Parallel Parking on Your Driving Test in 2026: How to Do It and Why It Still Catches Learners Out

Parallel parking – the DVSA calls it ‘parallel park at the side of the road’ – is one of four manoeuvres that can come up on your practical driving test, and it is the one learners dread most. It is also the one that fails fewest people, once they understand what is actually being marked.

You will only be asked to do one manoeuvre on your test, chosen by the examiner from parallel parking, the forward bay park, the reverse bay park, and pulling up on the right and reversing two car lengths. Parallel parking comes up more often at centres with no car park of their own, because there are no bays to use.

This guide covers exactly what the examiner is looking for, a reference point method that works in most cars, and the faults that turn a slightly untidy park into a serious one.

What the Examiner Is Actually Assessing

There are three things being marked, and only one of them is the final position of the car.

Control. Smooth clutch and brake work, no stalling, no sudden steering. The car should move slowly and deliberately throughout.

Observation. All-round checks before you start, and continuous checks while you reverse – especially over your right shoulder into the road and towards the pavement on your left. Reversing while looking only in the mirrors is a fault, even if the park is perfect.

Accuracy. Finishing reasonably close to the kerb, parallel to it, within about two car lengths of the vehicle in front, and without touching the kerb or another vehicle.

Step by Step: A Reference Point Method

Reference points vary between cars, so treat these as a starting framework and adjust them with your instructor in the vehicle you will use on test.

1. Position. Pull up alongside the parked car, roughly a metre away, with your rear bumper level with theirs. Check your mirrors and signal if it helps other road users.
2. Prepare. Select reverse. This lights your reversing lights, which tells everyone what you are about to do. Take a full all-round observation, including over both shoulders.
3. Move back straight. Reverse slowly until your rear seat or door pillar is level with the rear bumper of the parked car – the exact point depends on your vehicle.
4. First steer. Steer briskly one full turn towards the kerb while the car keeps creeping. Watch the nearside mirror for the kerb line and check over your right shoulder for the swing of your bonnet into the road.
5. Straighten. When the kerb appears in the bottom corner of your nearside mirror and the car is at roughly 45 degrees, straighten the wheels and continue back.
6. Second steer. As your nearside mirror lines up with the rear of the parked car, steer the other way to bring the back of the car in and the front of the car round.
7. Finish. Straighten up when parallel, stop within about a hand’s width to a foot from the kerb, secure the car with the handbrake and select neutral.

Throughout, the car should be moving at walking pace or slower. If you need to pause to look, pause – a stationary car gives you time and costs you nothing.

The Faults Examiners Mark Most Often

Reversing without effective observation. The single biggest cause of serious faults on this manoeuvre. Looking only in the mirrors, or turning your head once at the start and never again, will get marked.

Touching or mounting the kerb. A gentle touch is usually a driving fault. Mounting the kerb, or hitting it hard enough to bounce the car, is likely to be serious.

Finishing too far from the kerb. More than roughly a foot out and you are obstructing the road. Notice it and correct it rather than hoping the examiner will not measure.

Ignoring other road users. If a car arrives behind you mid-manoeuvre, you must react – pause, let them pass if that is sensible, or complete promptly if you are nearly done. Continuing regardless is what turns a tidy park into a fault.

Losing control on a slope or camber. On a cambered road the car will run back faster than you expect. Use clutch control and the footbrake, not momentum.

Practising Parallel Parking Properly

The mistake most learners make is practising in an empty road with cones or a single car. Real test conditions include a vehicle in front, a vehicle behind, a camber, and passing traffic.

Build up in stages. Start with one car on a flat, quiet street. Add a car behind so the space is genuinely limited. Then move to a road with a camber and light traffic. By the time you are doing it on a residential street where somebody might drive past, the manoeuvre itself is no longer the hard part.

It also helps to practise near the test centre you are booked at. Kerb height, road width and camber vary, and the streets local examiners use are the ones worth knowing.

How the Exam Routes App Can Help

Manoeuvres are set on specific streets near each test centre – the same ones, over and over. The Exam Routes App gives you real driving test routes with turn-by-turn navigation, so you can practise on the roads examiners actually use rather than a random side street across town.

Parking on the road you might be tested on, with the same camber and the same kerb, removes a surprising amount of test-day uncertainty.

Frequently Asked Questions