How to do a 3 point turn step by step I'm Omid, a driving instructor in Brisbane. So sometimes you're on a wide road you're facing that way and you want to change your direction face
this way. And because the road is wide you can simply
do a U-turn just like this and change your direction go back to the other side of the road. But sometimes either your car is too big or the road is very narrow and you cannot
do a U-turn so that's when we do 3 point turn. So in this case we go to the other side of
the road and then reverse back to this side of the
road. And then moving forward and changing direction going back to the other side of the road. Okay. So the way that it works in the test your driving and the examiner asks you to
pull over here. So checking the mirror, rearview mirror, left
mirror, indicator left, shoulder check to the left,
and pulling over. Nice and parallel, and close to the curb. Then they will ask you, 'okay, can we do a
3 point turn here' or 'can we turn the car around' or 'can we do a turnaround.' All of these are the same manoeuvre, they have just different names. And sometimes the examiners, they might give some more explanations. 'I want you to do a 3 point turn here, turn the car around within the confines of
the road avoiding the driveways.' So to start we look around the car on the left side and then there's nothing
there. All around the car and now change the gear
to 'D', hand brake down, if you have handbrake. If your car has a handbrake or footbrake. Checking the rearview mirror and checking the right mirror putting the right indicator on, shoulder check to the right. The road is clear. Now we start moving the
car and turning the wheel to the right. Nice and slow. Moving to this side of the road before hitting the curb, we stop. Change gear to reverse first then scan the road left and right. No car is coming. Looking back, turning the wheel to the left and going back at the same time. Keep turning the wheel to the left, look back until halfway. Once you passed halfway, we look at the right mirror because in the right here, we can see the
curb. So we make sure we don't hit the curb. Then change the gear to 'D', checking on the left side, no car is coming. Moving the car first and then turning the
wheel to the right and finishing the manoeuvre. That's how we do a 3 point turn. And then keep driving. Okay. So now some of the common mistakes that people make when doing a 3 point turn. First, not knowing what 3 point turn is. So the examiner asks them to do a 3 point
turn or turn around and they just say 'what?' Just make sure that you know what the 3 point
turn is. Second, not checking the mirrors, not indicating, not doing shoulder check. So the examiner says, 'let's do a 3 point
turn', they just without indicating or anything, start turning. Without shoulder check or anything. Third mistake is accelerating when doing the
manoeuvre. So this is the manoeuvre for narrow roads. The space is very limited. So we don't want to press the accelerator, otherwise, we lose the space and we cannot make it. First, for this manoeuvre, we shouldn't push
the accelerator. We just release the brake. If the car moves, great. If it doesn't move, just a tiny bit of accelerator to just get the car rolling. So if you push the accelerator, that's what
happens. You might hit the curb and you might not be able to turn the car
on time. And we might lose the space. (you have entered a school zone) So not pushing the accelerator. Fourth mistake, hitting the curb. Going too fast or going too close to the sides of the road and hitting the curb either on the front or at the back. And five, confusion with indicator. With this manoeuvre, we only need one indicator at the start. When we go back, there is no need for indicator. And when we finish the manoeuvre there is no need for indicator either. So some people, they do this. They start the manoeuvre indicating right, okay, moving to this side. And then here they get confused. Okay, indicating left. There is no need to do that. No need for left indicator. And then again once they come here, here again, they put the right indicator. There is no need to put the right indicator
here. Only one right indicator at the start and that's all we need. The indicator is going to stop we just - we just let it stop. We don't need to put the indicator. We don't need to change it. We don't need to manually stop it. Six, dry steering. What's dry steering? Dry steering is or in some other states, they call it static
steering. The same thing. Dry steering, static steering. So dry steering is when the vehicle is stationary, when the car is stationary, and we start turning the wheel. That's called dry steering. So now the car is not moving if I start turning the wheel, that's dry steering. This is a minor mark in the driving test and we should avoid it. How can we avoid it? Very simple. We don't turn the wheel while the car is stationary. We move the car first. We make sure the car moves first then we turn the steering wheel. Dry steering usually happens on the sides
of the road. Here is where a lot of people, they do dry
steering again. So we make sure the car moves first then we turn the wheel. We don't turn the wheel while the car is stationary. (you have entered a school zone) And number seven, palming. Turning the steering with the palm of the
hand. So any time we turn the steering with the
palm of the hand, we lose one minor mark in the driving test. So we don't want to turn the wheel with the
palm of the hand. It usually happens when people go to that side or this side of the
road. So it is a little bit busy today. When we do this manoeuvre, we need to make sure that the road is completely
clear. There's no cars coming from anywhere. So a lot of people, they do palming at this point. So they do this and with one hand, again, you lose a mark for this manoeuvre. Eight, putting the arm behind the passenger
seat when doing the reverse on the second part of the manoeuvre. So I'll show you. They do this. Some students, they start coming here and when they want to go back, they go this. So two minor mistakes here. One for putting the hand at the back of the
car - back seat. And the other one is for palming. When you do this, you naturally turn your
wheel with one hand and that's a mistake. The rule of thumb is this, anytime this steering wheel is turning, we should have both hands on the steering
wheel. Number nine is scanning the road first and then changing the gear. So what do I mean by that? When we do this manoeuvre, when we go to - we make sure first at the
start there's no cars coming obviously. And then we start the manoeuvre moving to
that side. Before moving back, we need to first change
gear on that side and then scan the road. And if there is any cars coming from behind
us we need to wait and give way to them. So that's like this, mirror indicator, shoulder
check, start driving, moving to this side, turn to the right. Before hitting the curb, stop. Here, some people they scan the road first and the gear is still in 'D'. If you scan the road first and there's a car
