The DL25 test report form, explained for instructors and learners
Every learner who takes a driving test in Great Britain leaves the test centre with the same piece of paperwork: the DL25 driving test report. Most of them never look at it again, which is a shame, because it is the single most honest document in the whole learning-to-drive process. It tells you exactly what the examiner saw, exactly where the marks landed, and exactly what needs work before the next attempt.
This guide walks through the form box by box, so you can read one properly, explain it to a pupil without guessing, and use the same layout to run mock tests that actually prepare people for the real thing.
What the DL25 actually is
The DL25 is the examiner’s working record of the test. While your pupil is driving, the examiner is marking a grid of driving competencies, adding a tick each time a fault occurs and noting how serious it was. At the end of the test the examiner totals it up, gives the result, and talks the candidate through what was recorded. The candidate gets a copy of the report — these days usually by email, since examiners mark a digital version on a tablet, but the layout mirrors the paper form that has been in use for decades.
Two things follow from this. First, the form is not a mystery: the competency names come straight from the national standard for driving, and the fault categories are published by the DVSA. Second, if your pupil understands the form before test day, nothing the examiner writes on it will come as a surprise. Familiarity is calming, and calm candidates drive better.
The three fault types
Everything on the DL25 hangs off three categories of fault, and the difference between them is about outcome and risk, not about which competency was involved. The same mistake can land in any of the three columns depending on what was happening around the car.
- A driving fault (the one everyone calls a “minor”) is an error that did not cause actual danger. Missing a mirror check before slowing down, when there was nobody behind to be affected, is a classic driving fault. So is a slightly wide turn on an empty road, or a moment of hesitation at a clear junction.
- A serious fault is an error that could have caused danger, or a pattern of the same error that shows the candidate cannot yet do something to test standard. Pulling out of a junction and forcing another driver to brake is serious — nobody crashed, but only because someone else compensated.
- A dangerous fault is an error that involved actual danger to the candidate, the examiner, the public or property. If the examiner has to intervene — a verbal warning strong enough to change what happens, or physically taking the wheel or using the dual controls — you are almost always in this territory.
One serious or dangerous fault fails the test. It does not matter if the rest of the drive was flawless.
The pass bar, and the myth around it
The published standard is simple: 15 or fewer driving faults, and no serious or dangerous faults. That is the whole rule.
The myth that grows around it is that 15 driving faults means “you can drive badly 15 times and still pass”. Worth killing early with pupils, for two reasons. First, a candidate collecting double-digit driving faults is usually driving close to the serious line all test — one awkward junction and the same behaviour tips over. Second, faults that cluster in one competency tell the examiner something a scattered handful does not. Repeated faults in the same box show the candidate cannot do that thing reliably, and repetition of the same driving fault can itself be assessed as serious. Three or four mirror faults in a forty-minute drive is not three or four isolated slips; it is a habit that has not formed yet.
A good target to give pupils is not “under 15”. It is “a drive where the faults, if any, are genuinely one-off”.
The 27 competency rows
The heart of the form is a grid of driving competencies, most with sub-items, each with space for driving-fault ticks plus serious and dangerous columns. Grouped readably, they cover:
| Group | What the examiner is watching |
|---|---|
| Eyesight | Reading a number plate at the prescribed distance before the drive starts. Fail this and the test does not go ahead. |
| Controlled stop | Stopping promptly and under full control when asked (not on every test). |
| Manoeuvres | The reversing exercise set on the day — parallel park, bay park forward or reverse, or pulling up on the right and reversing — marked for control and for observation separately. |
| Vehicle checks | The “show me, tell me” safety questions, one at the start and one on the move. |
| Precautions | Simple but telling: is the seat, mirror and belt routine done before starting the engine? |
| Control | Accelerator, clutch, gears, footbrake, parking brake and steering — the mechanical side of driving. |
| Move off | Moving away safely (observation) and under control (no rolling back, no stalling chaos). |
| Use of mirrors | Checking mirrors before signalling, before changing direction and before changing speed — and acting on what they show. |
| Signals | Giving signals where necessary, correctly, and in good time. |
| Clearance | Leaving sensible room past parked cars and other obstructions. |
| Response to signs and signals | Traffic signs, road markings, traffic lights, signals given by police or other people controlling traffic, and signals from other road users. |
| Use of speed | A safe speed for the conditions, not just under the limit. |
| Following distance | A proper gap behind the vehicle in front, in all conditions. |
| Progress | Driving at an appropriate speed and not hesitating unduly — being too slow or too timid is marked here. |
| Junctions | Approach speed, observation, turning right, turning left, and not cutting corners. |
| Judgement | Overtaking, meeting oncoming traffic, and crossing its path — the give-and-take decisions. |
| Positioning | Normal road position and lane discipline. |
| Pedestrian crossings | Recognising and responding to every type of crossing correctly. |
| Position of normal stops | Choosing a safe, legal, convenient place to pull up. |
| Awareness and planning | Reading the road ahead and acting on it — the competency that separates passengers from drivers. |
| Ancillary controls | Wipers, demisters, lights and so on, used without losing control of the car. |
| Eco-safe driving | Planning and control from an efficiency point of view — recorded as feedback rather than counting towards the result. |
There is also an ETA box, recording whether the examiner had to take action, verbally or physically, and boxes covering the independent driving section, where the candidate follows a sat nav or traffic signs for around twenty minutes.
If you teach with this grid in mind, nothing about it needs cramming later. It is simply the syllabus, arranged in rows.
How examiners actually mark it
Two habits of examiner marking are worth explaining to pupils, because both get misread.
First, the tick happens at the moment of the fault, silently. Candidates often feel the pen move and assume the worst, spiral, and throw away a passing drive over what was one driving fault — or over nothing at all, since examiners also write route notes. Teach pupils that the only sensible response to “I think I just got marked” is to drive the next ten seconds well.
Second, the conversation happens at the end. The examiner gives the result, then offers a debrief against the form. Encourage pupils to have their instructor listen in if you are there (candidates can ask for this), and to actually take the feedback in rather than sitting in the fog of relief or disappointment. That debrief, plus the emailed report, is a free lesson plan.
Running your own mock tests on the same layout
A mock test marked on a home-made checklist tests your pupil. A mock test marked on the real DL25 layout also teaches them the form, and that second thing is where most of the value hides.
When the pupil has already seen the grid, watched faults being tallied against real competency names, and sat through a proper end-of-test debrief with you, test day loses its strangeness. They know what “one serious” means before an examiner ever says it to them. They know a tick is not a fail. The nerves that come from the unknown — which for many candidates are worth several faults on their own — simply have less to feed on.
A few things make a mock worth doing:
- Run it straight. No teaching, no prompting, no rescue — say so up front. Forty minutes, independent section included, manoeuvre included.
- Mark honestly, including serious faults. A mock that everyone passes is a rehearsal for disappointment.
- Debrief from the form, not from memory. Go down the rows. Where did ticks cluster? One competency with four faults matters more than four competencies with one.
- Turn it into the next lesson plan. The clustered rows are your syllabus for the following fortnight.
One line on the legal side, because it matters: do your recording after the drive, at the kerb or back at the pick-up point. Using a handheld device while supervising a learner is illegal in the UK — a supervising driver is treated as being in control of the vehicle. The form can wait two minutes; your attention on the road cannot.
Read this way, the DL25 stops being the scary sheet of paper at the end and becomes what it always was underneath: a well-organised summary of what good driving looks like, one row at a time.