[supermax]

I’d posted earlier on this forum, about how I’d earned my Swedish driver’s license at age 38. https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/inter...ence-38-a.html (Getting a Swedish driver's licence at 38!)

On Friday, the 25th of April, 2025, S, my wife, cleared her own driving test with a manual car. Like me, she too ended up clearing both her theory test, and driving test on her first attempts, making it a clean sweep in our household, thus far!

Theory Test

S had a very different style of preparing, both for theory and the practical tests, in comparison with me. I had completely read the theory test book, end to end, before even starting with theory questions and tests, but S preferred to read one chapter at a time and answer questions pertaining to that section, before proceeding to the next section. Unlike many of her friends, she studied the official driving license theory textbook in Swedish, as she’s quite confident in Swedish. The rationale behind studying in Swedish was two-fold; learning the jargon in Swedish would help her to communicate better with her teachers at the driving school, as not all of them are comfortable with English, and there’s also no chance of ambiguity creeping in due to concepts that are harder to translate perfectly to English. Several questions on the theory test are also much more obvious in native Swedish, but become more confusing when translated to English. Our friends who needed to learn in English were forced to opt only for teachers who were comfortable with English, and that often limited their options quite a lot. They often faced difficulty in finding available dates for practicing with those particular teachers, as they were far fewer in number, and also were in much greater demand than other good teachers, due to students who couldn’t follow Swedish contending actively for their time-slots.

The actual theory test has 70 questions which need to be answered within 55 minutes. There are even video-clips that need to be viewed before answering, so one needs to be really quick while answering. Five of the questions are removed at random, after the test, so the actual grading will be done for a maximum possible 65 marks. She bought access to an app called Trafiko, so she could practice solving full-length tests while keeping an eye on the time taken, and this helped her quite a bit.

She took the test on April 17 2025, and passed on her first attempt, scoring 55 on 65. As soon as one hits submit, the screen refreshes and provides a ‘pass/fail’ result, and within minutes, an email with the actual score and the section-wise points breakup is sent to the candidate, allowing for some introspection. She had lost a few marks in the critical traffic safety and traffic rules sections, so I asked her to reread the book, specifically for those sections, so she didn't have any gaps during her driving test.

Driving practice

In order to be a private tutor for a candidate, one needs to have held a Swedish driver’s license for at least five years, without any interruption (an interruption is having the driving license seized due to any kind of traffic rule infringement, such as overspeeding, running a light etc). Since I have not held my own driving license for long enough, it was not possible for me to be my wife's private tutor, but I helped a bit by taking her with me, to a few places where she was uncertain or had questions, or just wanted to get another look, from the passenger’s side.

She started driving in September of 2024, with her first lesson on Sep 11, 2024. The goal was to drive at least once a week, at the driving school, but twice a week was quite common for her. She was a bit nervous about starting in September, as it would soon be winter conditions, but I told her that she wouldn’t be starting in winter, and that she’d have plenty of time to adjust to the changing conditions, and that it would be best if she drove right through winter, and aimed to clear her test in Spring/Summer of 2025.

She drove a total of 54 lessons at her driving school and drove on an average at least once a week with her private tutors. Here’s a month-wise breakup of the lessons she took at her driving school.

Sep 2024: 5 lessons
Oct 2024: 8 lessons
Nov 2024: 7 lessons
Dec 2024: 6 lessons
Jan 2025: 6 lessons
Feb 2025: 6 lessons
Mar 2025: 10 lessons
Apr 2025: 6 lessons

Private tutors

The role of private tutors on the road to a driver’s license is quite critical, for more than one reason. For one thing, the human brain needs to experience an activity more than just once, in order to get proficient, and the repetition is best done without the worry/anxiety of hard time limits that apply during a lesson at the driving school. For each new moment that’s introduced at the school, one can save a lot of time and money and ensure faster progress with the lessons at the school, if it’s possible to practice the new moment multiple times with private tutors. Given that there are now harder restrictions on private tutors (a person can only have a maximum of five students across a rolling five year period, irrespective of whether they pass the driving test or not), it’s harder to find private tutors to practice with. My advice to every beginner is to approach anybody they might know, who can potentially be a private tutor, be it a colleague, a neighbor, or a friend. We had our own car to practice with, so we asked our friends. S managed to get four people to register to be her private tutors, but their availability was a bit hard to find. One of them however was very active, and this meant that she was guaranteed at least one lesson with a private tutor per week. This was quite important, as with her private tutors, she could drive for as long as she didn’t feel too tired herself. Sometimes she practiced a particular moment, such as reversing around the corner, or parking, but other times, she practiced a bit of everything.


Before the driving test

When I was ready for my driving test, I wanted to start with a completely clean slate, so I stopped driving for two days before my test. I took my bicycle to Trafikverket (the RTO-like authority here), and got in and just drove. S on the other hand felt that it would be good to get a warm up lesson, and booked in her final lesson as a warm-up before the actual test. Unlike me who’d booked the driving test and the test car directly from Trafikverket, she’d booked her driving test through her driving school, so she got to drive the same car in the test that she’d driven most of her lessons with, at the school.