coming from that side and we need to wait and give way
to them. We wait and give way to them, and when they are gone, we forget. We might forget that the gear is not in reverse. And we push the accelerator and what happens, moving forward and hitting the gear - hitting
the curb. So we first change the gear, then scan, and
then the rest of the story. (you have entered a school zone) Ordinary thing again, this might happen at
this side as well. They scan and the gear is not changed yet. So if there's cars coming from that side, we need to give way to them and if you're - you haven't changed gear yet you might forget. And then when you want to move forward you go backward and you hit the curb and you might fail the test if you mount the
curb. Number 10 mistake is not giving way to the
other cars. Who do we have to give way to when we do this manoeuvre? If we do this manoeuvre and then we go to that side of the road, we need to give way to the cars coming from
behind us. And if we come to this side of the road we
need to we give way to the cars coming from the left
side of us. So now, when I start doing this 3 point turn when I go to that side before hitting the curb, stopping, changing the gear. Now, if there's any cars coming from the right-hand side, I need to give way
to them, and then go backward. Not giving way, that's a critical driving
error. And then going backward. Once we come to this side of the road, (you have entered a school zone) Now, if there's any car coming from that side, I need to give way to them. There's no cars coming. Finishing the manoeuvre. At the same time, if we are not supposed to give way to anyone. If the car is on the same side as us and we don't have to give way to them, we don't want to give way to them. We don't want to stay and wait for them, let them go. Sometimes you go to that side of the road and when you want to go back, a car is coming from same side of the road. In that case, there's no give way. You only give way to the car that is on the opposite side of the road. Sometimes if the car on the opposite side
of the road that you stopped there to give way to them and they don't go or they just tell you to
go, don't go. Just wait and let them go and then you finish the manoeuvre. Because if you go even if they tell you to
go, the examiners, they might fail you for that. For bad judgment, for not knowing the rules. We need to show the examiner that we know the rules. so we just wait even if they tell us to go, the other driver they tell us to go. we don't go. We still wait and let them go and then finish the manoeuvre. If it's going to be some time waiting there and you wait and they wait, and you tell them, they tell you to go, you don't go. The examiners, they see these kind of things and they might say, 'okay, let's go'. But show the examiner that you know the rules. Number 11 that's a big one, that's a straightaway fail, and that's when we go back. So we go to that side of the road, reverse back to this side. Sometimes, some people they don't look back. They look forward. The rule of thumb is that when we do this
manoeuvre, any time in driving, that's the simple statement. Remember this statement, we must look in the same direction that the
car is moving. If you go forward, obviously, you're
not driving like this. You look ahead. And if you're going backward, you shouldn't look to the front, no looking at the reversing camera, looking at the mirror. You need to literally look back, turn our
body and literally look back with our eyes halfway
through the road, until halfway. After halfway, we can look at the right mirror
to see the curb. So some people, they do this. This is a straightaway fail in the test while
doing this manoeuvre. So mirror, indicator, shoulder check, yep. Start driving, moving to this side. Here, some people what they do is this, they just go back. That's it. Not looking back while doing this manoeuvre,
straightaway fail. So just make sure you literally look back. Number 12, hitting the curb on either side
of the road. When going to that side, getting too close and hitting the curb on
that side. Or when we reverse back, hitting the curb
on this side. Hitting the curb is minor error but mounting the curb is a straightaway fail. So you don't want to get too close to the
curb when we do this. Obviously if the road is wide enough to allow you to do this manoeuvre nicely you don't have to get too close to take curb,
right? And number 14 mistake that happens with a lot of international students especially, the ones who drive on the opposite side of the road compared to Australia. those students, they usually make this mistake especially at the early stages of their learning
process. When they do this manoeuvre after they finish it, they - for one second they go back to their own country and they end up on the wrong side of the road. And that's a straightaway fail. So making sure when we do when we finish this manoeuvre, we need to end up on the left side of the
road. So the examiners are not going to take you to very narrow roads for this manoeuvre but if the road is narrow or your car is too big and you have a hard time to do this manoeuvre with only a 3 point turn you can make it a 5 point turn. So going to that side of the road reverse back to this side and because the road is narrow you cannot make it, you can just go forward
again and come backward and then finish the manoeuvre. You're not going to fail your test if you make it a 5 point turn. There are a few locations that we don't want to do this manoeuvre Very close to T-intersections. So like here we are very close to the T-intersection If some cars suddenly turn from that side
road to the main road, they cannot see us properly. And that's a dangerous situation to do a 3
point turn at. Down or up the hill. so like here, we are doing this manoeuvre
downhill, this is not a perfect spot to do a 3 point
turn because some drivers, they drive fast down the hill and they cannot see us properly. So that's a dangerous spot as well. Very close to intersections. so like this situation here, there's an intersection up there if you do this manoeuvre, again other cars might not see us properly Also in front of people's driveways. So we are right in front of someone's
driveway if they come out, sometimes the people they don't look properly and they might hit
us. When the road is very narrow and there are some cars parked and when you do this
manoeuvre you kind of hide between the other cars. And if some drivers approach this situation they cannot see you properly. You want to make sure that you do this manoeuvre in a situation where other cars can nicely see you. Also around the sharp bends like here is not the perfect location to do a 3 point
turn for the exact same reason. The other drivers cannot see you. they get a sudden surprise when they turn. Driving in Australia is easy if you know the
rules.
