Lisa Dollan, an American woman living in the UK, shared a video on TikTok detailing how different her US driving test was to her examination here in Britain
An American woman living in the UK has recalled how different her driving test was back home compared to Britain.
Lisa Dollan, who lives in Leeds, West Yorkshire but is originally from the US, has described her driving tests in the two different countries as “day and night.”
She took her test in America “many years ago” when she was 16 – and it was super easy. However, she only passed her UK driving test when she was 32, admitting it took her three attempts and lots of tears.
Surprisingly, her whole driving test in the US took place in the car park of the test centre so she didn’t even have to go out on the road. This meant she had a big shock when taking lessons to prepare for her test in the UK.
Lisa shared a video on TikTok on Wednesday, January 29 about her experience. She said: “How different were my USA driving test and my UK driving test? Day and night. Wow.”
The American expat went on to say she took her driving test in America when she was 16 and she hopes the tests have gotten “a lot harder” than when she did it because it was a “joke.” For her test in the US, she just had to drive around in two circles of the test centre car park and reverse into a parking spot.
There was “no parallel parking” either so understandably, Lisa “cried” when learning to drive in the UK. She added: “It took me three times to pass here. I was 32 years old in tears. Honestly, you guys are Nascar level drivers in this country.”
Lisa claimed that her own driving instructor in the UK said to her “I’m really sorry but you can’t drive.” She said she was told not only is she unable to drive in the UK, she was told “you can’t drive at all” so her instructor had no choice but to “start from scratch” when teaching Lisa how to drive.
Luckily, she got there in the end and can now laugh about the situation. Her TikTok video has received 202,500 views, 17,000 likes and nearly 400 comments.
The top comment reads: “I bet driving on a country road in the night was an eye opener for you. I hate it and have been driving for nearly 20 years.”
Another user questioned: “How are there not millions more accidents in the US if you only need to know how to drive around a car park?” A British person who took a driving test in the UK said: “I am British. I went to live in the US when I was 16.
“The driving test was so easy. In an automatic. I did drive round the block. But left the car park on the wrong side of the road and stopped the wrong distance from a stop sign.
“He said I’d failed by a point but would let me off because I was nervous. Had to relearn how to drive in the UK. It took two attempts to pass.”
According to USA Hello, to get your driver’s license in the US, you have to pass a written test, a vision test and a road test to show that you can drive and park your car safely on the road. In the UK you must pass a theory test, a practical driving test and an eyesight check to get your driver’s license.