The DVSA publishes the ten faults that end most tests and the list barely changes year to year. Observation at junctions has been first for a long time. Below is the list for April 2024 to March 2025, with what each one actually looks like on the roads around the East London test centres.
The DVSA publishes the ten most common reasons for failing the practical test every year, and the list is remarkably stable. The same faults appear in roughly the same order, which tells you these are not bad luck. They are a small set of habits that a large number of candidates arrive at the test still carrying.
Not one of them is a manoeuvre. Not one is the sat nav. The list below is for April 2024 to March 2025, in the DVSA's order, with what each looks like on the roads around Wanstead, Goodmayes and Chingford.
The List
| Rank | Fault |
|---|---|
| 1 | Not making effective observations at junctions |
| 2 | Not using mirrors correctly when changing direction |
| 3 | Not moving off safely |
| 4 | Incorrect positioning when turning right at junctions |
| 5 | Not responding appropriately to traffic lights |
| 6 | Not having proper control of the steering |
| 7 | Not responding correctly to road markings |
| 8 | Not responding correctly to traffic signs |
| 9 | Poor positioning on the road during normal driving |
| 10 | Not driving at a safe and reasonable speed |
Source: DVSA, top 10 reasons for failing the driving test in Great Britain, April 2024 to March 2025.
Faults One To Three: Failing To Look
The first three on the list are the same fault wearing three different coats. In each case the driver acted on a picture they had not actually gathered.
1. Observations at junctions
First on the list, and it has been for years. The DVSA notes that ineffective observation was a factor in 47% of all collisions in 2023, which is why it is marked as hard as it is.
In East London the specific version of this fault is created by parking. Residential streets across E, IG and RM postcodes are parked solid right up to the give-way line, so from a normal stopping position you can see about two metres of the road you are joining.
The safe answer is to creep forward in small movements with your head turning, ready to stop at any point. The fault is to take a single look from a position where there is nothing to see, decide it is clear, and go.
That is not carelessness. It looks and feels like a proper observation, because you did turn your head. What the examiner is marking is whether the look could have told you anything.
2. Mirrors when changing direction
Second, and it is the same fault viewed from a different angle. Changing direction covers turning, changing lane, overtaking a parked car, pulling in and pulling out.
The London version of this is the parked car. On a road like Green Lane or Barking Road you pull out around parked vehicles constantly, and each one is a change of direction requiring a mirror check before you move. Doing it forty times in a lesson makes it feel like nothing, and that is exactly when the check quietly stops happening.
3. Moving off safely
Third, and the surprise on the list, because it happens within the first thirty seconds of most tests. Moving off safely means mirrors, a signal if it would help anyone, and a blind spot check over your right shoulder before the car moves.
The blind spot check is the one that goes. On a busy road it feels redundant, since you have just checked the mirror, and the car behind you was there both times. Then one morning it is a cyclist filtering up the outside, or a moped, and the check that felt redundant was the only thing that would have found them.
You move off many times during a test: after the tell me question, after each stop, after the manoeuvre, after any pull-in the examiner asks for. That is a lot of repetitions of the same check, and this is precisely where the escalation rule bites, since a check missed at every one of them stops being a slip.
Faults Four And Five: Junctions And Signals
The next two are about being in the right place and reading the right thing at junctions, which in London means junctions with more going on in them than the textbook version.
4. Positioning when turning right
Fourth. Turning right requires you to be positioned close to the centre line, or in the marked right-turn lane, without straddling anything.
What makes this hard locally is that a great many junctions here have a right-turn lane that appears late, or a hatched area beside it, or oncoming traffic waiting to turn right at the same time.
Sitting too far left blocks the lane behind you and puts you in the wrong place to see round the oncoming car. Sitting too far right, over the centre line, puts you where oncoming traffic needs to be.
There is a second half to this fault, which is where you wait. Waiting with the wheels straight, so that if you are pushed from behind you go forward and not into oncoming traffic, is a habit worth having permanently.
5. Responding to traffic lights
Fifth, and it is not usually about going through a red. The common versions are subtler.
- Moving on green without checking the junction is actually clear, which on box-marked junctions here it very often is not
- Stopping over the stop line, or in the cyclist waiting area at an advanced stop line
- Sitting still on a green filter arrow because you were watching the main light
- Accelerating at an amber you could comfortably have stopped for
- Failing to move off promptly when the lights change, which on a short phase strands the drivers behind you
East London has a lot of multi-stage signals, particularly around the Redbridge and Charlie Brown's junctions, where a green means go into a section rather than through the whole thing. Reading the section rather than the light is the skill.
Faults Six To Eight: Control, Markings And Signs
The middle of the list is where local road design does most of the damage, because these three are largely about obeying things painted on the road or bolted to a pole.
6. Control of the steering
Sixth. Steering control is marked when the car ends up somewhere you did not intend: clipping a kerb on a left turn, drifting wide on a right, or straightening too early and cutting the corner.
Narrow residential streets are where this shows. The roads off Larkshall Road near Chingford are narrow enough that a car parked on each side leaves a single-vehicle gap, and kerbing on those streets is a known source of marks. It is worth saying that mounting a kerb where a pedestrian could reasonably be standing can be graded above a driving fault.
