain language while the car is stationary.
For the parallel park they will point at the car you are to park behind. For the bay park they will tell you whether they want you to reverse in or drive in. For the pull up on the right they will describe all three phases before you start.
Three things are worth knowing about that moment.
- You can ask them to repeat it. As many times as you need, and it is not marked. Starting a manoeuvre you have half understood is a much worse trade than asking again.
- You are not on a clock. There is no time limit on any of the three. Taking a few seconds to look around properly before you move is the behaviour being tested, not a delay being tolerated.
- You choose the exact spot on some of them. For the pull up on the right, and often for the parallel park, the examiner will say "when you are ready" and leave the position to you. Pick somewhere with a view rather than the first available gap.
The examiner will also not react while you are doing it. No feedback, no encouragement, no sharp intake of breath. That silence is neutral, and reading anything into it is a good way to talk yourself into rushing the second half.
What Actually Gets Marked Seriously
It bears repeating because it is the whole point of this page.
- Not looking round while reversing, or looking once and then relying on mirrors: serious fault territory
- Carrying on when something appears rather than stopping: serious fault
- Mounting the kerb, particularly where a pedestrian could be: can be a serious fault
- Being off-square, wide of the kerb, or needing a correction: a driving fault at worst, and often nothing
Which means the sensible practice is not more repetitions in an empty car park. It is repetitions on a street with things happening on it, where stopping mid-manoeuvre is something you have actually had to do. The full grading system behind this is in what the examiner is actually marking, and the line between a minor and a major is drawn in serious and dangerous faults.
Doing Them In East London
Local streets make two of the three harder than the textbook version. Around Goodmayes, the residential roads used for manoeuvres are parked solid on both sides, so a parallel park is often into a space with barely more than the two car lengths you are given, and the road is narrow enough that anything coming has to wait for you. That raises the pressure to rush, which is the fault the exercise is designed to find.
The pull up on the right is the one worth practising deliberately here, because it is rare in ordinary driving and because East London roads with parking on both sides make the rejoin genuinely awkward. If your instructor has not set it up on a road with real traffic, ask for it.
Lesson rates and how block booking works are on the pricing page, and the wider sequence from provisional licence to test is in the complete guide to learning to drive in East London. What each of the top failure categories looks like on these roads is in the top ten reasons people fail.
A mock test picks the manoeuvre the way an examiner does, on the kind of street an examiner would pick, rather than the quiet one you have practised on forty times.
Book a mock testQuestions about the manoeuvres
How many manoeuvres are on the driving test?
One. The examiner picks a single reversing manoeuvre from three: parallel park at the roadside, bay park in a car park, or pull up on the right and reverse about two car lengths. You may also be asked to do an emergency stop, which is separate.
Can you choose which manoeuvre you do?
No. The examiner chooses, and there is no pattern to it. The bay park is more common at centres with a suitable car park, but you cannot rely on that.
Do you fail for touching the kerb?
Not automatically. Lightly touching the kerb is usually a driving fault. Mounting it, or hitting it hard enough that you would have hurt a pedestrian standing there, can be marked as a serious fault.
Is the emergency stop on every driving test?
No. It may be included and it may not. It is not one of the three manoeuvres, so being asked for one does not mean you avoid a reverse.
What happens if I have to redo the manoeuvre?
Correcting yourself is allowed and pulling forward to straighten up is not a fault by itself. What is marked is doing it without checking first. One correction, done with proper observation, is usually not marked at all.
If the manoeuvres are the part you are worried about, a mock test at £50 puts them on an unfamiliar road with someone marking, which is the only honest rehearsal.
Book a mock testMore in The practical test
Published 1 September 2026. Prices and DVSA figures are checked when this page is revised. If anything here has changed, ring us and we will confirm it.