Reverse Bay Park Cheat Sheet

The reverse bay park manoeuvre come test seems to only happen on DVSA property in Bristol. I can't speak for all test centres nationwide. I suspect it's due to being more time consuming plus having a higher degree of difficulty and risk. Therefore you'd expect this at the very end of the test, although I have seen it occur right at the start too.

This blog post is for non-driving instructors to print out and use to help their friends and families, correctly perform the reverse bay park manoeuvre. 

The set up

The examiner will stop you in the car park and will ask you to reverse the car into a bay of your choice, paying due attention to other road users, finishing between the lines. You can always fix things if you're wonky at the end. Don't worry about cutting the lines a little.

• POM - Observations as always are extremely important. That and control are the only two elements you're being marked on.
• Start the correct distance from the bay. You want to ideally be around 1.5 to 2 metres away. Any closer and you'll struggle to get the car in and parallel with the lines. 
• I use reference points from the drivers line of sight to help get this correct for my students. See the photo for help.
• Once parallel with the tops of the bays and a decent distance way, stop the car along-side them, hopefully out of the way of other drivers for less pressure. 
• POM again before moving and reverse (or go forward) so that the driver, is in the centre of the bay. Think to extend the line of your back against the seat into the bay. 
• Stop at this point and make sure it's safe before proceeding.

Reversing into the bay

• Once it's safe, slow car, quick hands, full lock in the direction of the bay. You ideally want the car onto full lock by the time it's moved the length of a small ruler.
• You'll have time for additional observations as you swing the car around and back into the bay. 
• Be slow. You do not want to go beyond parallel. Little fish eye lens mirrors can be exceptionally helpful at this stage (£3 from Amazon). They will allow the driver to see the lines on the floor and help them with when to straighten the wheel. Ignore all other lines in the car park for help. They aren't all symmetrical to the one you're using.
• When you can mistake the car for being parallel (stopping when 80% of the way in can help some students with timings) with the lines, take the turn off. Stop. Handbrake and neutral, you're done. 

Things to consider

• This take 3 bays! The one you line up along side, we skip one bay and you end up in the 3rd. Plan ahead for this.
• These reference points are for my car, a Fiat 500. Other vehicles may require slightly different points of turn. 
• All drivers sit in different positions, so reference points can vary from one student to the next. Experiment with them. Pick an empty car park, out of the way for a low pressure environment whilst you find what works for you. Once you have those two points, this actually turns into perhaps the easiest manouevre. 
• Stopping more often. Keep the car under control. It also allows for more observations.  The back window needs to be looked out of periodically for danger, even though you'll be more interested in looking for the bay lines.
• The set up is key.  Always start in the same position and you'll always get the same results.