Why learning to drive in the UAE took years—and how I finally succeeded after three failed tests

I’ve carried a frozen fear of driving since I was 12, when a go-kart in Calicut, Kerala taught me what happens when you don’t stop accelerating. My cousins still joke about the 'pile-up' that I caused. Video games weren’t kinder; I fell off the cliff every single time.

But that’s childhood, and when I finally started the process that would take me over 1.5 years, it was 2024. I'll be honest: It was after four years of coaxing, from every possible person I knew.

And I procrastinated as much as I could between the process of getting an eye test done, and creating a traffic file number. I registered in the school of driving, finally, and attended two sessions of theory preparation.

You can read our story here for what the most common mistakes are, and how experts advise you to fix it.

 My advice for the theory test? Study for it. Don’t take it lightly as I did, the first time. And don’t miss the classes, you might have to take it again before writing the test.

 I made the mistake of not studying till the exam morning, waking up at 4 am and trying to cram a book full of practical advice and road signs. Obviously, I failed by two marks. The passing mark is 35, out of 40.  I registered for the test again, studied several days in advance, channeling my inner nerd, with pen and paper, making notes. I passed.

 And then the next battle.

The classes, and the parking test. I was trying a little too hard ‘to learn everything by heart’ as I had done for my theory test. And I was nervous. That’s never the best combination.  

Even in a controlled environment, roundabouts rattled me. I would decide too late, right at the line—whether to go left, right, straight or make a U-turn. Every instructor warned me about this: you have to think ahead. In real life, reaching the edge of a roundabout and planning in panic is how mistakes happen—and they can be dangerous.

I made the same mistake with parking. I tried to memorise parallel parking and 90-degree parking, watched YouTube videos, and made copious notes. Turn right, and then turn left? What I didn’t want to admit then was simple: real life doesn’t work like that.

Unsurprisingly, I failed my parking test three times. The first time, I crammed right before the test, scanned wildly for the cones, remembered nothing, overshot the space, and nearly knocked them down.

The second and third attempts were marginally better, I relied less on memorisation, but my estimation was still off. I would enter the parking space only to find the car’s rear jutting out, or the nose sticking forward, mistakes that would cause real problems on an actual road and to other people.

The fourth time, six months later, after I had stopped midway and repeated the course, I finally got it right. I wasn’t memorising anymore. I was learning to trust my estimation.

A sigh of relief. And that was still, half the battle.

I hadn’t even been on the road yet.

I found an instructor, and trained for a gruelling month to be on the roads.Two hours after a normal workday, and sometimes three on the weekend. Everything adds up: seat, mirrors, and steering. Can you see the road clearly ahead? How much adjustment does your seat need? This isn’t just for test prep—it’s about knowing your car inside out and being able to see every angle around you.

Yet, anxiety was so frozen in my fingers and feet, that for the first several sessions, I was pressing the wrong indicator in panic. I did hard-brakes and didn’t check the mirror enough.  My instructor would keep pointing out, “Mirror, mirror!” And I would hastily say, “I’ve checked, I’ve checked.”

 And so he gave me this line: “If you know the number of times you’ve checked the mirrors, then you haven’t checked enough.”

It’s something I carry with me even now, because it was always my weakness: not checking enough, forgetting the shoulder checks. You train until it becomes instinct, something you do to protect yourself and everyone else on the road.

Roundabouts were my greatest fear. No amount of reading or preparation truly prepares you for the road, but after nearly freezing in my tracks once, I at least learned which lane to take. I even declared, confidently, that I had 'mastered' roundabouts, only to be reminded that you never master them. You can only prepare well and think on your feet, every single time.

It’s an ongoing process for as long as you drive, you can never truly be the “master” of it. I remember feeling slightly dejected when my instructor once said, “You’re improving. You’re about 65 per cent a driver.”

Seeing my expression, he quickly added, “No one’s ever 100 per cent. Don’t worry.”

On the day of the road test, I practised for another three hours. U-turns were still my weak spot, along with staying neatly within the lanes.

I passed the test, knowing full well that driving would keep testing me for the rest of my life.

The real test is driving for the rest of your life, without an instructor to press the brakes when you forget, remind you to signal correctly, or warn you about the car behind you when you haven’t checked the mirrors.

The learning begins now.