Michigan Driving Skills Test Study Guide 2026: What’s Scored

What’s in the Michigan driving skills test study guide?

The test parts come in this order, and you pass each one before you go on:

Vehicle familiarization and safety inspection, not scored
Basic control skills test, a set of off-road exercises
On-road driving test, over a set route with city, residential and expressway driving

The guide also covers what to bring, interpreters and a supervised driving log. The edition posted online is SOS-360, revised March 2021.

The safety inspection

You and the examiner check the car together. The test can be refused if any of these is defective in a way that puts the people in the car at risk:

Brakes and brake lights, with a center rear brake light on models from 1986 on
Headlights, taillights and front and rear turn signals
Doors that open from inside and outside, and seats and safety belts for everyone
Tires that are inflated and undamaged, with no more than one lug nut missing
Horn, muffler, speedometer, heater and defroster, fuel level and suspension
Rearview mirror and outside left mirror, wipers and washers, and a windshield without a crack that blocks your view

Features that work on their own once the engine runs, like a backup camera, blind-spot lights or a lane-departure alarm, are allowed. Features you switch on, like self-parking, a four-way camera or self-steering, aren’t. A driver education car can’t show “Student Driver” signs during the test.

The Michigan parking test and the other control skills

The basic control skills test has three exercises:

Forward stop: drive forward and stop with your front bumper within 2 feet of the stop line, without touching or crossing it and without leaning out of the window
Sight-side backing: back from a 90-degree angle into a simulated driveway, ending with your rear bumper within 2 feet of the back boundary
Blind-side backing, or parallel parking: drive past a space on the passenger side, then back in and finish fully inside it

Each touch of a boundary counts as an error, and so does each time you pull forward or back to correct your path. The examiner also scores where the car ends up. Stay within the allowed number of errors, and you go on to the road.

On the road: the maneuvers

Each route tries to include:

Left and right turns of varying difficulty
Intersections where you stop, and ones you drive straight through
Expressway or rural highway driving, and urban and residential driving, with lane changes
A curve and a railroad crossing, real or simulated
Turning the fan or radio on and off while you drive
A simulated head-on crash, where you say what you’d do rather than do it

For the head-on exercise, the guide’s answer is to drive off the road to the right, and if you must hit something, to choose a soft object and a glancing blow. The examiner won’t ask you to do anything illegal or unsafe.

How do you pass the Michigan road test?

The guide’s scoring standards include:

Make each traffic check obvious by moving your head
Signal about 100 feet before a turn, roughly 3 to 4 seconds, but not so early that you mislead others
When you stop behind a car, stay back far enough to see its rear tires
Keep both hands on the wheel unless you’re shifting, and don’t palm it
On the expressway, check traffic every 8 to 10 seconds; in town, every 5 to 7
Don’t stop at a green light unless you’re yielding
Keep your front wheels straight while you wait to turn left

Automatic failures

The test ends as a failure if you, among other things:

Create a hazard that another driver or the examiner has to step in to prevent
Run a red light, a flashing red light or a stop sign, or drive around railroad gates
Pass a stopped school bus with its red lights flashing
Turn on red where it isn’t allowed, or turn from the wrong lane
Speed 10 mph or more over the limit, or 4 to 9 mph over after one warning
Refuse to wear a safety belt without a physician’s statement, or offer the examiner a bribe

Any crash may also end in a failure. An examiner can stop a test if you seem dangerously inexperienced, for example by driving more than 10 mph under the limit after a warning, or stalling in a way that blocks traffic.

Read the booking steps →

Sources: Michigan Department of State and 1 more. Checked November 2026.

Rules and fees can change, so check the official site before your test.

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