The driving test

After a brief wait, the examiner turned up and explained to her the procedure. For the safety check, she was asked to check the tires. S checked all the tires, for visible signs of damage such as cracks and cuts, visually inspected to ensure that they were not flat, and also checked one tire by inspecting the wear-indicator, to ensure that the tire had enough tread-depth. The examiner was satisfied, and they proceeded to get into the car. S explained that she’d already adjusted the seat, mirrors, etc in the car, as she’d driven it to the test center, so she didn’t need to adjust anything again. They drove away, and it was a fairly comprehensive test. They drove for a bit on the motorway, before heading into a residential area where she was asked to park the car, in any manner of her choosing. S chose to do a reverse-into-bay parking, and parked it correctly without any drama or mistakes. The examiner got down, checked, complimented her on a well-executed parking, and continued the drive. After driving through more 80 roads, they got to another residential zone close to Trafikverket where she was asked to drive around for almost ten minutes, criss-crossing through the narrow roads, paying careful attention to parked vehicles, potential yields and so on. They returned to Trafikverket, where the examiner smiled and gave her the glad news. She’d passed her driving test, on her first attempt!


S has just returned to the driving school lot, after her successful driving test.


S beams beside her driving instructor.

Epilog

Manual transmission is on the wane in Sweden. 46% of all newly qualified drivers did it with automatic transmission, in the Stockholm region, last year. Three years ago, the percentage of new drivers across the whole country who passed with automatic transmission was 25%, but now, it’s risen to 39%, and will continue to rise, as electric vehicles get even more popular. That said, manuals are not going to disappear anytime soon, and the ability to drive a manual gives a lot of flexibility. Manuals are significantly cheaper to buy, but also significantly cheaper to hire, particularly while renting abroad. The RV I rented for my Norway trip was a manual, and a comparable automatic would have cost almost twice as much to rent. Many immigrants, even those with prior experience with driving manuals, are spooked by the idea of how tough it is to clear the driving test here, and assume that it would be much simpler to pass with an automatic. I’ve interacted with dozens of aspirant drivers, many who have failed the driving test repeatedly, and to this day, I’ve not come across a single person who failed the test due to improper gear changes. Whether driving manual or automatic, the most common reasons for failures include not yielding correctly to crossing pedestrians, not yielding to other vehicles, incorrect car placement, unsafe lane changes etc, none of which have anything to do with the transmission type. Now that my wife has qualified with a manual car, we both can now drive any kind of car, and that’s a great thing. I now look forward to planning longer road-trips where both of us can enjoy driving and neither needs to do all of the driving.

[sumathindra]

Phew whish we have something like this here in our very own country! I bet, majority of the population will simply fail the tests for sure! I am also certain that this kind of system cannot be implemented here for sure. The advancement of a civilization can be judged by such simple and small though very important areas in making people responsible and accountable. Still optimistic we may get there some day!

[Aromal]

Congratulations on the driving license for your wife, a notable achievement considering she took the tests in Swedish. It took me 2 years of preparation and processes to get the driving license in Sweden. I started the process when I was a student, and by the time I finished my studies and started my job, I had my license.

I know many who have failed the driving test repeatedly just because they missed a blind spot check, or didn't check enough of the rear view mirrors or drove in higher RPM for some time or braked a bit late or drove 5 kmph over the speed limit for a while! Speaking of high expectations!!

[supermax]

Originally Posted by sumathindra

The advancement of a civilization can be judged by such simple and small though very important areas in making people responsible and accountable. Still optimistic we may get there some day!

Definitely true. Many countries hand out driver's licenses like candy during a kid's birthday party. Indeed, in countries like the US, a driver's license isn't seen as a privilege, but more as a right, a basic need. If you have a heartbeat, you are almost sure to get a DL. Here, the state makes it very clear that they don't want you on the roads, if you are not willing to show that you are good enough to merit the privilege. Many Indians (as well as people from other nationalities, but most of the ones I've met are Indians) who fail the driving test get bitter about it and think that it's all a ruse to extract more money from students, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. The state would be perfectly happy if you decided to never drive. If you decide that you want to drive, they'll make sure you are good for it. The more times one fails (and thereby takes more tests) the more money it costs the state, to pay for the examiners, the upkeep/maintenance of the cars etc. For this reason, they've implemented measures to ensure that people don't keep taking up driving tests before they have addressed previously reported flaws.

Originally Posted by Aromal

Congratulations on the driving license for your wife, a notable achievement considering she took the tests in Swedish. It took me 2 years of preparation and processes to get the driving license in Sweden. I started the process when I was a student, and by the time I finished my studies and started my job, I had my license.

Thank you! Yes, their expectations are very exacting. While they don't need a driver to be perfect, they require them to be demonstrably safe. Between me and my wife, our DLs have cost us a whopping 100k SEK (~9L INR), but we both cleared our tests on the first attempt. Since we had limited availability of private tutors, we both had to take a lot of lessons at the school, which increased our cost outlay quite a bit.

[swe.desi]

Congratulations! That's certainly an achievement to clear both tests on the first attempt!

[Jeroen]

Congratulations to the both of you. Not that many people pass their practical and or theoretical test in one go in Sweden.



I believe that is similar to the Netherlands, less than half pass first time.

Here are some more interesting facts about driver licenses and DL around the world

https://www.gulfoilltd.com/news/driv...s-around-world

Jeroen

[Thad E Ginathom]

Congratulations to your wife! (and please send her to Chennai to give me lessons in reversing around a corner: somehow I never do it neatly. Luckily I managed it on my British driving test!).

What was the duration of the practical test? It sounds like quite long. I imagine there must have been a substantial investment in the lessons: all the more reason to celebrate a first time pass. When I failed first time in UK, I had to leave it some years before starting again.

[praful]

Originally Posted by Jeroen

I believe that is similar to the Netherlands, less than half pass first time.

Here are some more interesting facts about driver licenses and DL around the world

https://www.gulfoilltd.com/news/driv...s-around-world

Jeroen

Similar passing percentage here in France as well.



Only around 55.9% average passing rate for the car license, a slightly higher percentage for the A2 motorcycle license at around 86.3%, but that's also explained by the lesser number of people going for the two wheels license and also the motivation factor for.