Automatic Fail: 8 Common Mistakes to Avoid on Your Saskatchewan Road Test

You've completed your driver education, practiced for hours, and feel ready to take your Class 5 Saskatchewan road test. While your goal is to showcase your best driving skills, it's even more important to avoid the critical errors that will result in an immediate fail. An SGI examiner's top priority is road safety. If you make a mistake they deem dangerous, the test will end unsuccessfully, regardless of how well you performed on other parts of the drive.

To help you drive with confidence and focus on what matters, here are eight of the most common mistakes that can instantly fail you on a Saskatchewan road test, and more importantly, how to avoid them.

1. Disobeying a Stop Sign or Red Light

This is the most fundamental and serious error. It shows the examiner you don't know or won't follow basic traffic laws.

The Mistake: Not coming to a complete stop. This includes the "rolling stop" where your wheels never fully cease to move. It also means stopping past the solid white stop line or into the crosswalk, or proceeding through a red light.
How to Avoid It: When you approach a stop sign, your intention must be to stop completely. Bring the vehicle to a smooth, full stop before the line. A good self-check is to feel the car's momentum settle completely before proceeding. Treat yellow lights as a signal to stop safely, not a signal to speed up.

2. Critical Lack of Observation (Shoulder Checks are Key)

Safe driving is all about being aware of what's happening around you. The SGI examiner needs to see you actively looking and processing your environment.

The Mistake: The most common critical error in this category is failing to perform a shoulder check to look into your blind spot before changing lanes, merging, or pulling out from a parked position. Failing to scan left and right at intersections before entering is another major fault.
How to Avoid It: Make your checks obvious. Don't just move your eyes; physically turn your head to check your mirrors and then your blind spot. Create a habit: Signal, Rearview Mirror, Side Mirror, Shoulder Check. Do it every single time you make a lateral move.

3. Failure to Yield the Right-of-Way

This demonstrates an inability to safely share the road with others, which is a core driving competency.

The Mistake: This includes pulling out from a stop sign or driveway in front of another vehicle, forcing them to brake or swerve. It especially includes not yielding to pedestrians who are at or about to enter a crosswalk. At an uncontrolled intersection, failing to yield to the vehicle on your right is also a major error.
How to Avoid It: Patience is key. It is always better to wait for a larger, undeniable gap in traffic than to risk cutting someone off. When approaching crosswalks, actively scan for pedestrians and be prepared to stop.

4. Unsafe Speed (Too Fast or Too Slow)

Maintaining a proper and legal speed shows that you are in control of your vehicle and aware of your surroundings. School zones are particularly important in Saskatchewan.

The Mistake: Exceeding the speed limit at any time is a serious error. Speeding in a designated school zone or construction zone when workers are present is a guaranteed fail. On the other hand, driving excessively slow (e.g., driving 30 km/h in a 50 km/h zone for no reason) is also considered unsafe as it can impede traffic flow.
How to Avoid It: Regularly glance at your speedometer. Be vigilant in looking for speed limit signs, especially for school and playground zones which have specific times of day they are in effect. Aim to drive at the speed limit when conditions are safe and ideal.

5. Striking the Curb During a Maneuver

This error demonstrates poor spatial awareness and a lack of control, especially during the required parking maneuvers.

The Mistake: Hitting the curb with enough force to cause a jolt, or worse, mounting the curb with one or more of your wheels during your parallel park or three-point turn. A very light touch might be a minor error, but a solid bump is a major one.
How to Avoid It: Practice makes perfect. Use an empty parking lot or a quiet street to practice these maneuvers until you are intimately familiar with your vehicle's reference points and turning radius. During the test, perform these actions slowly and deliberately, using your mirrors to guide you.

6. Poor Lane Maintenance

The examiner needs to see that you can keep the vehicle in the correct lane position at all times.

The Mistake: Drifting out of your lane, driving on the lane markings, or making turns that are too wide or too short, causing you to enter the wrong lane. On a left turn at a large intersection, cutting the corner into the wrong lane is a common fail.
How to Avoid It: Look well ahead to where you want the car to go, not just at the road directly in front of you; this naturally helps you steer more smoothly. For turns, remember to look through the turn to your intended path.

7. Following Too Closely

Saskatchewan roads can be long and straight, which can lead to complacency. Tailgating is an aggressive and unsafe action that leaves you with no time to react.

The Mistake: Not leaving enough space between your vehicle and the one in front of you.
How to Avoid It: SGI recommends using the four-second rule. When the vehicle in front of you passes a fixed object (like a signpost), start counting "one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two, one-thousand-three, one-thousand-four." If you pass the same object before you finish counting, you are too close.

8. Examiner Intervention

This is the ultimate automatic failure. If the examiner has to do anything to prevent a dangerous situation from occurring, the test is over immediately.

The Mistake: The examiner has to grab the steering wheel to prevent you from hitting something, or gives a loud, urgent verbal command like "STOP!" to prevent a collision.
How to Avoid It: This is usually the result of one of the other errors on this list, like a critical lack of observation. By being observant, patient, and in control of your vehicle, you will prevent any situation from escalating to the point where an examiner needs to intervene.

By keeping these critical errors in mind and practicing to avoid them, you can approach your SGI road test with the confidence of a safe and competent driver. Good luck!