Welcome to my top tips for getting started with driving in the UK!
Licensing
You can drive in the UK for 12 months on a US license. This timeline starts the day you enter the country on a valid visa. (So any driving you did on a previous vacation doesn’t count against your time.)
In order to get a UK driving license, you will first need to get a provisional license. You can apply for that from the DVLA. This is the license that will allow you to take the written test and the driving test you will need to pass. You can hold a provisional license and still drive on your US license during those first 12 months, just make sure your insurance knows which license you are using.
If for some reason, you do not get your full license before your 12 months is up, then only your provisional license will be valid. This will mean following the rules such as driving with the L plates on and having a licensed driver (with their license for 3+ years) in the car with you. I ended up having to do this for about six months.
You will want to study and prepare for the written exam. This is easy enough to do with resources you can find online. I recommend booking and taking the test shortly after getting your provisional license, just to get it out of the way.
The practical exam will be harder, they are notoriously hard to pass here and have high failure rates on purpose. They are also hard to book as often the test are fully booked for 6 months out! We had good luck sitting on the website, refreshing for cancellations, but if you don’t have time for that, there are some apps you get that help you snag cancelled spots. You will want to prepare for this exam as it is nothing like any you might have taken in the US. They look for different things here. Brits often learn to drive by taking paid lessons from professionals but these are VERY expensive and in my experience, they had no idea what to do with someone who already knew how to drive, but just needed to learn a few British things.
I took one paid lesson that was absolutely worthless, other than learning that we had some things to learn. We then learned those things by extensively watching YouTube videos about UK driving exams. I highly recommend watching a bunch of them to learn what you need to know. Don’t feel bad if you don’t pass your test the first time, it’s practically a rite of passage here! (Joel passed the first time, but I passed on my third try.)
Because most Brits take lessons from professionals, most of them will also take their exam using their teacher's car. But you don’t have to do this! You can drive your own car for your exam, and if your US license is still within that 12 month range, you can even drive yourself to your exam (Joel did!). Just be sure you look up what you need to drive your own car for the exam, the DVLA will have a list for you and you can get everything you need at Halfords. Just be aware that if you take your exam in an automatic car, you will only be licensed to drive automatics. Both of us did that and have not found it limiting in the slightest.
If you want some basics on how to drive just to help you get the confidence to get out on the road to start, check out Joel’s post here.
How to buy a car
All that is well and good, but what are you going to drive?
Well, the first big debate is manual vs. automatic. Many people will tell you that you have to learn manual to drive here, but I will tell you that’s just not true! We bought our first car for £300 and it was automatic. Granted this was in 2020, but it is doable. The UK has a goal of all new cars being sold after 2030 being eclectic, and since electrics are automatic, they are only going to become more and more common.
We have been driving fully electric cars since February 2022 and absolutely love it. Once you get a fast charger installed at home (which, if you are a minister, your circuit should install and pay for) it is a breeze. I love never having to stop for gas petrol! Even traveling long distances is very doable in the UK, and we have taken ours over to mainland Europe several times with little to no issue. I highly recommend going electric if you can. (Again for ministers, the Connexion will only pay mileage for travel if you are driving electric, otherwise they expect you to take public transport!)
The key thing I would recommend for new US drivers is to pay attention to size. Especially if you are going to drive on rural roads, you do not want a wide car! We always go for the narrowest car we can, that meets other specifications we need (like a high mileage range.)
When you are first buying a car, you will likely need to go private and/or pay cash as you won’t have any established credit. We found our first car on Gumtree. Doing the paperwork to buy private is fairly simple, again you can research this on the DVLA website. Some things to note - you will need the V5 registered keeper paperwork, sometimes also called the logbook. You also need to make sure you have tax and insurance sorted before you drive away, again all easily done online or even from your phone. (We sat in a random dude’s living room getting all this done the first time!)
The tax does not carry from one own to another, so you need to pay that yourself. See more about insurance here!
Once you own a car, it will need a yearly MOT done on it. This should cost you around £50 at a local garage, and they will know what to check for it. It may cost more if they find repairs that are needed. Some states have similar things so you may be used to something like this, though coming from Iowa it was new to us. When you buy a car the person or dealership you are buying from should be able to tell you when the current MOT expires.
XOXO, Bethany