7. Road markings
Seventh, and in London this one is mostly box junctions and lane arrows.
The box junction rule is that you must not enter unless your exit road is clear, and it is a breach of law rather than a matter of judgement, which puts it straight into serious fault territory.
The A118 High Road near Goodmayes and the junctions around Seven Kings have boxes that back up from the far side, so an exit that was clear when you looked is gone by the time you get there. The answer is to leave more room than feels necessary and accept losing a light phase. There is more detail in box junctions explained.
The other half is lane arrows painted on the road, which frequently disagree with what the overhead sign appeared to say. On a multi-lane approach, the paint under your wheels is the instruction.
8. Traffic signs
Eighth, and the local version is almost entirely bus lanes and turn restrictions. A timed bus lane is legal to use outside its hours and an offence inside them, and the sign at the entry is the only thing telling you which. Driving in one during its hours is a breach of law and therefore a serious fault, regardless of whether a bus was anywhere near.
Banned turns are the other one. Plenty of junctions across Hackney and Tower Hamlets have no-right-turn restrictions that apply at certain times, and a sat nav will occasionally route you into one during the independent driving section. The sign wins, every time.
Faults Nine And Ten: Position And Speed
The last two are about ordinary driving between the junctions, and they are the two most affected by nerves.
9. Positioning during normal driving
Ninth. This is where you sit in the lane when nothing in particular is happening: too close to the kerb, too close to the centre line, or drifting between the two.
The London complication is cycle lanes and parked cars. Hugging the nearside puts you in a cycle lane or too close to car doors. The Highway Code asks for at least 1.5 metres when passing a cyclist at up to 30mph, and more above that, which on a narrow road means you cannot pass at all until there is room.
Candidates who squeeze past because the lane technically allows it are producing both a positioning fault and a much more serious one.
10. Safe and reasonable speed
Tenth, and it cuts both ways. Too fast is the obvious half, and in an area where most of Hackney, Tower Hamlets and the City is 20mph, a habit of driving at 26 will be marked.
Too slow is the half people do not expect. Driving at 20 in a 30 with clear road ahead and a queue building behind you is marked as undue hesitation, because it makes other drivers do unpredictable things. Nervous candidates default to slow, and slow feels safe from the driver's seat and does not look safe from the passenger's.
What The List Is Really Saying
Read the ten together and a pattern falls out. Numbers one, two, three and five are all failures to gather information before acting. Numbers four, seven, eight and nine are all failures to be in the right place. Six and ten are control.
That is two habits, not ten faults. Look properly before you act, and be where you are supposed to be. Everything on the DVSA's list is one of those two, and a candidate who fixes both has fixed the entire list rather than ten separate things.
The DVSA gives some further context worth carrying: traffic violations caused 5,901 casualties in Great Britain in 2023, and poor turns or manoeuvres accounted for around one in eight reported collisions. These faults are not marked hard because examiners are strict. They are marked hard because they are what actually goes wrong on the road afterwards.
How each of these gets graded is in what the examiner is actually marking, the line at which one becomes a fail is in serious and dangerous faults, and lane choice on the big local junctions is in roundabout lane discipline. The whole path from provisional licence to test day is in the guide to learning to drive in East London.
What To Do With This Before Your Test
Pick the two you recognise. Almost everybody reading this knew which ones applied to them by the third or fourth heading, and honesty about that is worth more than another ten hours of general practice. Then drive the kind of road that produces them, repeatedly, with someone watching for that specific fault rather than for everything at once.
Routes around Wanstead and Goodmayes will supply all ten within twenty minutes, which is the useful thing about learning here. The roads are dense enough that you do not have to go looking for the situations that catch people.
A mock test is the only setting where somebody watches for these ten specifically, on the roads where they happen, and writes down which ones you produced.
Book a mock testQuestions about failing
What is the most common reason for failing a driving test?
Not making effective observations at junctions. It has topped the DVSA list for years, and for April 2024 to March 2025 it was first again. The DVSA notes that ineffective observation was a factor in 47% of all collisions in 2023.
Are the manoeuvres a common reason for failing?
No. Not one of the DVSA top ten is a manoeuvre. Learners spend most of their nerves on parallel parking and bay parking, and the faults that actually end tests happen at junctions and on lane changes.
What is the most common fault in London specifically?
The DVSA publishes the list nationally rather than by centre, so there is no official London figure. What the local routes produce most reliably are junctions with parked cars up to the give-way line, box junctions, timed bus lanes and late lane choice on multi-lane approaches.
Does moving off without a blind spot check fail you?
Not necessarily on its own. Once, on an empty road, it is usually a driving fault. Repeated at every move-off it can be escalated to a serious fault, and if there was a cyclist or a moped alongside you it is a serious fault the first time.
Can you fail for driving too slowly?
Yes. Driving well under the limit with a clear road ahead is marked as undue hesitation, because it forces other drivers into unpredictable decisions. Nerves push most candidates towards slow, so it is worth being aware of.
If you recognise yourself in three or four of these, a mock test at £50 will tell you which ones an examiner would actually have marked.
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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.